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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Finishing Our Sandbox Project

Ready for the next chapter of our sandbox project? If you’re not, I can tell you one person who definitely was. Her name rhymes with Blara. Here’s where we left off. Box built (more on that here) and awaiting sand. But in need of a cover first. Having looked at a bunch of other DIY sandbox covers (like the awesome ones from Dana Made It, Small & Friendly, Modern Parents Messy Kids, and Dover Projects) and based on our own experiences, we compiled a mental list of what we wanted (and didn’t want) out of our cover. Our checklist was something like this: Should primarily keep out natural debris (leaves, acorns, etc) and animal “debris”

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How To Build A Sandbox

Building Clara a sandbox has been a project that was nearly a year in the making. Just check out this post about her first birthday party from last May (yes, our girl is a month away from being TWO). So much for “any day now.” My excuse, well, our excuse is that we couldn’t figure out where we wanted it. We debated building one on wheels that could sit in the middle of the patio when in use (and be pulled out of the way and stored at all other times), but with so much land around us it felt like we should just find a permanent spot for one instead of making an eternally-rolling-around

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Fab Freebie: The Killer Radio Star

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – soon to see who won below!*** After a busy giveaway (and a surprising amount of NPR-heads), random.org has selected our winner as… Kathy (who says music is therapeutic to her and on a bad day, songs on the radio can always pick her up). Congrats Kathy! How excited are we to be giving away a Model One Radio this week? You probably know that our cheery yellow one is one of our favorite things that we’ve bought for our new kitchen (more on that here). Sure it’s been dubbed “the best sounding table radio ever made” by some (MSNBC in this case), but our love for it

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Adding White Built-In Bookcases Around A Window

Linn’s built-in project is such a great reminder of how upgrading your bookshelves from furniture to attached “architecture” can really give an entire room a boost. Here’s her letter: I wanted to share a before and after of custom made built-in bookcases which my husband and I constructed! Seeing how our old bookcases left much to be desired in terms of looks but also in terms of practical storage space, and not wanting to spend a fortune having someone else custom build shelves, we decided to take on the project ourselves. I have always loved the cozy look that built-in shelving provides a home, it gives it so much more character and charm in my

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How To Frost A Window With Frosting Film

This post is actually about three bathroom updates, the first of which concerns this baby – the window. Aka the anti-privacy device located conveniently above the place that we do our most private business. It’s kinda ridiculous that we haven’t done anything to it sooner, considering the window is nearly a straight shot view to the neighbor’s house. It’s not like we live right on top of each other – heck, we’re not even sure they can see much from this distance (we can’t see anything in their tiny far-away windows) but it’s still just a little odd to see this whenever we step out of the shower or whenever I’m standing up doing my

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The Peeta-siks (The Hunger Games & Hunger Names)

It’s official. Hunger Games fever has hit Casa Petersik. I actually got it first. I thought I’d take a stab at reading the book before potentially seeing the movie. I had heard it was a quick read, and boy was that right – I knocked it out in 24 hours. Sherry resisted following in my footsteps, thinking she had too much on her plate to squeeze it in. But I convinced her to try one chapter and before she knew it she was closing that book and cracking open Catching Fire (which she finished a few days later, and I’m currently in the middle of). We’re supposed to get our copy of Mockingjay next week.

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How To Change A Toilet

First: I apologize for subjecting you to more pictures of toilets. I’m sure you don’t read our blog for pictures of toilets. But on the other hand, I’m kind of excited to show you pictures of our new, distinctly not-almond toilet. Because, if you recall, this guy wasn’t exactly our cup of tea. We know some folks would have been just fine with Mr Almond, but a crisp white toilet makes us very happy Petersiks. Not only to brighten things up, be more true to the mid-century age of our home, and tie into our newly white-ified trim & shower curtain, but to LOOK CLEAN. I can’t explain it, but even after we scrub this

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Fab Freebie: Bada-Bing, Bada-Bloom

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Random.org has helped us select the winner of this craft-tastic giveaway as… Sarah Spitser (who loves the Spring weather, even though in Texas it only lasts about 3 weeks). Congrats! Last winter we had a blast at the Richmond Craft Mafia’s Handmade Holiday fair (and later gave away some of our favorite finds). And when we caught wind of their Spring Bada-Bing event happening this Sunday we were all sorts of excited. So we worked with them to put together another craft-tastic, wholly-handmade, reeking-of-Richmond prize pack featuring some of the Craft Mafia’s most active members – and it totals over $350 in value! So

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March Superlatives

For those asking where March Superlatives went, here they are! So a happy belated April to ya (it took everything in me not to say “hoppy belated April” by the way). And with the new month already here, that means it’s also time do our regular look back at what March held for the Petersik household (in yearbook style superlatives, of course). We even tossed in some never-before-seen stuff for kicks. Oh and you can check out all out all of our monthly superlatives dating back to January 2011 right here (it’s over a years worth of projects crammed into just 14 posts). This month we’re starting off with some not-yet-mentioned happenings that kept us busy

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Adding A Trellis Stencil To The Bathroom Wall

Before getting to the Reader Redesign goods, we have a quick Burger-related story. Yesterday was a very scary day for us. Burger was sitting on Sherry’s lap and Clara and I came home and Burger was so excited to see us that he jumped off her lap (as he’s done a million times before) and somehow lost his balance and flipped in the air and landed on the floor on his back and neck. He yelped and Sherry scooped him up to see if he was ok but he shook his head and acted fine. So we put him on the floor but he couldn’t walk. He had no balance and walked into the walls

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Fab Freebie: Sharing The Love

*** This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below! *** Good news – the prize pot is now up to over $500! Even better news (at least for one lucky person) random.org has selected our winner as… Karina (who notes that both teaching and learning to share is hard, just ask her kiddos). Congrats Karina! As we mentioned last week along with our curator collection, Joss & Main offers small referral fees in the form of store credit to anyone who refers someone who makes a purchase, but we wanted to pay those forward. So instead of accepting the referral fees, we saved all of those credits up in a separate

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How To Change A Boob Light To A Pendant

The evening after posting our plans for a mini-update to our master bathroom last Monday, Sherry had us in the car and off to hunt down the blue light fixture in her mood board. It’s a Shades of Light fixture that we hoped to find at a local lighting outlet called The Decorating Outlet (which is also where we bought the glass pendants over our peninsula, Clara’s capiz chandelier, and the shade that we added around the chandelier in our office). Sherry was nervous that our luck would run out and they wouldn’t have any in stock – but they actually had not one, but two to choose from. They were half off the original

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