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.

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Fab Freebie: Christmas Lights

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** This week’s early Christmas present is going to… Nancy (who says she “could certainly use some new lighting” and her favorite holiday glow “has to be my fireplace.”) Congrats Nancy! As much as we love holiday lights, indoor lighting is something that you stare at every day of the year. So if you don’t love your lighting situation, this is one way to “dude, get on that” without spending any cash. See, recently we were voted one of Lamps Plus’ top home blogs of 2012 (how flattering!) and it came with a $500 shopping spree prize… but you know we don’t take freebies

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Beauty Queens, Bouncers, Crafting, & Stick Dogs

Hooray, our publisher has finally locked down a few upcoming dates that you guys have been asking for and even added a few more tour stops, so we’ll spill those beans at the end of this post! But before we get to what lies ahead, it’s time for our once-every-two-weeks tour recap of our most recent stops (the last ones of 2012 before things kick back up again in January). After our whirlwind week away in mid-November, we had Thanksgiving week off and then were back on for two separate stops in Washington, DC and one in our hometown of RVA. The first was at the FLOR store in DC. The tight footprint of a

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How To Change Your Outlets

While our sunroom mojo was still running on high from accomplishing our most daring painting task to date, I quickly followed up with two small electrical updates to the room. The first is seemingly minor, but to us makes a world of difference in making a room feel new: updating outlets. It’s something that was especially helpful in a room like our sunroom where the off-white outlets just look dirty against the white trim. A basic new outlet and cover plate can run you as little as $2-3 so it’s not a pricey update – even for an outlet-riddled room like ours (there were nine in here). And the task of replacing them is pretty

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Fab Freebie: Sew Simple

***This giveaway is now closed – see who won below!*** After clocking 10,000 entries under 24 hours, we’re already back to crown a random winner of the SINGER One sewing machine. The lucky person is… Angela (who says she’s a 1 on the sewing skills scale: “I can sew a straight line, but only if someone threads the machine for me first”). Congrats! I’ve never touched a sewing machine in my life, but I’ve heard Sherry’s passionate muttering from the next room while using hers. Which is why anything labeled “Our easiest to use machine!” sounds compelling. And we’re so (sew?) excited that Singer is helping us give away a SINGER One – a feature-packed

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How To Paint Extra High Vaulted Ceilings

“Oh what a feeeeeeling, painting on the ceeeeeiling.” Why yes that was a Lionel Richie reference. You’re welcome. It was time to get some paint up in this heezy. And by heezy, I mean sunroom… hence the furniture being all piled in the center. But before we get to painting, let’s talk about the half-brick wall in this room – since you guys offered up lots of thoughts and suggestions in the last sunroom post. Some had suggested covering the drywalled portion in brick veneer or reclaimed wood. Unfortunately the dry wall sits in front of the brick, so there’d be this weird lip between the real brick and the veneer/wood (so we’d prefer not

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November Superlatives: Rams, Moose, & Sailfish

Update: Yeesh, sorry about that oddly reoccurring Amazon/B&N.com “out of stock” message. To everyone who’s contacting us about getting our book (thank you!), you can order a signed copy here (they can ship it right to your door) or you can try calling/visiting a Barnes & Noble in your area (we hear they’re easier to find in stores at the moment). Happy Friday y’all. Now that we’ve checked off a bunch of projects this week (decorating our tree, framing our bathroom mirror, and ORBing our hardware) along with a craftsman house crash, a DIY link-fest, and a look back at a bunch of mistakes we’ve made, we thought we’d take a moment to look back

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House Crashing: Lovely At Last

We’re working on wrapping up a few projects for you today – pics and details to come! – plus we have a well overdue house crash to share. It feels kinda unnecessary in this case, but we’ll say it out of formality: Meet Nicole (and her smiley son August). If that picture alone didn’t make you say “Wait, that’s Nicole from Making It Lovely!” then allow us to say “that’s Nicole from Making It Lovely.” You guys know we like to crash homes of all types (we’ve shared nearly fifty of them, from modern apartments and traditional homes to eclectic or retro spaces or crazy bright and colorful ones – each from big bloggers, small

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How To Build A Wood Frame Around A Bathroom Mirror

But first, who framed Roger Rabbit? I dunno. I can’t remember how that movie ended. But as for who framed out our hall bathroom mirror? We did. Putting a dressed up frame around a plain builder mirror is one of the easiest ways to upgrade a bathroom, especially if you’re working with the tile and not doing a total gut job (which we thankfully are in this room since the classic b&w tile is in great shape). It’s actually kind of crazy that we haven’t really tackled this yet (well, we sorta did it here I guess, but this mirror has been naked for the last two years since we moved in). There are companies

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Fab Freebie: Homes On Homepage

*** This giveaway is now closed. See who won below! *** An early Christmas present (in the form of this $500 Visa gift card) has randomly chosen to come to the hands of… Mary (whose dream house would be a “big cozy log cabin out in the woods” complete with fishing pond, swimming pool, hot tub, huge whirlpool tub in her bathroom and a giant walk in closet. Her fantasy list doesn’t end there, so check out her comment for the rest). Congrats Mary! With a URL as broad as Homes.com, there are a lot of topics you might think they cover. Because people buy homes. They decorate homes. They do home improvements. You get

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Ten Flights Later…

Happy Friday! Quick updates first: If you’re trying to order our book (to read, for Christmas gifts, to use to kill bugs, etc), and you’re getting a “sold out” or a “1-2 month wait” message through Amazon, B&N, or anywhere else online, there are thousands of books making their way to warehouses in trucks right now, so in a few days they’ll be entered into the system and should all be available for immediate shipping then (so check back in a few days and they should definitely arrive before Christmas!). #godspeedlittlebooksintrucks Tomorrow we’ll be in DC doing some Living Social events at 918 F Street. These are pre-ticketed events, so if you’ve snagged a spot

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How To Frame Instagram Photos With Jewel Cases

“Who has two thumbs, an Instagram addiction, and just bought a bunch of jewel cases?” I think we all know the answer. THIS GUY had a little art project up his sleeves. Ever since jumping on the Insta-wagon back in April, I’ve been itching to get some of our photos printed. We just never had a place for them and were always a little wary of the quality through various printers. But a few weeks ago when I spotted a Facebook coupon for five free Instagram prints using Picplum, I ordered away (nothing to lose, right?) and I was pretty impressed with my handful of free 5×5″ prints… so, like the sucker they hoped I’d

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Fab Freebie: A Cultivated Kitchen

***This giveaway is now closed – see who won below!*** Sorry for the hit-and-miss quiz taking y’all. Apparently you guys enjoy a good quiz as much as we do! Anyways, the lucky (random) winner this week is… Kate Bateman (who was able to get a quiz result and said her “Traditional” diagnosis was almost spot on). Congrats! I bet most of you guys spent a fair amount of time in the kitchen over the last few days, and if it had you yearning to make some changes in there, you’ve stumbled onto the right giveaway. The folks behind some of our favorite stores (West Elm, Williams-Sonoma, and Pottery Barn) have a sister site chock full

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