Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

Archives for January 2011

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A Video Tour Of Our New House

So it’s been exactly a month since move-in day and it’s shameful to think that we haven’t shared a video tour of the place yet. We officially accept a virtual slap on the wrist. Or a noogie if you’re old school. But no indian burns. Gotta draw the line somewhere. Anyway, after unpacking, list making, nursery painting, door frosting, bi-fold removing, duvet ordering, bed-assembling, washer & dryer hunting, shelf removing, Christmas tree decorating, playing with ceramic animals built-in bookcase arranging, built-in bookcase painting, dealing with a plethora of mirrors (some in very odd places), bedroom painting, Christmas tree dismantling, and waiting for our new washer & dryer to arrive (update: they’re here! more details later!)

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What Could Have Been…

When we’re painting we talk about all sorts of weird things that we probably wouldn’t otherwise get around to. And while painting the bedroom we got to the topic of “names that our parents almost gave us.” Get this. My mom wanted to name me Gina. We would have been John & Gina. That made us titter. Not sure if it’s a had to be there thing though. Either way, John’s dad’s choice of names takes the cake. He wanted to name John… wait for it… Lars. Lars Petersik. How funny is that? If I had seen tall dirty blond John at work and asked a coworker “oh who’s that?” and heard them respond with

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Removing A Medicine Cabinet And Hanging A Bathroom Mirror

Our recent flurry of mirror-related projects means my repertoire of pun-riddled mirror references is growing thin. Our latest victim was the guest bathroom. We figured after swapping out the medicine cabinet in our master bath, that we might as well do the same in the guest bath. Especially since our guests won’t exactly need a medicine cabinet. At least we hope not. It was still functional, but had definitely seen better days (the interior metal cabinet was starting to rust- we think it was original to the house, which makes it almost 50 years old) and we figured we could do better than the plain silver frame. So two screws later it was off the

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Painting The Bedroom Light Teal: Carolina Inn Club Aqua

That’s the name of the new bedroom color. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but it does look pretty good rolled on the walls. We finally made a decision to go with the middle band on the Valspar swatch at the top of this photo (though we got it color matched to Olympic’s No-VOC paint in a satin finish). We liked that it was green and a bit more saturated than a color we’d choose for our last house. Here’s one last look at the room paint-less (and mostly furniture-less). Oh yeah and look at poor semi-disassembled Ed the Bed. We had to remove one slat on the top so that he could slide

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Fab Freebie: Cut It Out

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – scroll down to see who won!*** It’s no mystery that we think silhouettes are a great and graphic spin on the traditional framed family photo. So of course this week’s prize is right up our alley: a customized 8×10 silhouette portrait from Nella Designs. Nella Designs has a bunch of other fun items in her Etsy shop (like this 2011 desktop calendar that our winners will also be scoring), but it’s these prints made from photos of your family, pet, or even you & your significant other (in your choice of color) that really caught our eye. You can see more of the prints that she’s personalized

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Hanging A Bathroom Mirror In Front Of A Window

Our master bathroom came with a mirror dilemma. Instead of having the traditional mirror-over-the-sink set up, there’s a window (seen here on this moving day pic that we snapped before we removed those bi-fold doors). But although that picture makes the window look all glow-y and angelic, staring out at the house next door (it’s a side window) isn’t exactly ideal for brushing your teeth, shaving, fixing your hair, or walking by after a shower in the buff. Nor is that the first impression that we really want to make on the neighbors. So we knew we needed a privacy solution stat. We also needed a functional mirror solution too. The room is (ironically) far

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Removing The Side Splash & Backsplash From Our Bathroom Sink

You might notice a theme when it comes to posts like this and this and this and this. Making this house feel like ours seems to be just as much about stripping things down and removing stuff as it is about adding new furnishings and wall colors. Just like the old matted carpets in the sunroom and the bathroom of our old house had to go (along with the crocheted duck curtains, the wallpaper, some small doorways, a few bi-fold doors, and the linen closet door) we’re all about working with what we have. Which could mean altering things a little bit to help them fit more within our aesthetic instead of just junking them

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Christmas Gift Ideas For Your Partner

We realized in all of this new house hubbub we never shared what we gifted each other for Christmas. Fishsticks! (No, we didn’t give each other fishsticks, I’m just practicing our resolution to not curse around the baby anymore). Sherry wins the “best gift” award this year. In continuing her efforts to grow our art collection, she considered a couple of Richmond-themed pieces (including this one that we’ve always liked) and finally ended up getting me this awesome Richmond Type Map: It’s a colorful map of our fair city made up entirely of identifying text. See what I mean? The black grid is made up of street names and the colored area behind them are

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How To Remove Wall Shelves And Patch & Spackle The Holes

Let’s talk about breathing room. One thing we learned from our last house was that we prefer to let rooms “breathe” a little. Which means resisting the urge to fill every corner and span of wall with furniture and plant stands and coat racks and storage baskets and everything else that you can stick in there to crowd the perimeter of a room. So after a bit of deliberation we decided that letting the previous shelf-riddled corner of the fireplace breathe was the best choice for us. I actually attacked them after only a few days of living here and realized I never shared the pics while writing my list post– so here they are.

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Chaotic Christmas Home Renovations

We’ll admit it. We’re a little relieved that the holiday season is over. As fun and exciting as all of the hoopla is, December can be a stressful month with all of the last minute shopping, long distance traveling, family gatherings, and weather madness that come along with it… which is probably why lots of people called us certifiably crazy for adding moving-into-a-new-house to the mix. It definitely was a bit crazy of us, but it just dawned on me and Sherry that this wasn’t the first year that a major project fell over the holiday season. In fact, it’s happened for the past FOUR YEARS IN A ROW. Update: Five years in a row

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Our West Elm Duvet Arrived

Remember the West Elm duvet cover that we ordered on sale last week? It’s here! Oh, I guess it would make more sense to show it in our space now: Of course we’ll be adding in some bolder accent pillows down the road, but we love it. It’s a smidge greener than we expected, but it actually reminds us of the bold blue-green color that we used to paint the back of our built-ins. We filled it with an über-cushy king sized Ikea comforter (we think it’s this one, but we’re not 100% sure since there are so many). And can I just say that we’re so glad we didn’t try to make do with

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How To Paint The Back Of Your Built In Bookcases

We’re back with the after pics of our freshly painted built-ins. As we mentioned in the last post, we went with an inky blue color with hints of green called Dragonfly from Benjamin Moore’s Affinity line (color matched to Lowe’s No-VOC Olympic paint for the bambino). We only needed a quart, and since we used objects that we already owned on the shelves this entire built-in makeover only ran us $10.97. You can read more about how we planned the shelf placement here. Oh and here’s a poorly lit progress pic from last night, just for fun. Yes John’s shirt does say “Talk Nerdy To Me” on the back. I love it. But here’s what

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