Young House Love

DIY Home Decorating Projects, Tutorials, & Shenanigans

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A Tour Of Our New Beach Duplex!

If you haven’t already heard the news: we’re doubling down in the beach house department. And I mean the “double” part quite literally because we lost our minds and bought a DUPLEX! If you caught our podcast yesterday, you already know the whys, hows, and wheres of this story. The price was right (we even got them down 30K), the location is awesome (close to the park, shops, and a few blocks from the beach), and we didn’t feel like we could ever afford this much house in such a great spot if we waited much longer. This small town only has so many affordable fixer-uppers available before everything gets renovated and we get priced

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Beach House Progress: Original Trim, Doors, And Lots of New Tile!

Compared to the last nine months of gradual progress on our beach house, it feels like things are moving at breakneck speed lately. So this post is one big smorgasbord of updates (but the good kind of smorgasbord, with exotic cheeses and chocolate fondue). Just like I consider this picture of the house’s foyer to be the good kind of messy. I guess practically anything is a good kind of mess compared to the actual mess we had at the start of this project. Memmm-ries…. I know, I know, those two photos don’t look all that different, but what you can’t see is the repaired not-collapsing foundation, the new not-leaking roof, the fresh not-rotting siding,

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How To Install An Irrigation System (But Why You Maybe Shouldn’t Do It)

Welp, I’ve found it guys – the DIY project I most regret undertaking: installing an irrigation system in our yard. Don’t be fooled by my friendly wave below. Why? The short answer is that it was much more exhausting and took much longer than I expected. A professional crew could’ve knocked it out in a day or two  (I know this because I watched two neighbors get theirs installed in no time while I sweated and stressed through my own installation over a three-week period). Sure, DIY projects almost always take more time and elbow grease than just writing a check – but usually, the satisfaction of doing it yourself, learning a new skill, or saving some dough

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Celebrating Ten Years (!) Of Marriage In Puerto Rico

You might as well just pronounce us Mr. and Mrs. Puerto-Retersik, because we recently snuck off for a few days to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary (!!!) in Puerto Rico. Also because Puerto-Retersik rolls right off the tongue if you try hard enough. Promise. As we mentioned in last week’s podcast we wanted to share a few more pictures and details about our anniversary trip to San Juan because we LOVED it and we couldn’t recommend it more highly. So here’s the gist on where we stayed, what we did, and what we ate in case any of you are considering a trip to that area. Why Puerto Rico? After taking our actual honeymoon to Anchorage, Alaska

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The Affordable, Compact Pressure Washer That Revived Our Outdoor Furniture

Despite having a blast with the pressure washer we rented a few years ago, we’d always been hesitant to bite the bullet and purchase one. Part of us didn’t want to store another bulky tool, especially since it didn’t seem like something we’d be using all that often. But recently the universe sent us several signs that we were missing out. My neighbor kept waxing poetic about his. They were popping up in our blog feeds everywhere. Oh, and the pollen. The universe sent us lots and lots of pollen this year. Exhibit A: Those are pillows from the open sunroom on the back of our house, shown below shortly after we finished it back in

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Installing A Subway Tile Backsplash For $200

One regret Sherry and I have about our first house is not doing a tiled backsplash as part of our kitchen makeover. Best I can remember, we wanted an easily changeable “pop of color” in the form of good ol’ fashioned paint instead (and we spent a lot on that makeover, so it was a cost saving measure as well). If only we had known how cheap and easy a backsplash could be if you install it yourself! Now having several tiling projects under our belts – including the backsplashes in our current kitchen and our last kitchen – it feels like a no-brainer. We even added a backsplash to our laundry room (here’s how, and here’s the full room

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Cutting The Cable: How We’re Saving Hundreds On TV, Internet, & Phone

Here it is, the post we promised all about cutting the cable cord (and how much we’re saving as a result). As self-proclaimed TV enthusiasts, we’ve been known to collapse on the couch after some good painting/organizing/spackling and kick back with some tube. So in all of the hubbub about cutting the cable cord in recent years, we never really considered ourselves strong candidates – especially because so many of the channels Sherry likes (Bravo, Bravo, and also Bravo) weren’t always easy to get outside of a traditional cable package. But after some recent frustrations with our cable provider, and an ever-growing bill (which went from $99 to $169 the last 4 years!) we became even more

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That Time Our Beach House Photobombed HGTV

Despite not even being close to finished, our beach house made its television debut on HGTV this past Sunday night! See it there on the right side of the screen? Our rotten siding basically worked its way into a solid 5% of the episode. We had no idea it was going to be on, hence Sherry cranking her excitement level up to 11 on Insta-stories that night for those of you who got to witness that (here it is below, in case you missed it): It was part of an HGTV show called Beachfront Bargain Hunt because the house RIGHT NEXT DOOR was one of the three homes the featured couple was considering (the show follows a

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Our Most Recent Project Is Gonna Knock Your You-Know-Whats Off!

The last year or so has felt a bit like a smorgasbord of side projects – a coloring book, a teacher’s lounge makeover, a podcast, new lighting designs, and a big ol’ beach house renovation. But behind the scenes, we Petersiks have had one more thing in the works for a while. And it definitely takes the proverbial “random project” cake. But we are so, so, SO excited to finally share it with you guys! We’re a shoes-off-at-the-door household, but there’s no denying that our feet felt a little chilly at times. Plus, just like you hang art or paint your walls to express your design personality – we though, shouldn’t your feet do the same thing? And thus the idea

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Four Ways We Added Storage & Function To My Beloved Shed

Last summer we bought a shed to alleviate some of our garage storage woes/messes (more on that here). It was love at first sight, but alas – it remained empty for months as I sat paralyzed, unable to pinpoint the “perfect” way to organize it. I didn’t want to let my baby down by not letting her live up to her full potential. Listeners of our podcast have heard me mention it time and time again (me saying the word “shed” might as well be a drinking game at this point). But once I let go of the idea of getting it perfect and just steered myself towards solving my storage problems one-by-one, we were finally

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Two Bedroom Updates That Made A Surprisingly Big Difference

It seems like every room in our house undergoes a gradual (and often never-ending) evolution, but our bedrooms seem especially prone to this slow-burn decorating process. Exhibit A: this old “Evolution Of A Bedroom” post that chronicled the meandering path of our last home’s master bedroom. Exhibit B: this more recent one about the winding evolution of our daughter’s current bedroom. Well, if it pleases the court, I’d like to submit yet another bedroom into evidence: our current master bedroom. (I don’t know why I doubled-down on the legal metaphor guys. Consider your objection sustained). bench / rug / plant / similar floor lamp, chair, pillow / garden stool / chandelier / art (top, bottom) When we bought the house, the room looked like this. The walls,

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Beach House Progress: Walls Up, Walls Down, & New Floor Plans

We’ve shared some random details about our beach house progress here and there, but we’re waaaaay overdue for a giant picture-filled blog post about everything that has been going on over there, complete with our latest (and hopefully final) floor plans! Let’s just say that things are looking VERY different these days (you can check out the before pictures here and virtually walk through via this video tour). We definitely have the whole “sometimes it has to get uglier before it can get prettier” thing going on. As you can see from the photo above, we’ve demoed out all of the existing walls. The big “LEAVE” is not some horror-movie-style warning, just a note the contractor left for his crew so nobody

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