Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

Posts by Sherry Petersik

Sherry Petersik is one half of the duo behind the award-winning home improvement and do-it-yourself design blog, Young House Love. Together, she and her husband John 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 DIY Vacation Jars For Your Travel Keepsakes

Inspiration can come from the strangest places, so I wasn’t even surprised when I saw some cool old canning jars in a recent Pottery Barn catalog and needed to take a closer look. Upon closer inspection I realized they were antique bell jars filled with shells, sand, and even just ocean water with fancy labels that said things like “Mikonos” and “Fiji”. Adorable. So I looked around and realized I had at least one or two keepsakes from each and every vacay that John and I have spent together. Why not put them on display instead of in a box in the closet? So after a trip to Michael’s to pick up 6 canning jars

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Five Moving Tips To Make Things Easier

This weekend we helped John’s sister and brother-in-law move into their fabulous new home (that they just happened to design themselves) and along with some obligatory back pain we took away some pretty fail-safe moving advice. And now that we’re in the know, we figured we’d share the wealth. After a picture of their breathtaking new kitchen of course: Moving Tip #1: Clean top to bottom. When you’re cleaning something in your new home (like the kitchen cabinets before you load in all your dishes, or a closet before you add the linens), it only makes sense to start from the top. This way any spare dirt or dust that doesn’t stick to your rag

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A Little Anniversary Love

Dear house, We remember moving in exactly two years ago like it was yesterday. And boy were we head over heels for you from the start. God knows why when we look back at the first exterior picture that we took… But you had us at hello. Even when you greeted us with that crazy shelf divider in the living room complete with a stained glass square and a faux stone linoleum landing. And who wouldn’t have been charmed by that dated dining room wallpaper and the ancient kitchen cabinetry that shouted “Paul Bunyan wuz here”? Sure the master bedroom was kinda nondescript, but we were positively over the moon about our first pale blue-gray

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Decorating A Coffee Table

Always one to spice it up around the house, I wasted no time giving our living room’s $30-thrift-store-find-of-a-coffee-table a lighter look for the warmer weather. Here’s the old bookish, low-profile version: And here’s the new lighter, more reflective version: I like exposing more of the glass tabletop for a simpler (and easier to dust) silhouette. And two stacks of books on the bottom shelf really balance the oversized vase that might otherwise look too big for the table. For a finishing touch, the sculptural white shell ball and antler candlestick add some interesting lines without overwhelming. And I even got to have some fun with a knife to pull the whole thing together… When I

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Hanging A Capiz Chandelier In The Bedroom

Warning: what you are about to read will probably make you $59.99 poorer but 59.99% giddier. The gorgeous capiz chandelier that we have in our bedroom generates its fair share of compliments and “where’d you get that?!” remarks. Which is actually no surprise since we discovered it when Domino magazine raved about how fantastic it was (with a fantastic price to match- just $99). But thanks to a recent West Elm sale, our beloved capiz beauty is now available for an almost inconceivable $59.99. Be still my beating heart. And not only does it come in the luminescent white color that we adore, it’s also offered in this gorgeous sand color that they call “mocha.”

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Trimming Back Some Overgrown Azaleas

As you last saw a few weeks ago, we removed our shoddy screen door and painted the door behind it a brilliant lipstick red. Then we ripped down the scalloped header with vigor and shared the victorious results. But Project Pimp My Porch is far from complete. We still need to relay the front walkway, because it looks bad (really bad). But while we work up the energy to tear up the jagged slate and create a wider and more level pathway, I took it upon myself to get going on some much needed front landscaping. See, after azaleas look spectacular for three long weeks in April, they’re immediately supposed to be cut back when

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Another Dirty Little Secret

We’ve been sneaky. No, not living-a-double-life sneaky… secret-vacation sneaky. That’s right. John and I quietly slipped away to a tiny series of islands off the west coast of Florida and have spent the past seven days swimming in the Gulf of Mexico, eating boatloads of seafood, blogging from the beach, and working on our tans (or in my case, sunburning my left ear). We’ve had mucho fun celebrating what we affectionately refer to as “Honeymoon Part Two” (since our actual honeymoon nine months ago was spent in the far northwest: Alaska, we thought it was fitting to continue our celebration of newlywedism in the far southeast this time). And just like “Honeymoon Part One,” our

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Removing The Scalloped Trim On Our Porch For A Cleaner Look

Since you see the front of our house all the time in the blog header, you may be surprised to learn that it’s due for a major overhaul. Sure it looks sweet from afar (especially when all those azaleas are in bloom) but the sad truth is that up close it’s definitely less than picture perfect. The old slate path is jagged and chipped. The country looking scalloped header above the porch is totally not our style. And the screen door is old and rotten. We tried to save it for a little while by painting it a cheerful yellow, but sadly it had still seen better days. So yesterday I said “smell ya later”

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