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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How To Hide The Cable Box With A Remote

When we last left off with our little media cabinet we had cleaned all of the grime off (with a Magic Eraser of all things) as well as removing the musty smell from the drawers with vinegar, but we mentioned that we still wanted to hide the cable box in one of the drawers somehow, and also had to seal the wood with something to lock in the color and shine. Well, we finally got ‘er done thanks to some technology and some good old fashioned elbow grease. So here’s how we went about getting that cable box off the ground. We drilled a bunch of large holes in the back of the top middle

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Painting Our Kitchen A Soft Blue Color: Colorado Gray

Can I get a kitchie kitchie ya ya da da? (name that song) Also, we painted the kitchen. SURPRIIIISE! We’ve mentioned that we’ve been flirting with the idea in our last two Listy McListersons (here and here), and when Nonna came to hang with Clara this past week we jumped at the chance to tear the kitchen apart and get to it. Just to keep it real, we grabbed this shot to demonstrate that when one room is getting love, some nearby room is getting dumped. It’s like saying “kitchen, will you accept this rose?” and meanwhile we’re sending the dining room packing (with a bunch of extra baggage). There’s usually one of these “displacement

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House Crashing: Sisterly Digs

We can’t believe it’s been five years (!!!) since we house crashed John’s sister Emily. And since they’ve completed a lot more rooms (we crashed them right after they moved in), we can’t wait to share the goods. Oh and their front door is Cornichon by Martha Stewart. Every time we pull into her driveway it makes me smile. Here’s that cute family of ours now. You might remember that Emily lives with her hubby Todd, three kids, and a pretty sizable pooch named Tuck – so this is a hard working house with a big dog, a four year old, a tween, and a teen running around. We love that it always feels welcoming and

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How To Save Money On Electrical Work

Ok, so we recently had some work done. Nope, not calf implants, but you’re close… How about can implants? Also known as recessed lighting. And we went for a pendant injection while we were at it (when in Rome…). Actually the wide shot shows more of the chaos that ensued just to get the room ready for its close up (we removed half of Karl The Sectional and pushed him across the room along with rolling back the rug and covering the floor with drop clothes under each work area). Can you believe we’re well into year three of living here and we’ve never had overhead lights in the living room (except for one small

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Updating A Thrift Store Doll’s Cradle

Psst- We’re still at work on the living room (you got a preview of that mess project here) so we’ll be back with those details on Monday (barring any unforeseen catastrophes).  Woot, it’s Friday y’all. I’ll pause while you celebrate with a desk/cubicle/subway/couch dance. Speaking of rejoicing, for every time that we share heavier DIY related projects (laying a stone patio, building a deck, renovating our kitchen, or even adding board & batten) there are always a ton of little updates that we tackle – sometimes for less than $5 in under 5 minutes. Which explains why our Projects page is full of those things too (you know we love a smorgasbord). So after sharing

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Store Crashing: Gelati Celesti

We’ve only store crashed a few times (like this cute local kids consignment shop or this office crashing from Charlotte) but when a local ice cream store called Gelati Celesti opened up in our neighborhood, not only was the ice cream pretty darn good, so was the design. In fact, we actually thought a lot of it could translate into someone’s home (so it’s not just a “commercial” look that you can’t implement in your own kitchen). Let’s have a look around on this fine Wednesday afternoon, shall we? When you walk in the awesome black-framed doors surrounded by black-framed windows and look to the left, there’s a rustic whitewashed plank wall with a prep

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Tips For Mixing Prints And Patterns

Q: I really love Clara’s room! Great color choices. Do you have a formula for mixing prints? I love how they are all so different – even the colors and yet they all compliment each other and totally make the room! For my boys room, I am mixing prints but find it gets very busy looking or I tend to go with the same color making it kind of boring looking.  – Cappy A: It’s funny that this comment came in about a day after I ran around Clara’s room photographing a bunch of the patterns going on in there in the hopes of making a little grid to show how we mixed & matched

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Our 32 Favorite Home Paint Colors

Alternate punny post title: Gimme Some Moore. Yes, that was a Busta Rhymes reference. Dude, that song was my junior year jam. And speaking of jams, our new nail gun is our latest. John’s totally ready to get his crown molding install on this weekend, assuming he can wrestle it out of my hands. Just gotta let these guys acclimate a little bit longer… So while the crown molding gets to know our house a little better (and I dreamily gaze at it while whispering sweet nothings) we’re excited to share our 2013 Benjamin Moore paint picks! We’re a little tardy for the party with this – and a big thanks to everyone who has

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We’re About To Tackle Board & Batten, Baby!

It’s Wednesday the 27th… so it’s time to share this season’s (completely unofficial) Pinterest Challenge project (not sponsored by Pinterest or anyone else, just dreamed up by Katie to make us stop pinning and start doing). Huzzah! And this season’s challenge was the biggest one we’ve tackled by far. We tried our hand at adding some character with some easy board & batten in our formerly bare hallway. Which now, a week later, is looking like this. Woot! Is it weird that I’ve been sitting on the floor just staring at it? A few folks who had already installed board & batten or wainscoting commented last week to say that pictures don’t do it justice

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Listy McListerson: Updated

Warning: this is longer than the Oscars, so feel free to fast forward to the good parts. These posts actually came about when people asked how we organize all the stuff we have on our to-do list. We explained that we basically just have one long run-on document, and when folks kept asking us to share it (and update it as we went along), it sounded like our idea of a good time. And it’s high time that we actually updated it considering it has been ten months since we last shared it! Yowsa. In an attempt to keep our eyes from crossing when we read it, we separated what we’ve done in each room

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Finishing Touches In The Playroom

Mwah, hah, hah. Picture me laughing like a cartoon villain while rubbing my hands together maniacally. That’s sort of how I feel when I get to the “finishing touches” part of a room. Home stretch bay-bay! Remember how the middle makes no sense? Well, this weekend I think we rounded a corner thanks to a few small tie-things-together updates (you know, between all the board & batten we’re furiously installing/caulking/painting for Wednesday’s big reveal). So let’s take a look-see, shall we? As you can see, we finally got a new sheet set for the daybed (just a basic navy blue 100% cotton set from Target for a twin bed) to replace the worn and faded

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Squeezing In Some Craftiness

Since we always share our road trip adventures with the Bowers (like this one, this one, and this one), here’s a long overdue recap of our most recent visit – which included lots of kid fun, a fair amount of antiquing & crafting, and even a little luxurious mom outing for good measure (along with a really cute gift idea). Let’s jump right in, shall we? Oh but for those looking for pictures of us doing sexy exciting things like cutting wood and using a nail-gun, that’s going on as you read this. The soundtrack of the day is bam-bam-bam! Yes, we’ve begun our big board & batten project and can’t wait to share our

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