Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

Archives for November 2010

| By | | 130 Comments

Fixing A Leaky Underground Oil Tank

Surprise! This was the scene at our house yesterday: Allow me to explain. We decided to test the soil around our home’s underground oil tank (we have oil heat) a few weeks back to assure any interested buyer that it’s in tip top shape. Much to our horror, it wasn’t. Soil tests came back indicating that we had a small leak. We felt like somebody punched us in the face. Here we are with our rain barrel and our compost bin along with all of our energy star appliances and our cloth diapers in an effort to be green while our oil tank has been oozing nastiness underground without our knowledge. Shudder. Luckily we learned

[ Read More ]

| By | | 114 Comments

How To Use A Paint Pen On Drinking Glasses

You could call these tumblers titillating. That’s right. I said titillating. Who doesn’t love a good set of small glass cups that can be anything from charming votive candle holders to drinking glasses or even holiday candy serving dishes grouped en masse on a coffee table? I’ve always wanted to try my hand at glass paint (the kind that you apply with a pen and bake on in the oven) so I figured using it to create a cute little DIY holiday gift would be just the thing. Or it could be another epic fail- you never know when you start these things… For this project I originally planned to go to a thrift store

[ Read More ]

| By | | 5,785 Comments

Fab Freebie: Merry Maxx-mas

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – scroll down to see who won!*** You know we love a deal. Especially around the holidays when it’s so easy to bleed money. Which is why we’re psyched to have two of our favorite discount stores, T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, here to help us kick off the whole holiday shopping scene by handing over two $50 gift cards that can be spent on gifts, festive seasonal decor, or whatever else tickles your fancy. We’ve always loved snagging cheap finds for our house at both stores – like the nailhead trimmed ottoman in our bedroom (from T.J. Maxx) and just about every pillow in our den (from Marshalls).

[ Read More ]

| By | | 199 Comments

Making Wacky Meals To Use Up What’s In The Fridge

We’re buckling down and making ourselves eat as much of the remaining food in our fridge as possible. We haven’t gone grocery shopping for at least three weeks (except for the occasional under $30 run for milk, cereal, and some fresh fruits & veggies) and we don’t plan to go at all for the next two weeks (since there’s still plenty to nosh on before we move). We’re concentrating mostly on eating things in the freezer and the fridge since there will be at least five hours between handing over the keys to our current house and getting the keys to our new one (we were luckily able to coordinate both closings on the same

[ Read More ]

| By | | 44 Comments

Thank You

We have about a million things to be thankful for, and you guys are at the top of our list. Thanks for caring to drop in and see what’s going on at our house. Much Turkey Day love coming atcha. Especially from Burger. He always looks so dapper in a photoshopped pilgrim hat. Now go stuff your face and stop messing around on the computer. The challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to be unable to button your pants by the day’s end. We’re already hard at work on that over here… Psst- We just announced this week’s lucky giveaway winner. Click here to see if it’s you (and to snag a sweet discount even

[ Read More ]

| By | | 163 Comments

Making A List Of All The Things We’ll Miss From Our First Home

In the words of Rose from Titanic…..I’ll never let go. We’re both going to miss so many things about our first casa that we just had to dedicate a post to those little details that bring a smile to our faces. We don’t want to forget a thing. 1. The gorgeous cherry tree in the front yard. 2. The new kitchen (which was totally worth 113 days of eating-out-and-living-without-a-sink chaos). 3. Our view of the amazingly lush and private backyard (which was actually one of the main reasons we bought our house back in 2006) 4. The sweet front porch where we’d sit and watch the world neighbors go by. 5. The layers of paint

[ Read More ]

| By | | 266 Comments

Our Green, Pink, And Silver Christmas Tree

Yes, we’re those people. I personally get irritated whenever stores skip holidays. For example, if I’m walking around Target and they have Christmas stuff out but it’s not even Thanksgiving. Not ready yet. Let me get through Turkey Day before you push your red & white santas and snowmen on me. But this year we did the unthinkable… … we set up our Christmas tree before Thanksgiving. I’m so sorry. Feel free to virtually slap us or break out an “oh no you di’int.” We’ve already warned our Thanksgiving guests, and thankfully they acted like it was some fun novelty. So we’ll be able to tell you firsthand if turkey and mashed potatoes taste less

[ Read More ]

| By | | 82 Comments

Our Thanksgiving Table Setting

At our house, we serve dinner buffet style (setting out all the food in the kitchen so people can pile their plates high) which means I get to have some fun with the table since it doesn’t have to accommodate a million platters and serving bowls. And I figure that even though Thanksgiving is typically a holiday full of orange, red, yellow, gold, and wheat tones when it comes to table decor, who says that’s the only way to do things? Methinks there’s more than one way to skin a cat cook a bird, so I had some fun with a rich green and blue palette thanks to some free wine bottles I’ve been working

[ Read More ]

| By | | 2,804 Comments

Fab Freebie: Paint Me A Picture

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – scroll down to see who won!*** The winner of this week’s giveaway can literally make that request. Because Swedish-born Virginia-based artist Erica Eriksdotter is giving away a commissioned painting worth up to $350. That’s right everyone, put on your fancy pants because soon you could be telling your friends smugly “oh yeah, that beautiful painting over there? I commissioned it.” We really like the color in all of Erica’s work, and we love that our winner will be able to guide the color and design of their custom work to fit their home perfectly. You can even pick the best size for your space (from a 12

[ Read More ]

| By | | 267 Comments

The Color Scheme For Our New House

We’re thinking of moving away from the soft, subtle, and beachy whole-house color scheme that we have going on here and towards something more moody, risky, and sophisticated at the new house. Here’s hoping it works for us (you never know… and we’re the first to admit that sometimes we end up repainting). We’re definitely no strangers to covering our mistakes with another coat or two of something new if we don’t like how things look when we step back and check things out (after sharing the “outtake” pics with you guys of course). So it might take us a few tries to settle on a scheme we love, but right now we’re considering something

[ Read More ]

| By | | 209 Comments

Trying To Figure Out How To Reupholster A Rocking Chair

We got this rocking chair for $25 thanks to craigslist, because we loved the simple shape and the low back and the rich chunky wood. Plus I’ve been dying to add a rocker to the new house’s living area (since I feed Clara all the time while hanging out in the public part of the house, as opposed to retreating to the nursery or the bedroom). Plus she loves rocking at John’s mom’s house, so we thought it would contribute to good quality time with the bean. But this rocker is obviously lacking a bit in the seat and back cushion area. No worries, we just figured we’ll reupholster it. Until we realized that we

[ Read More ]