Young House Love

Home Decorating, DIY Tutorials, & Shenanigans

Posts By John Petersik

John Petersik is one half of the duo behind the award-winning home improvement and do-it-yourself design blog, Young House Love. Together, he and his wife Sherry have renovated seven homes, published two New York Times Bestselling books, and designed products sold in Target and Home Depot. They are currently enjoying their downsized home on Florida's Gulf Coast with their two kids and their dog, Penny.

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6 Layout Features We Love In Our Smaller Home (And 1 You Might Not)

Since downsizing to our 1400 square foot house three and a half years ago (as a refresher, our previous house was more than twice as large – clocking in at 3150 square feet), you’ve probably heard us proclaim that smart storage is key. It certainly makes living in a smaller home a lot more sustainable and enjoyable, but there are also specific layout features of our house that make sharing less square footage go a lot more smoothly for us. So whether you’re thinking of downsizing, considering a new home with any of these layout details, building a new home, or are just curious about what some of our favorite “living-larger-in-a-smaller-home” features are, we’ve put

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Our Favorite Family Board Games

Our family loves playing board games and we often share them on Instagram stories. And over the years, we’ve gotten requests to do a post of our favorites with a quick rundown of each one (like the cliff notes version of each game). We currently have about 30 in our game cabinet, covering a pretty wide variety: card games, party games, dice games, puzzle games, and more. We love games that are as fun for grown-ups as they are for kids (ours are 13 and 9), so with the exception of a couple of adults-only versions that we’ve clearly labeled, everything linked in this post is great for the whole family. I’ve categorized our games

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Two Days In St. Petersburg Florida With Kids

Rather than take one big vacation this summer, we opted instead for a few short trips so we could experience more new places. We kicked things off with a 3-night trip to Charleston, SC, we met up my parents in the Georgia mountains in July, and then capped off the summer with a getaway to St. Petersburg, Florida. Sherry and I had only been there very briefly during this 2008 beach vacation, so we were excited to spend more time there and explore it with our kids. So here’s a quick recap of what we did, where we ate, and why we’re excited to go back. Where Did We Stay In St. Petersburg? St. Petersburg

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#183: What’s Next, House Vibes, & Yet Another Embarrassing Moment

We’re dropping this random pop-in episode to share one of the most embarrassing tales Sherry has ever told on this podcast. Of course it had to happen in the nicest house we’ve ever been in (in front of one of Sherry’s personal heroes). We’re also listing what’s left on our to-do list, and answering the much-asked question: what’s your next big project? Plus, we break down what feels different to us about this house compared to our last one (and the varied impressions you might get about us if you walked in without us being there). Lastly, we each share some recent home-related purchases and the books & tv shows that are keeping us laughing

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Finally! Real Walkways & A Legitimate Parking Spot For Two

As we mentioned in our post about making a bigger backyard pool area, we’ve also made some big changes out front. Namely, we now have a legit front walkway and driveway! Break out the champagne! Release the doves! Rewatch the #Scandoval episode of Vanderpump Rules (or whatever else people like Sherry do to celebrate). I know this may seem unworthy of celebration – a driveway? cool story, bro – but when you live without one for THREE YEARS, it feels like a major win. Why We Needed Parking & Pathways I know most houses come with a place to park your car and some sort of path to the front door. Every other house we’ve

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How We Doubled The Size (And Function!) Of Our Backyard Pool Area

For nearly a year, we’ve been in the process of reimagining our pool area as a bigger, more multi-functional space. You first saw it two years ago when we posted this behind-the-scenes of putting in a pool, along with lots of before & afters. We LOVE our pool and this area quickly became our go-to outdoor family hang-out spot. So back in Spring of 2022, we realized we could make it work even harder for us if we did one somewhat simple thing… moved one section of fencing back (thereby doubling the size!). It ended up being a bit more than just that, so I’ll take you through the various steps we took to maximize

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A Weekend In Charleston, SC With Kids

Last week our family took a last-minute, 2-day-3-night trip to Charleston, South Carolina and it was *chef’s kiss*. It was our first time there, and we arrived having done zero planning and no itinerary with the goal of exploring, enjoying the sights, and eating some good stuff along the way (spoiler: we achieved all three!). Honestly, it might have been our favorite weekend trip yet (tied with New Orleans). So here are all the places, activities, and meals that made our trip so great. Why We Picked Charleston As A Spot To Visit? Ever since we moved to Florida three years ago, our family vacations have changed a bit. We used to almost always pick

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Best Summer Reading Spot Bracket – Free Kids Printables

With our kids’ summer break kicking off this weekend, we came up with a fun twist on our usual summer reading goals. We had the idea while playing “would you rather” on a family walk this morning, came home and whipped up a paper template, and an hour later Sherry mentioned it in passing on Instagram. Then Sherry’s DMs filled up with people asking her to share a copy of the bracket or tell them where we got it (we whipped it up in Photoshop), so we decided to drop two free printable options of it here in this post. I even had some fun myself, as a 41-year-old man, making this filled-out sample above

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Using Ikea Floating Shelves To Make Sense Of A Weird Corner In Our Bedroom

For over a decade, one of our renovating mantras has been “the middle makes no sense.” Basically, don’t fret if your house is mid-reno, not fully furnished, or otherwise in limbo. Take your time, try something out, and just course correct as you go. See what you like and what you use. Live with something for a little while (or a long while). Take the expectation of having a finished perfect house right away and throw it in the trash (it always takes us years to get to that point!). Just keep letting spaces evolve in ways that work for your family and make you happy. And eventually, you’re very likely to end up with

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Adding A Floating Shelf To A Window

When sharing some videos of our bathroom on Instagram recently, many of you noticed an easy update we added: a wooden, floating shelf in the window. It was such a simple DIY project that we did on a whim a while ago (and it was extremely affordable too!) so we wanted to show you the easy steps to make one yourself. For reference, this is what the window looked like when we first showed you the before and afters of this space back in 2020. We’ve always used the deep windowsill for some decor and greenery, but adding the extra shelf gave us room for more things, and just generally adds some nice interest to

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4 People + 1 Bathroom: How & Why It Works For Us

Any time we mention having only one bathroom it spawns a flurry of interest in our Instagram DMs about how we manage that with our four-person family. Although we’re definitely not intrepid for having this setup in any way (so many families in the US & abroad live a wonderful life in a smaller home with one bathroom), and we also have an outdoor shower that we can use almost year-round (which definitely takes the pressure off of our single indoor bathroom), there’s a surprising amount of curiosity around the topic. So we’re here to break down why it has worked so well for our family and what we’ve done to make it extra efficient

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How To Make An Ikea Pax Wardrobe Look Built-In (Plus A Bedroom Closet Update!)

Raise your hand if you remember how much closet space our bedroom had when we moved in. The answer is zero. We used dressers for a while (and borrowed the tiny closet in our son’s room for our hanging stuff) and eventually added some floor-to-ceiling Ikea Pax wardrobes to our bedroom after about 10 months, which felt like we had arrived. A bedroom closet is so nice to have. And – big news! – as of writing this post, we’ve added another Ikea wardrobe to that wall… which means we have just as much storage in our current bedroom as we had in our last house’s FANCY WALK-IN CLOSET! I know. It’s downright mind-blowing. For

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