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 Best Gray Paint Color: Rockport Gray

Yup, our formerly beige-on-beige master bathroom is officially rocking Rockport Gray. And we love it as much as we did when we saw it in this kitchen. Here she blows without the shower curtain hung back up yet (we snapped some pics with it up as well, which we’ll get to in a second): But let’s back up. Before applying two coats of paint to our bathroom (we shared our little mood board for the room yesterday) first we had to remove that unused-shelf-and-towel-bar (read why we didn’t use them here)… …to make way for some art on the only wall that isn’t tiled nearly all the way to the ceiling. So we did (using

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Planning A Quick Bathroom Makeover

Well, I guess we did rehang the shower curtain at ceiling height right after we moved in – but other than that we haven’t really touched this room. In fact, pretty much all three of our bathrooms are uncharted territory for us when it comes to updates. But you’ve gotta start somewhere, so we decided to start in the one we use the most – and probably find the quirkiest. See, it doesn’t have a sink (that’s in our bedroom, actually) so it’s a really small room. We’re talking around 5′ x 6′ total (including a regular sized tub). So yes, the door practically hits the toilet (it just barely misses it). And John can

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Turning 30

A bunch of you have been asking how turning thirty was for me, so I’ll take a break from painting something (yes, there is paint going on a formerly untouched bathroom wall! wahoo!) to admit that Monday was a really nice day. So far thirty is all good. And I don’t feel a day over 29. Hah. My theory is that every birthday sort of feels like not much has changed since I wake up feeling the same way I did the morning before. By comparison, I always feel older when life events happen (graduating college, getting married, having a baby) but for some reason a birthday to me is just a fun day when

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A Video Tour Of Our House

Yup, it really has been seven whole months since our last house tour video. Unacceptable. So here it is. Eight riveting minutes of me walking around the house and babbling about anything and everything with the Flip cam catching all the shaky Blair-Witch-esque action. We just figured it was a nice time to shoot this now that the kitchen is done and we’re gearing up to start some new stuff (some landscaping bidness, upgrading one of the three bathrooms that we haven’t touched, building a big arse deck, etc). So come on in and poke around: A few notes: Am I the only one who still has a scratchy voice two weeks after the flu?

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A Kitchen Makeover With Penny Tile And Open Shelves

Ok, we’re calling it. The kitchen is officially done! Of course that’s a lie and we still have a bunch of little things to complete, like: adding decorative molding to the back of the peninsula adding a message center/chalk board to the side of the pantry adding the last of the transitions/reducers to finish the floors (and that rectangle of fireplace tile) replacing the broken light in the fireplace area – most likely with a spotlight that washes down the fireplace wall adding some sort of window treatment (colorful roman shade?) over the sink And of course we dream of refinishing the surrounding oak floors to match the dark mocha cork in the kitchen so

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Our Benjamin Moore Collection Of Favorite Paint Colors

Aw yeah, you know we love a good Britney reference. And you know we love painting (walls, paneling, brick, large ceramic roosters…). A big part of that is picking a paint color. Paint chips are kind of like potato chips to us (we can’t pop just one), and Benjamin Moore has been our snack of choice for a while now. Their color catalog is massive so it’s no wonder we’ve used their tones in nearly every room (Sesame in the kitchen, Moonshine in the living room and dining room, Proposal in Clara’s room, and Dragonfly on the back of our dining room built-ins). Then we used their Advance paint when it came to painting our

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Floating Vases On The Wall

This week my little Dude Get On That Already project involves three floating vases (from CB2 four years ago, but they still sell them) that used to hang right outside our first house’s kitchen. Then, you guessed it, they got stashed in our playroom after we moved, never to be heard from again. Until now! Behold: Yup, I tapped three nails into the wall in the guest bathroom and they’re now officially three more things that are off the floor in the cluttered playroom. Three grocery store blooms work for now, but when they bite the big one, I’m sure they’ll get replaced with leafy branches and other stuff pillaged from the backyard. This is

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Replacing Broken Penny Tile

Tweakity-tweak-tweak. That’s the sound of a little course correction that went on in our house last night. See, our kitchen underwent a little bracket redux. Yup, after taping things off, photoshopping them, and then (ahh!) drilling right through our wall of tile to install our brackets, we were completely sold on their spacing, which we landed on because: Functionally, that’s where the wall studs were We thought keeping the same distance between the brackets on each side of the hood would create balance on an unbalanced wall But then we lived with them for a while and more things kept going into the kitchen (new lighting, a new dishwasher, new art, new floors) and with

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How To Make A Beanbag Pouf

It’s Wednesday the 14th… so it’s time to share this season’s (completely unofficial) Pinterest Challenge (not sponsored by Pinterest or anyone else, just dreamed up by Katie to make us stop pinning and start doing). I actually tackled a homemade beanbag for Clara’s closet, which I mentioned last Wednesday when Katie, Erin, and Cassie and I issued our little get-off-our-bums-and-make-something challenge. As are the rules, I took inspiration (or Pintspiration, har-har) from the projects below and then I did my own spin. Which added up to this comfy little bean-bag… … for the bean to plop down on… … or the pooch to hang out on… … or for a toddler reading to a chihuahua…

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House Crashing: Elegant And Fresh

We shared a smidge of Kirsten’s amazing house in last week’s Portland post just to get you excited, but here’s the whole House Crashing monty for ya. The exterior of her and her husband Kyle’s house is a rich gray color and the porch has the most amazing over-sized white corbels on either side of the door (note: house numbers have been changed to protect the innocent). Here’s a shot o the outside of the house from further away (wish we had been able to see it in all of its spring/summer glory when more is in bloom). When you walk inside, there’s a charming little entryway directly across from the door between the dining

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A Cork Floor In The Kitchen

Hootie hooo! The cork floor in both the kitchen and the laundry room is complete! Well, except if you count the fact that we still have to add shoe molding, thresholds, and seal it all. Details, details. The point is, we finally get to see the whole picture. Huzzah! The annoying part is that we still haven’t figured out how to photograph it as true to life as we can (it’s a rich mocha color, and actually looks more like brown leather in person, so the pattern is more like soft movement and less like any sort of obvious shapes or anything) – but the two videos from the last post really are the most

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Traveling To Maui, Hawaii With A Toddler

Since we took waaaaaaay too many pictures of our six night stay in Maui, we did our best to go through them all and majorly pare them down – but it still adds up to two posts (you know we like to over-share). We wish we could have taken you all with us in our suitcase, so I guess the next best thing is posting all about it. In this one, we’ll cover: where we stayed where we ate our “neighborhood” how we saved money And in the next post we’ll detail: all of the activities/adventures that we tackled while we were there (with a toddler in tow) the home-related purchase we made to remember

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