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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Operation Widen Doorways – Day 2

Day 2 with the crew was a rocky one, but still had its share of successes. The good news is: The electrician installed a new switch so we can finally turn off the kitchen light. The Parker boys finished closing off the dining room door with new dry wall. They also successfully widened the doorway that leads to the sunroom from the den. Now we have a nice, airy back entrance (the picture doesn’t do it justice) that will look great with our new washer and dryer in the newly opened nook to the right of the door. Now, the rocky parts: The electrician showed up so early (7:45am) that he caught me in my

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Operation Widen Doorways – Day 1

The crew from Parker Home Improvement showed up bright and early Wednesday morning to work on the doorways and kitchen demo. According to Sherry, it was a long day with only a couple snags requiring emergency phone calls. One to an electrician (couldn’t move a light switch through a stud), the other to the vet (dog swallowed a jagged piece of plastic). But in the end, the kitchen got knocked out, one doorway got widened, an electrician rescued us (for free!), and the dog threw up the piece of plastic. I’d call that a successful day. Today, the Parker boys are back to widen more doors and spew more dust. The electrician is back too

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Demolition Monday: Removing Chair Molding & Slate

There’s no better cure for a case of the Mondays than wielding a sledgehammer. It must’ve been a particularly boring Monday because yesterday we let loose on 4 different areas. Demo Day 2007 kicked off with demo project #1: prying off the chair rail in the dining room that we’re converting into a 3rd bedroom (since chair rail is a bit weird in a bedroom). I was at work for this project, but from what I can tell Sherry had no trouble getting it down with a hammer, a crowbar and some womanpower. Hasta la vista, chair rail. Check out the gross yellow paint and ’70s wallpaper we found underneath! It’s even uglier than what

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Lowe’s vs. Home Depot

We love Lowe’s. We find tons of great things there – low prices, good customer service, nice product selection, etc. I can think of only two times Lowe’s failed us and Home Depot came to our rescue: 1. vinyl floor tile options 2. a special sized toilet tank for our tiny half-bath Now there’s a third: kitchen design. While browsing cabinet options one night, we stumbled into conversation with a girl in Lowe’s kitchen design department. She was really nice and similar in age and life stage to us (just got married, was renovating her first home) so we connected immediately. She listened to everything we liked, was really encouraging and supportive of all of

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Using Craigslist To Get Free Yard Work & Labor!

Here’s a tip – use craigslist to get your yard work done for free. Our backyard is beautiful, we can’t lie. Beautiful enought that we got married there. But with that craziness over, it’s not worth the trouble to maintain – trimming bushes, weeding gravel pathways, etc. Plus our ferocious eight pound puppy would appreciate more room to hunt bugs. So, we’re making it all grass… beautiful, beautiful, already-have-the-mower-out-for-it-anyways grass. Our first challenge was getting rid of all the stuff in the way – bushes, pathway, etc. And we hate to just throw all that stuff away, especially since I just put new pea gravel down 3 months ago for the wedding. Enter craiglist. Sherry

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A New Layout For The Kitchen (& Lots More Storage!)

This whole kitchen thing started because we wanted to widen two doorways (from the den to our kitchen, and from the living & dining room to our kitchen). In our typical 50’s brick ranch, just about every room is connected by a narrow doorway. It’s got great bones (and a fantastic all glass sunroom) but we just want to improve the flow of the house and make everything a little more open. I, whether brilliantly or foolishly, suggested we close off a third door in our kitchen that leads to our current dining room (so we can convert the dining room into the third bedroom that we bought it as), move the dining area into

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Our Big Project

So why start a blog 16 months after purchasing the house? After we’ve already made plenty of changes? The kitchen. Now that we’ve finished our other big project for the year (getting married) we’re ready to take on project #2 – a complete kitchen remodel. You may have seen how we already transformed the kitchen once: 1970s Lumberjack’s Paradise: 21st Century Kitchen: And that was just paint, appliances, cabinet hardware and vinyl tiles. So, imagine what will happen when we demo the whole thing (except for the new appliances!) and start from scratch.

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The Blog Begins

If we were really on top of our game, we would’ve started this blog 16 months ago when we bought our beautiful, one-story brick ranch here in Richmond, Virginia. But I guess we were too caught up with home work (literally) to even think about recording our progress online. When we bought the place in May of 2006, we were its 3rd owners in its 50-year-old history. We were completely charmed by its strong bones, and happily challenged by its complete lack of style (the beautiful backyard was also a plus). We moved in with big dreams of what it could become. And a mere 12 hours after closing, it was already on its way…

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