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: Richmond Or Bust!

***THIS GIVEAWAY HAS REACHED ITS 10,000 ENTRY CAP AND IS NOW CLOSED – SEE WHO WON BELOW!*** And our VERY lucky winner this week is… Hallie (who knows that Belle Isle was once a fishing village for the Powhatan Indians – something even we hadn’t heard). Congrats – and see you in a few weeks! We’re spending today with the family for the holiday, but we had to drop in with our big giveaway for you guys. See, when we found out we’d be speaking at this year’s R.Home for the Holidays event on November 8th (which we’ve gone to for the past four years for fun, so it’s really crazy to think that we’ll

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How We Liked Renting A Bagster Dumpster

So. My basement workshop. I owned up to how messy it was a few months ago. Then building Clara’s dollhouse prompted me to tidy it up a smidge – as in, look you can actually see some of the floor. And then the deck happened and it all went to crap again. A big sawdusty, scrap wood cluttered pile of it. But I made a promise to myself that once the deck was done I was going to take care of this issue once and for all. And I’m happy to report that after many hours, many calls, and some serious scrap-wood-carrying, some major progress has been made. My secret? The Bagster. I walked by

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September Superlatives: Trains & Travels

October is officially here, but before we dive into another month of projects, it always helps us keep the ol’ momentum up to take an appreciative look back on all of our happenings from last month – everything from making over Granny’s bathroom and building a train board to making some tables into ottomans and celebrating our 5th blogging anniversary. And since we love to throw in something never-before-seen, we’re actually revealing the first stop on our book tour below. So here’s everything in our usual weird yearbook-superlative-style that definitely inspires us to keep plugging away (plus it makes browsing our archives a lot easier – you can read back through January of 2011 right

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Fab Freebie: Portrait Of A Fido

***This giveaway is now closed – see who won below!*** And the lucky random pet parent who’s about to get a cheery pet portrait is… Kirstin (who’s excited to get a portrait of Lola, her “adorable Boston Terrier/English Bulldog mix”). Congrats Kirstin AND Lola! UPDATE: Kirstin sent us a photo of Lola. Isn’t she a heartbreaker? Somebody turned six last week around here. And his name rhymes with Schmurger (video evidence to come on Young House Life – we just have to upload it). Anyway, in honor of that exciting canine milestone, we’re hosting an exciting canine giveaway, courtesy of our good friend (and fellow Virginian) Lesli Devito. She’s got an incredible knack for turning

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Aquatober (31 Days of Drinking Nothing But Water)

It should come as no surprise that my love of soda t-shirts translates to a general love of soda itself. I know it’s not good for me, but since I avoid other vices (alcohol, cigarettes, Honey Boo Boo) I usually give myself a pass on the soda thing. But not this month. Nope. For the month of October I’m swearing off all beverages except for good ol’ H2O. I actually started this tradition back in college in an effort to both detox myself for the month AND hopefully create a lasting healthier habit of choosing water over sugary drinks. Being the marketing student that I was at the time, I dubbed my little effort “Aquatober.”

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Blogiversary 5: Charts, Graphs & A Little Beyonce

As our fifth blogiversary week comes to a close, we must first dole out a giant thank you to everyone for the sweetness (oh the humanity) and the laughs (oh the hilarity) and – well – for taking our little annual poll that we dropped into Monday’s post. This year we had over 30,000 entries. Wowza. Thank goodness Google helped me crunch the numbers (a stark contrast to our first blogiversary poll where I copied and pasted all 199 comment responses into a spreadsheet by hand). Obviously it wasn’t a scientific study, but we did come out with some fun facts and figures that we thought would be fun to share here courtesy of some

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Blogiversary 5: Post Apocalypse

With over 2,300 posts under our belts, it’s becoming a Herculean task to read all the way back through our archives (although several of you deserve an “I survived the YHL archives and all I got was this lousy bumper sticker” bumper sticker). So we’re using our fifth blogiversary as an excuse to pull out some highlights from those 260 weeks of content. Sit back and enjoy this somewhat weird trip down memory lane full of firsts, favorites, and fun times. First Makeover Reveal: Even before the kitchen reno that started this whole site, our first before and after was actually our laundry nook in November 2007 (since the kitchen was still very much a

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Blogiversary 5: Since You Asked…

…we did our best to not be completely and utterly awkward beyond belief. Did we succeed? You be the judge. Just like in past blogiversary weeks, we invited you guys to ask us some personal (i.e. non-decorating) questions over on our Facebook page last week. And after over two hundred questions came rolling in, Sherry and I sat down and answered as many as we could while Clara napped one afternoon – and then culled it down into this 20 minute video. Among all of our shocking and jaw-dropping revelations (note the sarcasm) you’ll learn: If there’s a bun in Sherry’s oven What kind of money we’re earning for our book How working together has

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Fab Freebie: Happy Fifth To You

***This giveaway has reached our cap of 10,000 entries and is now closed. See who won below!*** It took you guys just a little under 6 hours to push this blogiversary giveaway to its 10,000 entry cap, so we’re here with an earlier-than-usual update on our randomly selected winner. That lucky person is… Britta (who’s currently living in baby/preschooler world so she hopes in five years she won’t “have to deal with someone else’s poop on a daily basis and to be able to sleep through the night!”). Congrats Britta! For every blogiversary we try to do something special for that week’s giveaway. And this year we ran with the five theme and snagged five

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First Day of School

Clara started preschool last week. Who took our baby and replaced her with this little girl? After some debate, we decided to enroll Clara in a local 2-day per week preschool. It’s just the mornings, so she’s there for three hours on each of those two days. She loves being around other kids so we thought it was the right time for her… but we still held our breaths a bit on the first day. Would she cry? Would we cry? Would we get called half-way through to come pick her up because she was having an all-consuming sobbing fit? Nope. There were dry eyes all around. Heck, Clara was so excited when she arrived

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Painting A Multi-Colored Houndstooth Stencil On The Bedroom Wall

Ready for some wow? Jess and Monica really turned some out for this makeover of their friend’s guest room. Sherry has been obsessed with houndstooth ever since I met her and you’re about to see a pretty cool take on it below. Here’s their letter: Hi John and Sherry! We just finished a fun and affordable room redesign for our friends Connie & Mark, so we thought we’d share it with you. When a close friend asks you to help re-do their bubble-gum pink, non-descript guest room, you can’t say no. Our favorite part of the room is the multi-colored houndstooth stencil. We love how it’s kind of a modern spin on a classic pattern. It

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Day Two Of Our Big Bathroom Makeover For Granny

Yesterday you saw Day Numero Uno of what I lovingly call “Operation Granny Chic.” Mission: update my Granny’s bathroom over three whirlwind days. So with all of the prep work done, our day-by-day play-by-play continues with painting and new floors. Except for one minor step that stood in our way… Notice that giant rust spot on the air duct near the floor? Since there’s no way paint would fix that on its own (it would bleed right through), we slapped some Rustoleum on that puppy before breaking out the paint cans. It was amazing how one fast coat worked like a charm. The paint color we chose for the room is “Hint of Violet” by

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