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: 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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Fab Freebie: Scoping Out The Goods

*** This giveaway is now closed – see who won! *** Glad to hear so many of you had fun with the quiz (though sorry it had a bit of trouble loading for some). Random.org has selected our lucky winner and she is… Emily W (who thought she’d be BOHO, but ended up a mix of Sassy and Classic). Congrats Emily! It’s been a while since we’ve posted about a fun what’s-your-design-style type quiz (like these of the past). And it’s been never since our post about one came with a chance to win $500 from HomeGoods. So if ever there was time to put aside your allegiance to scientific results, this would be a

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A White Kitchen Makeover With White Tile & A Butcher Block Island

If you send us an email with the words “1950s ranch,” “knock down walls” and “kitchen makeover” you’ve officially piqued our interest. And when you attach before & after photos as stunning as Jessica’s, well, end of story. I’ll need a moment to pick my jaw up off of the floor. Here’s her letter: Hey guys! I know how you love a good before and after and thought you might be interested in ours. We bought our 1950’s ranch just over two months ago and have been working around the clock to get her in tip top shape. We recently wrapped up the kitchen remodel and DIYed everything but the countertops. Since moving into our

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The New DSLR Camera We Bought

You guys get extra credit for being especially perceptive, because as some of you have noticed, we got a new camera (we weren’t paid or perked, we just bought it with our own benjamins for reasons I’m about to explain). It’s a Nikon 3200 that we purchased on Amazon (here’s an affiliate link to the same model we bought) – basically the latest version of our previous DSLR, the Nikon 3000 that we got back in early 2010. The reason for the upgrade? Well, let’s just say the resident klutz around here (that’s me) finally klutz-ed it up a bit too much for our poor camera to handle. Can I get a womp womp? It actually happened back

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