Young House Love

DIY Home Decorating Projects, Tutorials, & Shenanigans

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House Crashing: A Jaw-Dropping Old House Transformation

It goes without saying that we’ve always been suckers for a good before & after (show me someone who isn’t and I’ll show you someone who hates fun). But thanks to our adventures in 100-year-old-beach-house-renovations over the past few years, we’re especially fond of seeing people bringing old houses back to their glory. Oh the things you’ll find behind the walls! So when Mandy shared photos of she and her husband Joe’s project in nearby Charlottesville, VA, we were basically cooing over them like two pigeons discovering an old pizza crust on a New York City subway platform. Even without furniture (they fixed it up and then sold it before even needing to furnish it)

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My Top Four Tips For Scoring The Best Secondhand Finds

I take pride in some very strange things. Being able to cartwheel into a pool for example. Or knowing every single word to old commercial jingles and 90’s rap songs. Or the fact that John and I, two righties, somehow made two lefties, which clearly means they’re brilliant (not sure how I can even take credit for this phenomenon, but I do, as well as the fact that our kids are super tall, which is amazing to me as a 5’2″ lady). But one thing I don’t really think about much is my secondhand furniture hunting mojo. I don’t think I have any magic luck or special searching skills. I would generally describe the key

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Fourth of July Party Recipes, Ideas, & General Insanity

Every year on Instagram Stories I share photos from our friend’s insanely over-the-top party for the Fourth of July. And each year we gets tons of requests for a post with all the photos and links to the recipes she uses, so we’re finally giving the people what they want. Our friend Justine has been hosting these backyard soirees for years – and the only way to describe them would be: EXTRA. And we love her for it. She and her husband John basically just throw this huge party every year for all of us to gather and hang out with our kids and each other. It’s such a great time of year to get together

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Duplex Style Inspiration (& How Each Side Will Be Different)

We showed you our beach house style inspiration while the pink house was barely starting to come back together. And now that the duplex is at that same stage, we wanted to share our “vision” for its design – from materials and color ideas to specific room functions or features we’re thinking about incorporating. It’s never too early to start making the 10,000 decisions that a major house reno like this requires because your brain will practically start to smoke if you attempt to pick everything all at once. So from the moment we offered on the duplex, I’ve been keeping a huge Pinterest board to catalog all of the ideas that have popped up and

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Three Bedroom Makeovers For Three Deserving Kids

John and I had the chance to do the most fun and fulfilling project recently: designing new bedrooms for three amazing local kids who are currently going through cancer treatment. We’ve shared a few sneak peeks on Instagram and our podcast, but here’s our big photo-packed post with details on each of the rooms as promised for you guys! We couldn’t be more excited to share them with you. First, some background on the project. A few weeks ago the team at Biringer Builders reached out to us for help. They’re the custom builder we teamed up with back in 2014 to design a charity showhouse for Richmond Homearama (below are some photos of that

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Staging Tips For Selling (Or Just Simplifying!) Your House

How should I stage my house to sell? Should I take down all of my family photos? I’m not selling but I want my house to look good for company- give me some tips! Do I need to add a lot of decorative accessories? Or, wait am I supposed to be taking things away and decluttering?!  These sentences (and about 642 more) have all been slung at me every time I mentioned that I’ve been working on the side as a home stager for a local realtor for over a year. If you haven’t heard about that you can catch up – and get a few bonus stories and tips – by listening to podcast Episode #53, Episode 41, and Episode 88.

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Updated Beach House Tour!

Although we’ve been sharing lots of little peeks of our beach house progress on social media, John and I realized it has been nearly THREE WHOLE MONTHS since we gave you a full tour of everything (since this video tour from back in December!). And not only have there been some big projects since then, like building in a pantry and constructing the bunk beds, there have also been a flurry of smaller updates that we haven’t posted about at all – some that we completed as recently as this past weekend. And thus, this post was born. similar chandeliers / dining chairs (ours are “gray”) / marble “vase” / range hood / glass pendants As usual, I’ll kick

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Read This If Your Fiddle Leaf Figs Keep Dying

Fiddle Leaf Figs. If they’re big and healthy looking they can make the room and we’ve all seen the glossy magazine shots to prove it. They can also ruin your day if you pay a lot for one that later croaks, leaving you feeling like a good-for-nothing plant killer. But not only have I managed to keep my big plants (mostly) alive – I’ve found a new favorite that’s super easy. Fiddle Leaf Fig Care First, let’s talk about the fiddle leaf fig. We, like 99.9% of blogland, have fallen hard for them. We’ve got fiddle leaf fig trees that have been happily cohabitating with us for years: one tall tree that resides in the office and

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Houston, We Have A Big Boy Bedroom (Buh-Bye Crib!)

Our little man’s room is looking a little different these days, thanks to finally being done with the crib (our kids love a crib) and making a few other tweaks to the space while we were at it. He’ll be four this April, and he finally decided he was done with the crib earlier in January, which was bittersweet. We’ve had the same crib in our house for nearly 8 years (!!!) since our daughter used it before him for quite a while too. But it was also exciting because it meant his room was about to get some updates after basically being frozen in time for the past four years (you can read all

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How To Make A Gallery Wall Around A TV

Some say gallery walls are trending out in favor of larger scale art. Maybe. It makes sense that picture gallery walls on every wall (especially the ones with a ton of tiny frames) might feel a little less “new and fresh” these days. But I’d argue that a collection of picture frames hung together on the wall feels pretty classic if you stop and think about it. Watch Home Alone. They totally have a gallery wall going up their formal staircase in the foyer where Kevin sleds and hurls paint cans. But one spot I love for a gallery wall these days is actually around a TV. Why? Well, that big black box isn’t exactly gorgeous.

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Why Renovations Can Make You Want To Scream Into A Pillow Sometimes

Our post on Instagram last night was admittedly a little cryptic. We were having an extra frustrating day thanks to two discouraging duplex-related blows that came flying at us rapid-fire, in the span of a mere 10 hours. We’ve always tried to share the bad and the ugly along with the good – like talking about blowing a timeline or breaking a budget (or a ceramic animal). Or when we can’t find the water meter for a month or we fail our irrigation inspection in three different and spectacular ways). Sometimes on “Bad News Day 1” you don’t really feel like getting into all of the nitty-gritty details because you’re still in that “repeatedly screaming WHYYYY?!?!?”

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How To Repair Broken Or Cracked Inlay (And The Fateful Tale Of A Craigslist Dresser)

Guys, meet the dresser of my beach house dreams. Perhaps you’ve already been introduced on Instagram, but let’s dive into our love story (think: The Notebook, but with a dresser and a person instead of two people). I actually found this amazing piece of furniture on Craigslist. YES CRAIGSLIST! Sorry I’m screaming, but you can imagine how shouty this entire experience made me. And dancey. And weepy (I tear up over beautiful furniture when I feel like it’s fulfilling its furniture destiny). Yes, I just typed the words furniture destiny. Anywayyyyy, it’s safe to say this is the best Craigslist score of my life since I got it for $400 and the exact same dresser

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