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 We Finished And Furnished Our Deck

Well, our goal was to get to enjoy our deck by Labor Day and we squeaked in with just a few days to spare. And in case you couldn’t tell, I’m jazz hands excited about it. Don’t ask me what this move is called. John just picked up the camera and aimed it at me and this happened. It’s a pose straight out of Kids Incorporated. We probably would have taken a rickety card table and some metal folding chairs, so we’re psyched to have found actual end-of-season discounted furniture to put out there for the long haul – but we definitely have more in mind for finishing things off (more on that in a

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How Do You Decide What To Post About?

Q: How do you decide what to post about every day? I’m new to blogging and feeling a lot of pressure. I worry what I write will be boring. Do you ever worry about that? Do you have a checklist that you go through to see if something is good to write about? Do you ever worry that people won’t like what you share? Do you ever skip a post if you think it will be poorly received? Do you try to pace things out in a strategic way? – Nina M. A: Aw, I’m sorry that you feel any pressure at all, Nina. Figuring out what to post about sounds like it could be

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How To Protect Outdoor Furniture With Varnish And Teak Oil

T-minus twenty for hours until we have furniture on the deck!!! Woah nellie, I’m excited about it. Hence the use of three exclamation points and the term woah nellie. Heck, I’m about to break out some coordinated and not at all bizarre dance moves. Watch out now. We still have to choose what stain or sealer to use on the deck (some require a waiting period for pressure treated wood to dry out/acclimate while others can be used sooner) but we decided (read: I prodded John until he agreed) that putting some furniture on the deck in the meantime just means that we can start enjoying this baby. It’ll only take about twenty minutes to

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Painting Words Over A Canvas For Customized Quote Art

Remember when I shared our possessed painting that jumped off the wall cheap painting that we got for $20 at a yard sale… … and mentioned that we: mostly liked the size of it and the chunky frame (which actually came with a little dent in it – a total sign that this guy was a trouble-maker) weren’t in love with the art itself (it just felt sort of generic and hotel-ish in person) Yes? Me too. And then remember when a bunch of you (seriously, like at least a dozen of you guys) recommended that we do some sort of letter stenciling over it like this genius creation by Emily Von Henderson or this

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Some Ways We Save Money With Kid Clothes

One of the most common questions on instagram/Facebook/Twitter when we share a photo isn’t “what paint color is that?” or “who makes that lamp?” – it’s “where did you get that shirt/dress/skirt?” – and they’re not talking about me (or John)… they’re talking about Clara. Yes, there have been a bunch of requests for a post about how we score deals/save money in the kid clothing department along with where we get her clothes. So whoop, here it is. And thanks to all of those aforementioned instagram photos that we’ve shared, we have a whole bunch of shots to use throughout this rundown. Admittedly it’s kinda weird to analyze your kid’s clothing in so much

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Thrifting A Vintage Moroccan Side Table

This morning we shared pics from our recent thrifting trip and I promised you more details about a certain table that we adopted (along with my cleaning/restoring ritual for old musty wood) so here’s the rundown. We really liked this cool Moroccan accent table that we found at the first place we went (Love of Jesus Thrift here in Richmond). Especially since it reminded us of a few designer ones like this that are selling for $260+. So at $25 for a solid wood table with awesome lines, we took it home. Boy was in rough shape, so I: gave him a wipe down with a damp cloth with a tiny amount of Mrs Meyers

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A Day Of Thrifting

Occasion: The thrifting bug struck on a lazy Saturday morning Location: All over Richmond to six of my favorite thrift stores with the hubby and toddler in tow (Burger very smartly stayed home to nap) You know we love a good thrift-fest (like these thrifty adventures of yore), so let’s go secondhand window shopping, shall we? First we went to Love of Jesus (on Midlothian for any locals who are wondering), which is an awesome place for larger furnishings. Of course like most thrift stores it’s hit or miss, but when you hit, it’s a good time. We actually got a lot of pieces that we transformed for our book here (like a $15 desk

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Budget Blooms: Tulips, Take Three

Things I’m great at: making up words to songs when I don’t know them, eating Oreos, dancing like Elaine from Seinfeld. Things I’m bad at: loading the dishwasher, remembering to get haircuts more than once every few years, and apparently doing monthly budget bloom posts. I used to do them once a month for over a year, but then I fell off, struggled to get back on it six months ago with one measly post in February, and just never got it together in any sort of regular pattern. So here’s a random Budget Blooms post after over half a year of absence in that department. Won’t you forgive me? In return I played around

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Multiplying Egg Chairs…

I’m back as promised with: an egg chair update (since I just tossed pillows on it but promised to share the rest of the details once we figured out a real seat and all that jazz) three new egg chairs that we recently brought home I guess we should skip right ahead to those huh? Don’t worry, our living room doesn’t look like an egg chair family reunion. They’re of the dollhouse variety (you can read more on Clara’s DIY dollhouse here): When a super sweet reader (thanks Nicole!) told me CB2 had them on clearance for 50 cents each (wahooo!) I couldn’t resist. They’re actually Christmas ornaments (hence the super sale price so far

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How To Turn A Basket Into A Pendant Light

This is the story of making an old basket into a pendant light using just this $10 thrift store basket that we found along with two other simple supplies. Here she is all wired up and hung in front of the fireplace. But allow me to further illuminate the basket to light conversion process. Har-har. The first step was heading over to a local lighting outlet (The Decorating Outlet) to check out any existing pendant lights that they were selling cheaply (that way we could convert one into a pendant for our big basket shade). While we were there we saw this awesomesauce basket pendant that was selling for $322 (originally $460). Wowsers. Feeling inspired,

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Replacing An Exterior Light

Let’s talk more about things that were too tiny. But instead of yesterday’s mini-mirror, this time we’re taking things outside. To the carport to be exact. See that tiny little lantern hanging from the ceiling? Yeah…. she’s not looking so hot. Rust? Check. Cracked glass? Check. Teeny tiny dollhouse-ish scale? Check. So we’ve been keeping an eye out for a larger light since we moved in back in late 2010. You name it, and we’ve looked there (at stores like Home Depot, online, on Craigslist, at local outlets and secondhand stores like The Habitat For Humanity ReStore, etc). Ideally we wanted a big chunky clean lined lantern in a rich dark oil-rubbed bronze finish and

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Hanging A Mirror Over The Mantel

We’re reaching the point in our house where we’re finally trying to slowly upgrade the “we’ll-just-put-this-here- for-now-since-we-just-moved-in” phenomenon that happens when you unpack and just toss things anywhere (yes, we are just getting to this phase after over a year and a half of living here, haha). So we finally decided to address this old mirror that used to hang in our first house’s den, which we then popped above our fireplace mantel with a tiny finishing nail the first week we moved in. Why do we need to address it? Because it gotz to go. Why does it gotz to go? Because it’s way too small! Comically small. Here’s an older shot of it

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