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: 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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October Superlatives: Better Late Than Never…

We’re nearly a week away from December, which makes rewinding all the way back to the beginning of October a little strange, but since a few book tour stops threw our productivity for a loop this month, our usual wrap-up of the previous month (in yearbook-style superlatives) is coming to you a bit late (ok, way late) in the middle of Thanksgiving break. As always you can read back through January of 2011 right here in just 21 posts instead of 700. Oh yeah, and we’ve also snuck in a clue about Monday’s giveaway at the bottom. Hope you guys are having a great Thanksgiving weekend with the fam! Most Adventurous: Sherry, for braving our

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Making A Thanksgiving Gratitude Chalkboard

You probably know of our little Thanksgiving tradition of filling up our homemade “Thanks Jar” with gratitude notes throughout November. We wanted to keep the tradition going this year, but our book tour kept us away most of the month and it got away from us. So this weekend we decided to sneak this tradition in right at the buzzer… while putting a new spin on it thanks to our new chalkboard. The word art at the top of the board was a joint effort. Sherry searched something like “pretty script” on Pinterest and tried her best to imitate what she saw for the word “thanks.” A curlicue here. A flourish there. Then I got

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Fab Freebie: Save Room For Cake

***This giveaway is now closed. See who won below!*** Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Our lucky winner this week is… N Shirley (whose favorite dessert “to both make and eat is Virginia Apple Pudding – even makes the whole house smell good!”) Sounds delicious. Congrats! We’ve had a few questions about why all contests aren’t open to international readers, so here’s that info for you. We actually ask every single vendor who approaches us to do a giveaway if they’ll ship internationally and we remind them that the more folks are included, the more exciting it is for everyone. We LOVE you all and always want to open our giveaways to as many people as possible! It

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