FAQs
You asked, we answered. Without further ado, the scoop on all things Young House Love:
How did you find your home? Here’s the whirlwind that we called house hunting. And here’s a post full of house-hunting tips for first time buyers.
Are you guys interior designers or home improvement experts? Nope, we’re just regular people who love to learn as we go and share our adventures – and misadventures – right here on our blog. Four years ago we didn’t know the difference between flat paint and semi-gloss, so we’ve come a long way, baby!
What paint color is in your kitchen/bedroom/den etc? Click here for a fun little room by room breakdown.
Where did you get your sofa/brown and white guest bedroom quilt/yellow rug? Click here for a complete room by room source list for every item in our house.
What are your favorite places to shop for rugs/pillows/lamps/sofas/dining tables, etc? Here’s a very thorough post with all of our favorite shopping sources listed by category.
What are you favorite cleaning products/appliances/magazine subscriptions/decor books/shows/cookware/make-up/eco-bags, etc? Check out our Amazon shop for all of our favorite things (and a slew of furnishings that we have in our very own house, so you can get the look quick).
What if I have a question about painting furniture, refinishing something, or painting my cabinets? Here’s a post all about how to paint almost any piece of furniture, here’s one about refinishing something, and here’s one about how to give your cabinets a new look with a coat of paint. Be sure to read the comments for even more info!
Do you have a floor plan of your house anywhere? I’d love to see the layout. Here’s a handy little floor plan for you. You can also watch our video house tour by the Nest or this old homemade house tour to get a better idea of the layout. And when it comes to our property, here’s the exterior breakdown.
How big is each room? Sunroom: 18′ x 13′, Half Bathroom: 3.5′ x 5.5′, Laundry Nook: 6′ x 7′, Den: 19′ x 10′, Kitchen: 13′ x 10′, Living/Dining Room: 22′ x 12′, Nursery: 8′ x 10′, Full Bathroom: 7′ x 6′, Guest Bedroom: 10′ x 10.5′, Master Bedroom: 12.5′ x 11.5′.
What kind of camera do you guys use to shoot your images? Nearly every recent photo on the blog was taken with our new Nikon D3000 DSLR, which we talk more about right here. We also occasionally use a simple (and cheap) point and shoot camera: the Canon PowerShot SD1100-IS Digital Elph. Here’s a post with more picture taking tips and info about that.
How did you create the wall of curtained built-ins in the bedroom? We used two inexpensive doorless wardrobes from Ikea on either side of the bed for tons of added storage space and added drapery panels to hide all the clothes and shoes. To finish things off, we hung a wooden header to make the wardrobes look even more built-in. Click here for more details.
Where did you get the green headboard in the guest bedroom? Did you make it? Yup, in about ten minutes with a $12 staple gun. Check out our simple and speedy headboard tutorial.
How do you make your mood boards? We make them in Adobe Photoshop (after bringing a bunch of our favorite items into Photoshop, we size ‘em, cut them out, and add some numbers to create a handy dandy guide that correlates to our explanations). If you don’t have access to Photoshop, we’ve heard great things about Polyvore and MyDeco so you might want to check those out.
What goes into the process of creating a mood board? Do you start with a specific item (like the biggest or most expensive)? We usually start with one piece that really inspires us- but it could be anything. For example if we’re going for a “sleek and modern dining room” we may start with the table (a fab glass one from CB2?). Or we could start with a light fixture (a modern pendant from West Elm?) or even with the curtains or a rug (which may spark our entire color scheme). In a nut shell: there’s no method to our madness and a lot of what we choose at the start of a project gets bumped by something better that we find later. It’s an unpredictable process, but it’s always fun.
Why did you guys start this blog? It was actually John’s idea to start a little blog to track the progress of our kitchen remodel. We quickly realized that we enjoyed sharing all of our adventures- and misadventures- in home improvement and so a hobby (and eventually a bona fide profession) was born. Read more of our story (and see some fun press) here.
Do you have any advice for growing my blog? How did yours go from being a hobby to a full time job? In a nutshell we’d say that it was a combination of hard work and a series of lucky breaks. Here’s the whole story.
Where did you guys meet? We met in NYC when we both worked at the same ad agency on baby products and tampons. What can we say, babies and feminine hygiene brought us together. We secretly dated until we moved to Virginia and got engaged. To this day our old coworkers still talk about how we “blew their minds” by revealing our relationship, and we laugh about all the times we almost got busted strolling through Central Park hand-in-hand.
Don’t you guys also write for a national magazine now? It’s true! We’re incredibly grateful to have been recruited to write a regular column in Better Homes & Garden’s Do It Yourself Magazine. We’re beyond honored and pinch ourselves quite regularly. We were also featured on the cover of The Nest magazine’s spring issue- here’s that story (more details here).
And weren’t you guys on HGTV’s Rate My Space? Ah yes, that’s also true. We made a fleeting appearance as one of the “inspiration rooms” that designer Angelo Surmelis used to makeover a master bedroom. You can check out a clip of the show here and read more about our behind the scenes experience here.
Didn’t I see you guys in a house tour video on thenest.com? Guilty as charged. You can watch the entire tour here (we personally think that Burger stole the show).
Wait, were you guys on CNN? Yup. That was quite the surprise! Here’s the story and the clip.
Do you really crash weddings? Here’s the real scoop: some of the weddings we “crash” are actually friends or family, so we don’t randomly hop on a plane to Hawaii. After we shared some details about our own backyard wedding our readers started requesting ideas for fall weddings, destination ones, thrifty ones, and more… so we started sharing all the weddings that we attend for inspiration. And while we’re usually invited to ‘em, we do occasionally find ourselves in the right place at the right time to do some bona fide crashing.
