Young House Love

DIY Home Decorating Projects, Tutorials, & Shenanigans

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Black Friday Home Decor Deals (& What We’re Buying)

As is the tradition, I’ve scoured the Black Friday sales (is it me, or do they start earlier every year?) and rounded up my favorite home decor & furniture deals. And John already grabbed some tech items (he’s been waiting for this sale for a while). Our kitchen stools are under $96, our daughter’s bedroom rug is $350 off, and these velvet pillow covers are just $10! Our TV is also 42% off ($250 off!!), the smart plugs John loves are 58% off and his FBAT (favorite backpack of all time) is 65% 0ff. And so much more. Stuff We Already Own (& Love!): These are all things that we have bought with our own money, lived with, and love. And thanks to

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How To Paint A Bathroom Floor To Look Like Cement Tile (For Under $75)!

I hear everyone who’s asking for our annual Black Friday deals post and I’m putting it together as we speak! But in the meantime, you guys have to see this awesome tile transformation that a reader named Angela sent over. She not only COMPLETELY transformed her old blotchy beige bathroom floor, but it was super wallet-friendly (UNDER $75! HOLLA!), and it has already held up for well over half a year without any issues. In a wet bathroom that gets everyday use, no less! I know this is probably going to be hard to believe, but that beautiful bathroom above used to look like this. Again, she did not put down new tile – she

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Painting Our Brick House White!

The weather hasn’t been perfect for photos and our landscaping isn’t looking it’s finest at the moment, but I couldn’t give two flying squirrels because I’M SO FREAKING EXCITED ABOUT OUR PAINTED BRICK HOUSE THAT I LITERALLY CANNOT EVEN. I am unable to even. And I’m a 36 year old suburban mom, so that’s saying something. Our house is so heartbreakingly beautiful I literally would not be surprised if it started glimmering in the sun like Edward the vampire from Twilight. GO WITH ME HERE, THIS POST IS GONNA HAVE A LOT OF CAPS LOCK. You have been warned. Today we’re gonna break it all down – what type of paint we used, why we chose

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My Minimal Wardrobe – How Having A “Uniform” Simplifies My Closet & Saves Me Money

Whenever I’m asked about my clothes, I joke that I wear basically the same thing every day. But it turns out that even after years of saying that (and sharing that I had just one bra for many years on the blog), a whole bunch of people freaked out when they saw the hanging bar in my closet on Instagram recently. I got FLOODED with DMs about my sparse mostly black wardrobe. One person even said that seeing my closet was, and I quote: “the wildest thing they’ve seen on the internet in 2018.” That’s quite the statement considering 2018 also gave us Gritty. To clarify I don’t actually wear the same items of clothing every day

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Exciting Developments At The Duplex

GUYS. GET EXCITED. Lots of major stuff is happening at the duplex. Like extremely thrilling developments that we’ve thought about and planned over the last year and finally… FINALLY!… they’re happening. You last saw the duplex about a month ago when we shared that it was drywalled, and the latest progress has basically put me over the edge. I, Sherry Petersik, am feeling what people refer to as “messy” about these recent developments. It means I’m too excited and it’s not a good look. But you know I can’t contain myself so I’m just gonna share it all anyway. GET READY FOR A CAPS LOCK EXTRAVAGANZA AND LOTS OF PICTURES! That room above is the living

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How To Make Inexpensive Curtains Look A Lot More Polished & Our New Master Bed!

You haven’t seen our master bedroom in a while (except for small peeks on Instagram) because we owe you a certain curtain-related confession. But first, I get so many questions about our new bed – and why we upgraded from our old Ikea one – that I thought it was time to formally introduce you to this beauty that we got nearly a year ago. Yes, as in last November.  bed / nightstand / bench / similar art / similar rug / duvet / chandelier / faux plant Why a new bed? Well, at first glance, our new bed isn’t wildly different from what was there before (which you last saw last May when we

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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 her 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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