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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Making Five Dollar Art With Colored Paper

Remember that grid of eight Ribba frames above our sectional (that we got right the second time around)? Well, we figured out some in-the-meantime “art” for them (so we don’t have to stare at those brown squares every night). You know, until we come up with something better. And it only cost us five bucks. Okay, $5.17 if you’re being picky. So worth it. We’re still not 100% sure what we want there in the long run, but we’re leaning towards something graphic and colorful. And since the brown frame back is the opposite of that, we wanted to at least put something in there temporarily that wouldn’t cost much or take any time to

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How To Hang A Grid Of Picture Frames

2, 4, 6, 8, Who Do We Appreciate? Planning! And why do we appreciate it? Because we get burned when we don’t do it. At least we did on the frame arrangement we just hung above our sectional. Here’s the story. We’ve always planned to take the big empty space above Karl and do a grid of large picture frames. We sort of envisioned it as a larger version of the frame grid that we hung above the couch in our old den… … but instead of 8 x 10″ frames we’d use oversized 20.5 x 20.5″ Ribba frames from Ikea for more impact (since we already own and love four of them – and

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How To Remove A Fan And Hang A Light

Happy New Year!!! (that sentiment will make sense in a little while – hold tight) The time had come to bid adieu to the fan in our bedroom so we could introduce a light fixture with a bit more interest. Hold on fan lovers. Put the pitchforks (or fan blades?) down and let me explain. We also removed the ceiling fan in our first home’s bedroom and picked up a high-powered Hunter table fan that did the trick, which we plan to use regularly in the warmer months here as well. It’s not that we’re anti fan – my wife likes to make the beyond corny joke that we’re “fan fans” – but we just

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Covering Drywall Cracks With A Ceiling Medallion

Whitney Houston once famously said “crack is whack.” I don’t think she had the ceiling of Clara’s room in mind when she said it, but hopefully she’d agree that the situation around Clara’s aqua-colored capiz chandelier could indeed be called “whack.” You never saw this in any previous photos – nor could you really notice it that much in real life – but when installing Clara’s light fixture (which we got here for $50) we became well aware of this unsightly ceiling problem that was previously hidden beneath the larger based ceiling fan. So we finally got around to fixing it. And it was easy thanks to this $19 ceiling medallion that we got at

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Fab Freebie: Line Drawings

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries –  see who won below!*** Thanks to random.org’s, our three winners are Jane (who considers herself an accomplished doodler – especially during a meeting), Molly T (who dubbed herself the least crafty person ever) and Lizz (who’s no artist, but is killer at Pictionary). Congrats ladies! You guys probably know Freshline Illustration from our monthly sponsor shout outs, but soon three of you will know them as the ones who hooked you up with some sweet art / pillows / stationery for your own home. And many of Freshline’s colorful and playful illustrations can be personalized with monograms, anniversary dates, or even your full family tree. PRIZE: A

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Using Side Tables As Night Stands

Okay, make that two night stands. Though technically they’re just the living room side tables… … that were displaced by the arrival of Karl. So even though they’re not technically nightstands, we love our Target tables (from the Victoria Hagan collection, purchased a few years back) and those seeded glass lamps (from the now sadly non-existent Nate Berkus collection at Linens N’ Things) too much to let them go unused. So they’ve now found a new home in the master bedroom. At least for now. Not only do they start to balance the room more, they’re a huge help in the function department. Sherry’s poor short arms couldn’t take storing her cell phone and magazines

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5 Places To Eat, Shop, And See In Richmond, VA

Today’s a cool day – it’s marks our 5th anniversary of living in Richmond. On this date in 2006, Sherry and I woke up on an air mattress in my Upper West Side apartment (she had already moved all of her stuff out of her Soho studio and turned in the keys) to greet my dad, who had driven up in the mini-van that would move us and all of our worldly belongings (hence the air mattress – we had sold our mattresses) to the River City. Seven hours and one stop at Ikea later we arrived at our new apartment in Richmond – unemployed, unwed, and uncontrollably excited about the life ahead of us.

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Now Our Guests Can Shower

Progress has been made in the guest bathroom, folks. Which is good news since we’re less than 30 hours away from the arrival of Sherry’s mom and stepdad. Our first score was finding a shower curtain. Despite being burned by pattern in our last shower curtain attempt, we bought this guy at Target on Friday for about $20. It definitely still looks kinda rough in there (still have to paint the walls and hang art, but we don’t think we’ll get to that before the inlaws arrive, uh, tomorrow). But getting back to the shower curtain, we think the pattern works much better because it’s bigger when it comes to the scale. The large medallions

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Our First Time Shopping For A Mattress: What We Learned

Believe it or not, the mattress we just purchased for our guest bedroom is the first one either of us have ever really “shopped” for in the traditional sense. Everything before was a hand-me-down from family or purchased for cheap from Goodwill (that’s actually where we got the two daybed mattresses, which were bought pre-bed bugs days – although they did claim to sanitize them before reselling ’em). Oh and of course there’s our organic mattress, which we bought online (amazingly enough, they helped us find the perfect “fit” without having to be there to test things out). So admittedly the task of in-person bed-shopping was a bit daunting at first. We wanted to do

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When To Use Tinted Primer

As scheduled, our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore picked up our donation items yesterday. That, combined with us moving tons of frames and accessories into the future playroom (for now), meant the guest bedroom went from this: To this: Not exactly ready for the inlaws (who are arriving on Thursday – yikes) but at least it’s no longer a junkyard. The reason that photo was taken after dark was because once Clara went to bed last night we decided to earn ourselves some brownie points and paint the room. Yup, we’re total suck ups who love extra credit. We figured it’d be easier to paint while it’s empty (the new bed is coming early next week-

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Dog Adjusting To A New House

Some of you have asked how Burger’s getting along in the new house. Short answer: great. Short answer with a fancy Mary-Poppins-ish twist: just splendidly. It only took him a day or two to figure out where his food bowl now lives and which door to wait at when he needs to go out. Other than that, he seems to be having fun discovering (and re-discovering) his favorite spots to hang. Here are some shots from the last two months to document his love for the new casa. This one was taken pretty much right after we moved in. He quickly identified this sun-warmed corner of the rug in the living room and loved to

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A Console Table In A Hallway

Our entry table from the old house naturally landed right next to the front door of the new house too. It has lived there since day one without much second thought. Until recently. Just for fun we moved it to a new spot and ended up liking it there more. It wasn’t a major relocation. It just sorta “drifted” down the hallway a bit. The new spot seems to suit it better for some reason. It’s probably a combination of these 3 things: It moved from an unpainted rough looking space to a painted area that feels more polished. Visions of the previous owners’ furniture linger in our minds (they had a console there too).

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