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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A Kids Closet With Some Play Space In It

The closet in the spare room used to be packed with things like luggage, wrapping paper, gift bags, and a bunch of other clutter that had to be dealt with in order to free up space for actual playing and Clara-storage (since this is now the playroom/big girl room instead of a room full o’ junk). So we took everything out (except for the photo albums & yearbooks up top) and it magically disappeared. Just kidding, it ended up in the guest room closet. Which actually seems ok since we’re on year three of living here (CRAZY!) and we haven’t noticed any guests using the guest closet at all, so it made sense for us

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Knock Knock… Who’s There?…

It’s high time for the winter Pinterest Challenge (not sponsored by Pinterest or anyone else, just dreamed up by Katie Bower to make us stop pinning and start doing). The whole Pinterest Challenge thing started around a year and a half ago when Katie called me to say that she thought we should challenge ourselves to make one thing each season that’s inspired by all the fun stuff that we’ve pinned (and call it… wait for it… The Pinterest Challenge). It’s a welcome slap of stop-pinning-and-start-doing. So slip into your Hoodie Pillow (please tell me you’ve seen that on Shark Tank), sip on some hot chai, and grab some supplies. It’s time to get this DIY

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Framing Kid Clothing And Adding A Few Fun Wall Hooks

This adorable handmade poncho was actually brought back from Peru by my amazing sister-in-law a few years ago (thanks Ali!), and I was literally counting down the days until Clara was big enough to wear it. She has gotten a ton of use out of it over the last few years and it even made it onto the cover of a local mag (it was perfect for the holiday colors they were going for). But alas, Clara’s a growing bean, so it’s a little on the small size these days. Which would ordinarily make me want to cry, but I’ve been planning Phase 2 (aka: Operation Keep This Poncho Forever) for a while. $herdog had

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Hanging Decorative Birdcages In A Kids Room

Put a birdcage on it. That’s right, why stop at putting a bird on something when you can put an entire birdcage on it? Follow up question: why stop at one when you can go with three? Sidenote: we’ve gotten a few questions about the brown sheet on the daybed, so the deal with that is that we still haven’t picked up sheets for the bed, but they’ll most likely be navy and most definitely won’t be that crazy old tan sheet that has been on this daybed for around six years! Haha. So just try to ignore that for now if you can. But back to the birdcages. I’ve been itching to hang these

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How To Make A Floating Frame

Let’s make a floating frame, shall we? I did a little frame hack that’s super easy and free if you have a few basic items on hand – or only a few bucks even if you don’t. So for anyone out there who likes the look of a floating glass frame but doesn’t want to pay around twenty bucks for one, you can probably use an old frame that you already have to whip one up. First, I colored this cool printable that I mentioned in that original art-hanging post (which I got here, printed on card stock at home, and colored with regular old colored pencils). Then I was about to run out and

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DIY Valentines For School

We made some easy Valentine’s Day goody bags for our daughter’s classmates. The first thing we did was troll the aisles of Target (we hit up The Dollar Spot, and Valentine’s Candy section, and the kid’s party aisle, just to check out everything that was left). In The Dollar Spot in the front of the store, we found these cute little clear bags in a set of 20 for $1. Sold! Then we walked over to the party aisle, where they sell lots of kid-items in bulk, like stickers and markers and even glow sticks. After mulling over all of our options, we settled on some little boxes of washable markers, which were $2 for

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Avoiding Buyer’s Remorse & Purchasing Paralysis

Q: “How do you know when you’re investing in the right piece for a room? I’m paralyzed to pull the trigger and then later realize the table, curtains, or rug I’m currently eying aren’t ‘the answer’ for my room and then spend years regretting them.” – Melissa We get a lot of questions like this one. So after around six years spent decorating two houses on a pretty modest budget, with a nice heaping portion of mistakes and trial and error worked in there, here’s what we’ve learned. We definitely don’t get it right every time. Sometimes we’re too risky, and sometimes we’re too safe, and sometimes the proportion or the size of something is

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Hanging Small Wall Ledges For Flash Cards, Postcards, Or Books

Aw yeah, we’re living on the ledge. We’ve been waiting to hang our postcard shelves from our first house’s office for over two years and we finally found the right spot for them. Ba-dow: We detailed the whole how-we-made-them process here (you should click that just to see how tiny Clara was) so here’s how we adapted them for this space: we measured how wide the dresser that would sit under them was (we thought they’d look top-heavy and odd if they were a foot longer, which they were at first) we lopped off the extra length on a miter saw, so they were all 2″ narrower than the dresser that sits under them we

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Using Annie Sloan Chalk Paint And Soft Wax

Dudes and dudettes, I finally tried chalk paint. And yes, I just broke out dudettes. Gutsy move for 2013, eh? Anyway, many of you guys have asked if I’ve given Annie Sloane chalk paint a go, and now that I have, here are the details. First of all, here’s how we used it: John and I brainstormed a few possibilities for the table that we cut down and the two thrift store chairs that we found in West Virginia (they were $8 each) for a while. Here are a few alternatives that we tossed out there: red chairs with a white table red table with white chairs navy table with red chairs navy table with

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Window Shopping: Adler Adoration

It’s been way too long since our last window shopping adventure. As most of you know, these aren’t paid or perked or anything – we just walk through a store with a camera and take pics of whatever inspires us for you guys. This post is actually a few months overdue (woops) but now that I’ve uploaded the pics and sat down to write this post I’m all school-girl-ish again. See, I actually stepped foot into my first Jonathan Adler store ever a few months back (while we were in DC for a signing up the street) and I was OBSESSED. Believe me, it’s not a good look. I get all squealy and grinny and

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How To Make No Sew Ikat Curtains For A Kids Room

Some people who went for a pattern like this on the daybed might go for something neutral and simple for the windows (like breezy white curtains). Others might pluck one of the colors from the blanket and go for that (bold red cotton panels, taupey-gray velvet ones, etc). We might have been tempted to go with something more neutral and safe if the room wasn’t meant for our color loving kiddo (so the bedding could “be the star”) but since it’s Clara’s new space, and we love kid zones with a few layered patterns and colors, we decided to just go to our favorite local fabric outlet (U-Fab here in Richmond) and see what grabbed

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The Macklemore Thrift Shop Challenge

The day has finally come! It’s about to get thrifty up in hurrrr. Here’s the deal. This “Challenge” – which we issued last Friday – was basically an excuse to all (virtually) go thrift shopping together and share our spoils. Plus there was a scavenger-hunt-ish element tossed in there for kicks. And just like our little Pinterest Challenges, if you guys wanted to partake and blog about it, we have a little linky thing at the bottom of this post so everyone can share their favorite finds. There were just THREE things we asked folks to do in order to play along (well, four if you count blogging about it, although of course you can

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