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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Aloha Vacation, Aloha New Floors

See “Aloha” means both “Goodbye” and “Hello,” so… yeah… buh bye Hawaii and hello half-done cork floors. We’re back in Richmond (insert forced enthusiasm here – woot?) and we’re eager to tell you more about our trip. But we’re more eager to dive back into DIY and spill all the details about our big cork floor project that we started right before we left (about twenty four hours before we hopped on the plane actually). Oh and for those who didn’t drop in on us last week since our little vacation announcement, we actually did share two posts (along with a giveaway) while we were gone, so you can find those here and here. We’re

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A Dining Room With Board & Batten And Dark Blue Walls

The boldest color we’ve ever used on any wall is Martha Stewart’s Plumage (which we slathered all over our guest room walls). Long story short: we’ve loved it ever since. So when Jackie sent us her dining room makeover boasting lots of Plumage, of course we were all over it. Here’s her letter: “When we moved into this house, the dining room started with just a table and the bamboo armoire. We didn’t even have dining chairs. Over the last six months I prioritized finishing this room in time for the holidays. It is filled with DIY projects including art silhouettes, board and batten walls, mercury glass vases, jute wrapped monogram, and my favorite: the

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Petersiks In Portland

Wow, so yesterday was a fun little whirlwind. We spent pretty much the whole day romping around the Portland Home & Garden Show (minus a break to scarf down some much-recommended Voodoo Donuts – and yes we tried maple bacon – mmmm).  The Expo Center here is stuffed with gorgeous gardens, cool green living ideas, and tons of friendly Portlanders. Or Portlandians? Portlandites? Whatever they’re called, the people here are crazy nice. We’ll give you an actual Portland shopping/stuff we did/house-crashing trip roundup once it’s actually complete (today’s our Explore-The-City day) but for now we’d at least tell you about our time at the show yesterday. It kicked off early with some interviews with the

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How To Install A Dishwasher

As we mentioned on Monday, before we hopped on a plane yesterday, we tackled our bisque colored dishwasher. And let’s just say the stainless one is a crowd pleaser (we like it, but Clara loves it). We’ll get to that in a moment. We had been telling ourselves that it would be better to do this once the new floors went in (so we didn’t accidentally trap it behind the new cork boards or something). But then we realized that was a dumb excuse because we could just slide it on top of a few cork planks so it would be the same height as the rest of the floor once it goes in. Plus

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How To Make An Emergency Kit

After our disaster-filled week last August (we had an earthquake and a hurricane within a week of one another) we had several requests for a post about emergency preparedness. We hemmed and hawed because we’re no experts in that department, but then a couple of actual experts / regular YHL readers reached out to us with emails fulled of information. Phew! So without further ado (since it’s already taken me like 6 months to finally write this post), here are some of the recommendations and information they sent our way. First off, our experts are Amanda F, who has her Master’s degree in this field and worked as an emergency coordinator for a hospital in

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Fab Freebie: Made In Portland

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** As our time in Portland comes to an end, we’re excited to share that the random winner of this very Oregonian prize is… Joyce (who would go all the way back to the late 1700s to check out the Constitutional Convention). Congrats Joyce! Since we’re headed to Oregon this week, we thought we’d send a little bit of Oregon your way in return. So how does $500 in product from Portland-based Rejuvenation sound? They started off as an architectural salvage shop, but now they serve up authentic lighting, hardware, and other home staples from a whole slew of time periods and styles. We’re

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A Diamond Stenciled Tan & White Wall Treament

We don’t have stairs in our house. Which we love. But sometimes it’s a bummer when we see people do fun things with them like Roeshel recently did. And the most impressive part is that she did it without buying anything. You go, girl! Wait, forget I said that… just read her email: I’m sure you guys get a ton of submissions for consideration but I recently gave our stairway a little pizzazz using leftover paint and things we already had on hand. It turned out fun! So I’ve included before and after pictures in the event that you like my crazy little makeover. Before was boring. I cut out a diamond shaped stencil from

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How To Remove Grout Haze

Betcha thought our grouting post was the last time we’d talk about installing our tile, eh? We’ll you’d be incorrect, sir – er, madam? We had a few other less-fun and less-interesting steps once the grout party had wrapped. And since a bunch of folks have asked us to detail the de-hazing and sealing steps… here they are! So stay tuned while I try to make them as interesting as I can. Maybe I should get my laser pointer. Anyone who has tiled knows that grout often leaves a bit of a hazy film on your tile. We saw it on both the subway tile and the marble floor tile in our old bathroom and

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Fab Freebie: Got The Jewels Like Sherry

***This post is no longer accepting entries – check who won below!*** Just like the auditions on The Voice, random.org had it’s big fancy chair turned around as it blindly chose the winner of this week’s giveaway (I secretly picture random.org like Cee-Lo stroking his cat). Anywho, the lucky winner this week is… Aryn (who thinks she might take Zooey Deschanel wardrobe). Congrats Aryn! It’s not quite like the moves like Jagger, but this week you can get the jew-o-o-o-O-o-o-o-els like Sherry. Yep, in honor of Valentine’s Day we’re gonna give one of you some of the same bling bling (is that still a saying?) that I’ve bought my Valentine (aka: Sherry) over the past

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Installing Crown Molding In The Kitchen

We’ve long disclaimered pictures of our kitchen with “oh, and we still need to add crown molding.” But that stops today! The unfinished edge where the wall/tile meets the ceiling… … is no more! Let’s get a little closer… Wait, let’s rewind so I can attempt to tell you how we got there. For all of those who have been wondering about that dark line above our pantry (a few folks asked if the beam was sagging or if there was a hole) – it’s just another spot where we’ve been missing crown molding. Since there had originally been cabinets to the ceiling along that entire side of the kitchen (including one that wrapped around

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Cutting Down A Cabinet For Tool Storage

Our poor tools. Remember how they used to live in our kitchen? Well, they obviously had to move when that whole cabinet went kaput a few months ago in favor of a nice big peninsula that we were adding. Well, I guess the cabinet didn’t go kaput. It just went to live in our sunroom (aka cabinet purgatory) – along with the drawers full of tools, which have been splayed out on our daybed for three months now. Yeah, we’re organized. Not. Come on, let’s bring back “not.” And slap bracelets. Anyway, as Sherry and I embarked on three weeks of photoshoots in our house for our book (you can survey some of that chaos

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Adding Board & Batten With Coat Hooks To The Foyer By The Front Door

A little bit of us is always envious of a proper entryway in a home (since both of ours have been just a door that opens into a room). Plus, with our own plans to do some sort of board and batten in our hallway eventually, we’re totally loving Jenna Sue’s sweet makeover of her foyer. Here’s her email: We’re in the middle of 92,835 projects at our house, but we recently completed one that we’re pretty proud of and I thought I’d pass it your way. Our entryway started out with old white faux marble tile floors, metallic floral wallpaper, and a cheap outdated light fixture. We ended up replacing the floor with travertine-style porcelain tile,

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