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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The Pros & Cons Of Front Loading Washers And Top Loading Washing Machines

Well, our new washer and dryer have arrived! And we promised to share how the installation went, what we did with the floors under them, and how we like them so far (that’s where things really get interesting). We realized a few days ago that we’ve had a whole bunch of different laundry situations. In our first house we had front loaders with a counter… In our second house we had stacked front loaders with cubbies next to them… … and in this house we’ve had top loaders with cabinetry above them. Here are the new guys sitting pretty (although not quite as pretty as the others since we haven’t tackled the rest of this

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Picking Out A New Top Loading Washer And Dryer

In what can only be described as a one-two punch of home-ownership havoc, our washer officially died right on the heels of the big plumbing debacle that we detailed for you guys yesterday. Yup, remember when we mentioned that we hoped it would be a simple and inexpensive fix here? Well, the appliance gods must have been softly giggling as we typed that. The repair guy took one look at the corroded interior of our old machine (rusted bolts, a broken belt, etc) and said “I could attempt to band-aid this for $200, but I don’t think it would run for very long – honestly, I wouldn’t put another dollar into this machine.” And that

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How To Organize A Craft Closet

So it turns out I’m Monica Geller. I get questions like those pretty regularly: Q: “I was hoping you could tell us how you organize your crafty supplies…mine seem to be spread all over the house!” – Chris Q: “Can you give us a peak at how/where you store your craft stuff? Is it obvious that I’m kind of hoping you have a secret Monica Geller closet?” – Katie And my answers are usually all strained and sputtery like this: “Our craft closet is a GIANT mess (and it’s in the guest room so they can peek in there and scream). Everything is piled into a few baskets, and there are even some paper grocery

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A Soft Neutral Paint Color For The Nursery

Goin’ to the chapel and we’re…. gonna have a bay-yay-yay-by. Ok, so that’s not how the song goes, but it is the paint color that we chose for the walls of the nursery (which is pretty sweet considering the name of the paint that we used in Clara’s nursery in our last house was Proposal). Honestly, color names don’t sway us. We’re pragmatic pick-our-favorite-swatch-not-our-favorite-name folks. But it’s always nice when they’re not something ominous. You know, like Sleepless Nights or Zombie Spawn. Back when we shared our plans for the room with this makeshift mood board of sorts, a few commenters asked if we were going to paint the walls that bold green tone. We

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Books For A New Big Sister (or Brother)

A few folks have asked what we’re doing to prepare Clara for a younger sibling, beyond getting her a baby boy doll when we found out it was a boy in there (she still has a deep love for Captain Barnacles – more on him here and here). Mostly we have just been chatting with her about how she’s going to be a big sister and she seems really excited to “give him bottles and change his diapers and carry him *like this* and share my toys.” We’ve also tried to involve her in fun activities for him, like letting her pick out a stuffed toy for him (she chose one with a mustache)… …

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How To Make A Terrarium

As a bunch of you saw on Facebook and Instagram, we went on a giant lumber run, which means there’s a whole lotta building that’s about to commence in the nursery. But first we have to paint the walls and ceiling, so we hope to knock that out today and tomorrow (and have an update for you guys on Monday). Three cheers for finally saying goodbye to those door-overspray marks on the wall! And while we get our paint on, I thought I’d share a nice and easy “anyone-can-do-it” project (involving living things, ahh!). Most importantly: there’s a tiny deer living in a tiny glass house in our house. And the good news is that

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Review Of Our Nest Thermostat

Blogging is sort of a funny hamster wheel because we’ll do, buy, install, or build something, blog about it, and then we’ll move onto blogging about other projects, purchases, and updates. So it means we’re not always great at keeping you posted on those older things that we’ve already talked about since we’re so busy sharing new stuff. Which explains why we get update requests for things in our archives all the time. So here’s a big ol’ collection of them for you guys, which marks the second one in this series (here’s our first one from a few years back, so you can check out if we covered other topics you’ve wondered about there). Our

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Vintage Gold Chairs In The Kitchen

Maybe we should change the name of our site to WCL (Wire Chair Love), because guess who found four awesome vintage wire chairs for the kitchen for $15 a pop? This girl (*points to self with thumbs, notices there’s peanut butter on one thumb, and licks it off while beaming at pretty new chairs*) Allow me to paint you a picture of chair-finding glory. We’re walking into our favorite local thrift store (Love of Jesus on Midlothian for any thrift-lovin’ locals). We pop in there a few times a month just to see what’s up, and 9 times out of 10 we leave empty handed, so it’s not like we’re always finding amazing things, but

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My Must-Have Maternity Clothing List

So a few folks have asked for a little post over here about my “maternity style” which makes me laugh because I’m not a stylish prego gal: I just want my maternity clothes cheap, durable, and comfortable. I’m one of those moms with dog hair on my shirt and half of a sandwich inexplicably stuck to the back of my leg whether I’m pregnant or not (as a sidenote, I’m very popular with both Burger and Clara for exactly this reason). But I thought I’d humor you guys and just share more of a quick recap about how I get through being pregnant without spending an arm and a leg in the hopes that perhaps

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A Fast Bedroom Makeover

Well, it’s late on Sunday night as I sit down to write this post. We just got back from a whirlwind weekend in Northern Virginia, where we did everything from helping John’s sister with a bedroom update to buying some stuff for the nursery. So today we’ll be chronicling ten things that we helped Carrie shop for, hang, and install into her bedroom for a nice little “adult upgrade.” And here’s Carrie now… She recently asked us to help her to create a “grown up bedroom” after saving up some cash over the last few years since our painting sesh in her apartment back in 2011 (remember that?). She told us that she was ready

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How To Paint A Chevron Pattern On Wood

It’s no secret that I love giving various paint treatments a try – like stenciling a pillow, two toning a chair, painting patterns on baskets, or even tracing raindrops right onto the wall – and I’ve been excited to share this one. Some of you eagle-eyes even noticed it in the background of Friday’s post and asked for details. Now that Clara’s thrift store cradle is in heavy rotation (Captain Barnacle is often found being rocked, fed, or changed in there) and Clara has clearly established her love of red, blue, and pink, I used it to test drive a deceptively simple free-handed pattern. It’s probably the most “intricate” pattern I’ve ever freehanded, but it’s

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Cottage Crashing: Rustic Rassawek

Ack, sorry for the late post – technical difficulties. We’re excited to share the cottage that we mentioned on Friday, especially since a bunch of you seemed anxious for us to spill all the beans (and a lot more photos). So here’s the deal: it’s about 45 minutes west of Richmond in Columbia, Virginia, it’s called Rassawek, and it’s a bonafide log cabin from 1910. It was actually moved to this location by the family who owns Rassawek (which is also a vineyard) and there were all sorts of other fun out-buildings nearby (many of which were moved as well) along with the coolest treehouse we’ve ever seen. So let’s get this tour started… John’s

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