Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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.

| By | | 88 Comments

December Superlatives: Projects Plus Parties

We’re sneaking in one last look at December, in case there was anything y’all missed – and also just to remind ourselves that we didn’t spend the entire month in a Christmas cookie-induced food coma. We’ve noticed that taking a second to appreciate the items that we have checked off the list each month inspires us to get going on even more projects that we have yet to tackle. So it’s a nice breath of you-did-it-now-don’t-stop to keep our DIY momentum a’ flowin. And if you want to see more of last year (or even the year before) we’ve got each month summarized right here (in 24 posts instead of about 840 – not bad,

[ Read More ]

| By | | 420 Comments

Thrift Store Find: A Dresser We’ll Make Into A Media Cabinet

We’ve been on the hunt for a new media console for our living room since, well, as long as we’ve lived here almost. That “hunt” is mostly defined by periodic stops through our favorite furniture-rich thrift stores to see if anything grabbed us. We were probably a couple of months from giving up entirely. But then I got this text from Sherry. Sherry had run into Diversity Thrift while I stayed in the car with Clara. This is how discouraged this hunt had become… I didn’t even get out of the car anymore. Here’s the pic Sherry sent me, which was enough for me to get my butt out of the driver’s seat and check

[ Read More ]

| By | | 370 Comments

What We Got Each Other This Christmas

Yup, it’s time for the annual gifts-we-got-each-other post. Allow me to do some voice exercises. Mimimimi. Ok. Onnn the first day of Christmassss, my true love gave to meeeee… well, we’ll get to that in a moment. In general we like to treat the holidays as an awesome time to spend with friends and family while being grateful for what we have, so it’s really not all about gifts at our house (people over things and all that). But our tradition is to make Clara a few handmade items – like her fridge and her latchboard – and then we get each other a few “tokens” of our affection (we usually spend around $100 on

[ Read More ]

| By | | 271 Comments

A DIY Busy Board With Latches For Kids

Happy New Year y’all! Who’s making resolutions? We’re mulling ours over today (you know Sherry loves a list…). But let’s get to the subject at hand. Being last minute “elves” for Santa. See, Clara’s play fridge wasn’t the only homemade gift that she opened this year. Because the weekend before Christmas we decided to make her a little latch board of her very own. And now we’ve finally gotten our act together to share the tutorial with you. So oh snap (pun intended), here it is. We first learned about latch boards when Clara’s cousin Elsa got one a year ago – she’s a year older – and we heard how much she loved it

[ Read More ]

| By | | 5,374 Comments

Fab Freebie: Under The Sea

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** And the randomly selected person who’s starting their new year off with prize is… Jennifer (who answered this week’s question with a Canadian folk lyric – which I had to look up, mind you: “Lukey’s boat is painted green, Ha, me boys!”). Congrats Jennifer! Raise your hand if you know what a bathymetric chart is. I didn’t before this giveaway, but it’s basically like a topographic map for what lies underwater. But the more important thing to know is that the married duo behind Below the Boat turns these charts into gorgeous, laser-cut, hand-assembled works of art. They’re beautifully intricate and fascinatingly detailed.

[ Read More ]

| By | | 139 Comments

Handmade Holiday

Does this totebag from Richmond Threadlab look familiar? If so, it may be because you caught our Instagram feed a couple of weekends ago when we hit up our local Handmade Holiday Craft Show (just like we did last year). The fair is a bi-annual craft-stravaganza put on by the Richmond Craft Mafia (we went to their Spring version earlier this year too). It’s always filled with tons of cool artists, crafters, and other handmade magicians from the Virginia-ish region. And thanks to most of them having Etsy shops, you guys can sort of virtually shop along with us. So here’s some the cool stuff that we came across, starting with some of the new

[ Read More ]

| By | | 77 Comments

A Sweet Art Studio Makeover By Chris Loves Julia

Psst- We did it. We survived hosting our very first Christmas dinner at our house. So of course Sherry’s hyper and giddy about sharing all of the photos and details next week (we’re spending the rest of the week with the family, but we’re dropping in with a little post today and another one for you tomorrow too). Hope you’re all enjoying the holiday! When it comes to Reader Redesign submissions, sometimes it’s the room pictures that really get me, sometimes it’s the story behind the room, and sometimes it’s both. That’s why we loved the tale Julia and Chris’s studio tells… and the result is pretty sweet too. Here’s her letter: Hey John and

[ Read More ]

| By | | 195 Comments

DIY Christmas Card Photo Ideas

Here she be, all ye merrymakers of the world: our 2012 family Christmas card. Obviously it’s a play on the tradition of leaving some milk and cookies out for Santa, with a nice dose of the reality that unattended food at our house doesn’t stay unattended for very long. By some miracle we were able to get this shot without having to Photoshop the two of them together. Usually Clara is all up Burger’s grill – meaning that Burger bolts before the first shot is snapped. But apparently they play well together when there are treats to be had. These are just some outtakes from our little photo session, which we actually didn’t start until

[ Read More ]

| By | | 222 Comments

Live From Richmond, It’s…

…the third week of December! Okay, maybe that’s not as catchy as the opening to SNL, but for all y’all (yup, I said it) who follow our Instagram pictures (and who have requested the videos to match the wacky photos that we posted below) here ya go. Yes, we never thought we’d actually type a sentence like this, but we’ve had a busy week in the live television department. See, it sounds crazy. Also, about that pic on the right… we didn’t try to match the set. That just happened. And it was hilarious. By coincidence, two local Richmond stations actually invited us to appear on their programs – ahem – their LIVE programs, this

[ Read More ]

| By | | 62 Comments

Turning Bookcases Into Built-Ins & Painting Them

I know what you’re thinking. Do John & Sherry want to marry built-ins? The answer is yes. What can I say, we’re just suckers for them (function + form = jackpot) so it was no surprise that Hilary’s project of turning cheap Craigslist bookcases into an architectural feature had me at “Hey there.” It was just such a smart use of space and such a wise way to adapt something pre-made (and affordable) to work for the room. Here’s her letter: Hey there John + Sherry! My husband and I moved into our little cape cod in Jersey just over a year ago. In the first year we tore out the old flooring, laid all

[ Read More ]

| By | | 377 Comments

How To Make A Play Refrigerator From An Old Cabinet

Remember how we DIYed Clara a play kitchen last Christmas? Well, it was such a hit then (and still is – in fact it’s probably one of the only toys that she plays with every day) we immediately knew that we should add to it. More kitchen = more fun, right? What can you add to a play kitchen like ours? Well, it was clearly lacking a frigid kitchen staple. You know, a refrigerator. So we quickly homed in on that as an easy way to upgrade Clara’s setup. And the decision was made even easier by the fact that we had another cabinet leftover from the kitchen remodel that we had been hoarding saving

[ Read More ]

| By | | 156 Comments

2012 Holiday Gift Guide: For The Guys

When Sherry made a mood board of gifts that kids and ladies might like, there were actually a bunch of requests for a guy-gifts version from me. Color me surprised. But who am I to deny the people what they want? (cut to me muttering quiet profanities while trying to make a mood board). The good news is that ten hours later I emerged victorious. Fist bumps for everyone! I won’t even pretend that the items below will tickle every guy’s fancy (do men even having “fancies?”), but here are a dozen items that I wouldn’t mind finding under the tree… 1. This HOMAGE NYC tee, which I’m actually wearing right now. I treated myself

[ Read More ]