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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Full Circle

This is a free Dremel that I got from the DIY Network. I know what this looks like. Like I’ve broken our no-free-swag rule. But this was given to me back in 2003, long before our self-imposed policy took effect (hence its worse-for-wear appearance). Heck, it even pre-dates our blog, our first home purchase, and even our relationship (we didn’t meet until 2004, and didn’t start dating ’til 2005). So now you’re probably wondering what the single, 21-year-old, apartment-dwelling, college student version of me did to deserve a free tool from a home improvement network. Well, it’s because I was currently rocking the prestigious title of “intern.” That’s me in August of 2003 on the

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Fab Freebies: Family Ties

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Although only 3 will win free prints, everyone can score free shipping on Genuinely Yours orders before June 30th with code YHL2011FS. And according to random.org, our trio of winners are… Alicia (whose family all shares their mom’s dark eyes), Sondra (who feels like she gave birth to three exact clones of her husband) and Erica (whose first two kids have her eyes, but the third got daddy’s). Congrats ladies! This giveaway combines some of our favorite things: silhouettes, colorful art, and family (if there were a ceramic animal or a map involved, our heads might explode). So needless to say, this prize

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Our Weekly Baby Photo Project Continues

Clara’s first birthday last Saturday made for a natural conclusion to 52 weeks of fabric-filled photo-y goodness (click here to see ’em larger). But we’re going to keep going. Kind of. Before we move on to that though, let’s talk about the last photo-filled year. We’re just as surprised as anyone that we managed to maintain our weekly ritual fifty-two times in a row. In fact, today is the first Friday in 12 months that we haven’t busted out the camera, a yard of discount fabric, and a white-onesied Clara, and then used Photoshop to add the week number to her onesie after the fact. It’s kinda sad in a way. But just looking at

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How To Build A Fence

As several of you noticed in Monday’s party recap, our patio area boasted another feature on Saturday (beyond more balloons and little kids than you can count). Yep, there’s a new 6′ privacy fence going on back there. When did it get installed? In the sliver of days between completing the patio and hosting the party. But time was so tight that I didn’t get to blog about it until after the bean’s shindig (aka: today). Here’s how it all went down up. Throughout my patio-ing, Sherry regularly reminded that me she wanted to beef up the fence situation between us and the neighbor before Clara’s birthday party. Her goal was to prevent this big

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Fab Freebie: Give Me Liberty

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** According to random.org, our lucky winner who is getting their wish for Liberty is: Cindy A (who joins the crowd who loves oil-rubbed bronze). Congrats! If clothes make the man, you might say that hardware makes the kitchen. So it’s pretty sweet that Liberty Hardware is hooking one of you up with the chance to give your whole kitchen (or bathroom, for that matter) a major facelift thanks to $400 (yep, four-zero-zero) worth of knobs, pulls, switch plates, hooks, or anything else from their stylin’ catalog. So this could be your shot to make your kitchen more modern with sleek stainless steel pulls

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How To Build A Paver Patio

Hallelujah, the patio is done! I’ve caught my breath a little bit and regained feeling in most of my muscles, so I’m back to tell you the end of the tale. Let’s see, where did we leave off? Oh yeah, with us me passed out on the mostly-laid pavers late Friday night. As you know from Sherry’s post yesterday, we took Saturday off to have some family time / start Mother’s Day early. Then on Sunday afternoon, I decided to take an hour or two to finish cutting the pavers around the edge. Apparently my day away from patio made me forget how much effort each step of this process takes. My “hour or two”

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Fab Freebie: The Royal Treatment

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** According to random.org, the royal treatment is going to Cathleen Pearson (who feels bad for Kate’s balding husband). Congrats! No, not those royals. The majesty behind this giveaway comes from Royal Design Studio, whose stellar stencils will turn your walls into a stylish statement piece (but not in the way that a certain hat made a statement on a certain princess’ head recently). We’re crazy inspired by all of the stylish patterns and fresh color combos they showcase, and one of you will score $100 towards anything you find on their site. Enough chatter – feast your eyes on these babies (Sherry’s over

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How To Lay A Paver Patio: Gravel, Sand, And Stones

The last four days have been nutzo in Patio Land for us (not to be confused with Temptation Island- remember that show?). The good news is that it’s nearly done. Like 90% done. But since I’m a bit low on energy at the moment (and we have to wait for better light to take more pictures), I’m gonna cover as much of our four-day patio-extravaganza as I can muster. The rest will come a bit later when we’re 100% finished (and have a chance to take about a million after shots from every angle). To recap: as of last Monday the area was all marked, leveled, and dug up. Then on Tuesday our nearly 10-ton

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How To Fix A Broken Pendant Light

The other day I flipped on the lights in our kitchen and noticed one of the two pendants over the table was out. No biggie, right? The previous owners had thoughtfully left us a spare bulb (since they take tiny special ones) so I popped it in there and voi… nothing. Darn. Apparently my fix wouldn’t be that easy. I’m no electrician, but I figured-slash-hoped I could diagnose and solve the problem without having to call in help and/or buy a new light. Not that we have any special attachment to these fixtures in particular. In fact, we’ll probably replace them for one larger light fixture over the island that we plan to add when

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How To Prep and Level A Paver Patio

Digging is right up there with the Kardashians for me. As in, I’m getting tired of it (What? I’m a guy – we don’t like those shows). I knew there’d be a lot of it involved in DIYing our patio (digging, not Kardashians), but I think I got a false sense of confidence after all of that liriope came up relatively easily last week. Next up was removing the brick path which, based on the looseness of some bricks on the edge, I said to Sherry “shouldn’t be that bad.” At least I can pinpoint the very moment I jinxed myself. Do you hear that? It’s the sound of the universe laughing at me. As

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Fab Freebie: Sew Sweet

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Thanks to random.org, these three ladies are getting a kick start to Mother’s Day: Traci (who inherited her mother’s worrying skills!), April (who got her mom’s love of shopping, travel and new things) and Stacy (who inherited the gift of being a good cook from her mom). Because becoming a mom has mysteriously given Sherry the urge to learn how to sew (more on that here and here) we thought we’d use this pre-Mother’s Day giveaway to dish out TWO fabric-tastic prizes to THREE lucky winners. And they won’t have to sew a stitch because it has already been done for ’em. The

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Our New House’s Exterior

First of all, the outpouring of kindness and support that you guys showed to our family yesterday is both humbling and amazing. Thanks for the helpful words of encouragement and for sharing your stories. But enough with the heavy stuff. How about something light and fluffy? Let’s go on a looooong overdue photo tour of our yard (a la Katie B’s), shall we? You’ve gotten a few select glimpses of what we’re working with in this post about our carport/driveaway, this post about our “alley”, and this one about the magnolia out front. But there’s plenty more to show (that’s your warning that this post will be photo-heavy – so much so that it took

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