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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Listy McListerson (Updated)

We thought it was high time we updated our to-do list (which you first saw here) now that we’ve lived here five months and crossed off a few things (and added about a million more, which just seems to be how it goes). As for how we keep things straight, we just write everything out in one big list, circle the small things that we want to tackle right away, cross things off as we go, and underline the long term things that that we want to save for and tackle when we finally have the funds (and are feeling more sure about our approach so there’s no shoulda-woulda-coulda going on later). Looking at those

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My 1st Mother’s Day & Patio Progress

Oh man Sunday was fun. In that nontraditional I’m-sure-some-other-moms-might-not-get-it way. The whole weekend was sort of an extended Mother’s Day extravaganza since we made time for visits to the farmer’s market and a Bon Air parade/festival with Clara and John on Saturday (Burger’s afraid of firetrucks and loud noises, so he skipped the parade). Then on Sunday, I was awakened by the bean who was holding a handmade card (she scribbled all over it with crayons- so cute) along with an equally sweet card from John and Burger. I was also given a printout that was entitled “The Tale Of Sherry’s First Mother’s Day” which explained that John tried to hunt down the gold Calypso

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How To Make A Modern Patchwork Quilt

I think I’m possessed. What else can possibly explain the fact that I’m laying in bed at 12:52 and thinking these totally-foreign-for-me words: “I’m so excited about my quilt I can hardly sleep.” Seriously. The only explanation is some sort of unbeknownst-to-me lobotomy. I’m the girl who loves to use iron-on hem tape to make curtains and crib skirts (here, here, and here). I’m the girl who whined for about 2,000 words about just how cursed I am when it comes to sewing (here). Can I really be the girl who can’t sleep because of a quilt? Insanity. But I am. Here’s what I’ve been up to. And it is by no means the right

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How To Make Your Home Feel Like Home

We interrupt this regularly scheduled broadcast for a quick patio progress report: the wallet-draining patio supplies (mentioned here) have arrived. And now we kind of get why they were so expensive. They’re bigger than our car, it took a giant truck to haul them, they weigh over 19,000 pounds (that’s not a typo or an estimation, it’s on our itemized delivery ticket) and they completely monopolize the carport. John’s out there working away today (T minus one week until Clara’s big par-tay) so I thought I’d slip in this sneak peek of the craziness that is the current patio project. More details soon. But now back to the whole question of “Home Sweet Home?” Anyway,

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How To Match Ikea White Paint

It feels like a theme lately to remind you guys that we mentioned that we were going to do fill-in-the-blank a while back and then exclaim that we finally got around to doing it. So this time fill-in-the-blank is finally painting the bedroom finials to match Ed The Bed. See how they’re a bit too white in this pic? It definitely wasn’t rocket science (not much of what we do around here is, haha) but we wanted to share the super easy process when it comes to matching paint to any existing item of furniture, like if you’re planning to add legs to a painted dresser that you already own for example. The first step

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When Home Projects Go Wrong

I learned in grade school that trying to be perfect would probably result in a caffeine-pill-fueled freakout a la Jesse Spano (yes, many of my life lessons were learned thanks to Saved By The Bell). Pretty much since then I’ve been in the camp of try-to-do-it-right-but-perfect-isn’t-possible. So sometimes it’s weird when people mention that they think we live in this perfect world where nothing goes wrong and we never fight and life is just hunky-dory from the minute we wake up to the minute we go to bed. Unicorns and rainbows if you will. I think sharing Clara’s birth story helped a little in that regard (that day was definitely not the fairytale that we

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A Graphic & Fun House Tour

When Courtney of Little Glass Box sent us photos of her amazing 105 year old row house in Baltimore, we knew we had to house crash the heck out of her, so here we go. First lets meet the fam (there’s Courtney, her son Olly, and her hubby Ryan): How funny is that photo? You can already tell their house is going to playful and charming, right? Here’s the dining room, full of geometric pattern and rustic elegance thanks to the mix of the stenciled wall (Ryan did it himself) and the reclaimed wood table (Ryan built it himself). Notice a theme here? Ryan is handy. And guess who’s obsessed with the big wood horse

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April Superlatives

Note: This is a retroactive post that I cobbled together in December of 2011 so I could make this page full of monthly recaps for the entire year (our first in our new house!). Yup, I’m just a bit type A. So here’s what we tackled throughout the month of April – high school yearbook style. Most Outdoorsy: Digging Out The Liriope That Covered Nearly 80% Of The Future Patio Area Most Domestic: Making Sue The Napkin into Sue The Pillow Biggest Crybaby: Sharing Clara’s Terrifying Slash Miraculous Birth Story Most Likely To Result In Cursing: Having An Epic Battle With My Sewing Machine And Squeezing Out A Party Banner Hoppiest: DIYing An Easter Basket

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The Planning Process Of Building A Paver Patio

Note: For those reading this post during happy hour, feel free to turn it into a drinking game and take a sip every time you read the word liriope. Or maybe just a half-sip. Don’t want things to get crazy. Woot. We’ve officially started to attack the side patio (previously mentioned here and here) that we want to bang out in time for Clara’s big b-day bash in two short weeks. That’s right, in the words of Cee Lo we said “forget you” (yes, we prudes sing the PG version) to the insane ten-ish rows of liriope. And John only had to dig about half of it up thanks to two friends of ours who

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How To Make A Pillow From Two Cloth Napkins

Duuuuude. I got back on the proverbial sewing machine horse. What? You haven’t heard that expression. Whatever. The point is: Sue the Napkin is now Sue the Pillow! Or more accurately Sue The Pillows (yup, I made two of them). Here are my materials: Four Sue The Napkins (I originally got ten when we found them on clearance at Crate & Barrel, but I picked up four more so I could make two pillows using four of them and still have ten leftover to use as dinner napkins). Oh Brother (my trusty sewing machine, more on him here) Two old pillows to use as the “inside” of my new Sue pillow covers A needle and

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Clara’s Birth Story

It’s nearly a year late (I can’t believe I’m going to be the mother of a one year old in three short weeks). And the reason for the delay is simple. Thinking / typing / talking about the day that Clara was born still scares the pants off of me. Even 11+ months later. This little lady made quite the dramatic entrance. Yup, the day that Clara came into the world was the most amazing life-changing day of my existence, but it was easily also the single most terrifying one. I’ve mentioned some details a few times in comments on other Clara-related posts (many readers wanted to know all about the bean’s birth right away)

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How To Sew A Fabric Bunting

Growing up my aunt and mom sewed all the time (they made all my Halloween costumes and my aunt even sewed my mom’s wedding dress) but whenever I tried to learn on my mom’s machine I broke it. Not just jammed it or temporarily messed it up, I legitimately ruined it (at least six episodes ended with my mom carting it off to the shop and paying lots of money to get it repaired). And then I wasn’t encouraged to use it quite as much if you catch my drift. I don’t blame my mom at all. I was clearly cursed. So in an insane turn of events, I recently purchased a nice affordable beginner

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