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: The Cutting Edge

*** This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** We’ve got two names to announce as the random winners this week and they are… Eileen Marie (who lives on the edge by teaching on the “mean streets of Chicago”) and Kristin M (who is the mom to a “crazy 2 year old” – which is a life on the edge that we can relate to). Congrats ladies! And for everyone else, Cutting Edge Stencils added a 20% discount code – YHL20 –  that’s good through Sunday. Sweet! Who wants to jump on the wall stencil bandwagon with us (remember when Sherry spent 14 hours stenciling our office last October? Well how

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Demoing Out A Balcony To Build A Deck

Deck plans completed? Check. Permit acquired? Check. Materials scheduled to arrive this week? Check. But one thing still stands in the way of this project moving forward: the old rotting balcony. We attacked this assignment very methodically. I laid out a bunch of tools (crowbar, sledgehammer, power drill). I lugged over my ladder (for easy climbing up and over the side). I had music playing (see the ceramic pig on the windowsill?). I had Sherry on standby (she was inside watching Clara but ready to lend a hand/take pics at a moments notice). You know, the works. I figured it’d be a very careful process of prying off boards and observing how this previous structure

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Seeding Some Bare Dirt Spots To Grow Grass

Back on this hosta post I left a not-so-subtle indication that we were planting some fresh grass ’round these parts. Though as pretty as superimposed text looks in that area (not), we’ve been working on getting the real thing for a while now and it’s finally (mostly) photo-ready. But let’s head back to the beginning, which is actually one step before the photo above… when it still looked like this: Yep, we still had some weird liriope lingering to the right of the brick path, so we dug that up (to the point where it was even with the stone border on the other side) and called this area ready for grass seed. Here’s the

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Adding Stainless Steel Counters To The Kitchen

Today we’re working away on demo-ing out the old balcony where the new deck is going to go (since Mother Nature rained us out yesterday) so we hope to have more photos to share of our progress soon (Monday at the latest if all goes well!).   In the meantime, we thought this awesome budget-friendly kitchen idea was such a smart solution. We never really considered stainless steel counters, but after seeing Linn and her husband make it look so easy (and affordable) we’re definitely into it. Here’s Linn’s note: I wanted to share a DIY tip for countertops which isn’t really that common, but it’s a great idea if you’re on a budget and

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Getting A Permit To Build A Deck

Permission accomplished! Wait, before we get to the deck/permit stuff that this post is really about, we wanted to mention that we keep hearing from folks who had no idea that we have a family/personal/behind the scenes blog called Young House Life (which we started nearly a year ago – my how time flies). So if you’re looking for photos of our messy house, pictures of us being weird, life-stuff beyond the home improvement happenings at our house, and Burger/Clara galore, that’s the place. We usually post 3-4 times a week (very randomly) and you can get there by clicking the word “Life” under our header or by clicking the button that says “Our Family

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Trying Different Rugs In The Kitchen

Ah, the rugs in our kitchen. They were $34 from The Company Store ages ago (maybe 2008?). They originally lived in our first house’s kitchen and third bedroom, and they’re awesomely durable and neutral – but they don’t really do anything for the new kitchen (in person they’re a little too small and sort of clash with the avocado walls since they’re so honey-oak-colored). So “find a new kitchen rug (or rugs)” has been on our lingering kitchen to-do list for the last couple of months. We decided to tackle this rug situation – well, more like it decided to tackle us – on a recent stop at HomeGoods. Sherry found a pile of awesome

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Fab Freebie: One, Two, Three, Flor

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Random.org sifted through the 9000+ entries and came up with our winner. She is… Jenn (whose favorite number is 13 because of The Offspring song “Pretty Fly for a White Guy” and the lyric “He went for a tattoo yeah, he’s getting it done. He asked for a 13 but they drew a 31″). Congrats Jenn – looks like 13 ended up being pretty lucky for you this week! Happy Memorial Day! We’re spending the holiday with our family, but wanted to drop in with today’s giveaway. And let’s keep the counting that we did in the title going all the way to

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Front Yard Landscaping Progress

Okay, y’all ready for another what-we’ve-been-doing-outside post? This particular rundown, as you may have guessed from my title (why yes I can pun in Spanish), is about some hosta business that we pulled off, thanks to a bunch of extra hostas growing randomly in our backyard (this backyard garden bed is a hot mess but we’ll get to it someday!). Since they weren’t doing much for us back there, we dug ’em up – about five in total – and decided to put them to better use. For starters, they certainly could help our bedraggled mailbox (which became quite weedy this spring). The mums that were there turned into dead sticks in the winter and,

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Adding A Board & Batten Wall With Hooks To The Entryway

We never get tired of seeing a solution like the one that Sada and her husband Reagan sent our way. They took an otherwise useless wall in their entryway and turned it into both a functional space for coats and a pretty spot for displaying art and personal mementos (we think they did an especially awesome job picking meaningful, happy art and arranging it in a really charming way). Here’s their letter: My hubby and I recently redid our entryway! With the way that our house is laid out, I knew we were never going to be able to have a beautiful “mudroom”, however, we have this huge blank wall right by our front door.

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Sourcing And Buying Materials To Build A Deck

Our deck project kind of got back-burnered amidst all of the party/dollhouse/bedroom stuff, but we have made one decision in that time: much like both of our parents chose for our houses growing up, we’re going the pressure-treated wood route. But making that call was no easy decision. We actually weighed a bunch of options, got a few quotes from a few different sources, and endured the all important “sleep on it” step. Then we second-guessed ourselves a few times because the right choice isn’t very obvious. Haha. There are so many ways to go, so it really is one of those it’s-different-for-everyone things. In the end it just came down to personal factors about

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Planting Boxwoods, Petunias, and Hydrangeas

It feels like forever since we posted about any gardening we’ve done (over a month, actually), but that doesn’t mean nothing’s happened. We’re just a little behind on writing about it (I like to think that we were waiting for things to fill in a bit so we could snap some pics for ya). So let’s play catch up. Remember when we transplanted some bushes to perk up the area behind our patio? Well, that was all fine and good for that side of the patio. But it left this big empty, ugly spot in its wake. So a couple of weeks ago we got our hydrangea on again (thanks to a pair we picked

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Fab Freebie: Wrapped In Comfort

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Someone’s about to get more comfortable because random.org just helped us pick them as the winner. That lucky person is… Kristen B (who says a walk on the beach seems to help everything for her). Congrats Kristen! I realize the title of the giveaway sounds like a cheesy line from a fabric softener commercial, but this prize isn’t about wrapping you in comfort – it’s about wrapping your furniture. Your Ikea furniture to be exact. See, the Australian company Comfort Works had the smart idea of offering slipcovers custom fitted some of Ikea’s popular couch and chair styles. You can get your Ektorp

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