Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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Sourcing And Buying Materials To Build A Deck

Our deck project kind of got back-burnered amidst all of the party/dollhouse/bedroom stuff, but we have made one decision in that time: much like both of our parents chose for our houses growing up, we’re going the pressure-treated wood route. But making that call was no easy decision. We actually weighed a bunch of options, got a few quotes from a few different sources, and endured the all important “sleep on it” step. Then we second-guessed ourselves a few times because the right choice isn’t very obvious. Haha. There are so many ways to go, so it really is one of those it’s-different-for-everyone things. In the end it just came down to personal factors about

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Window Shopping At Target

“Would love to see another post about your favourite finds at Target. They’re coming to Canada and I’m so giddy I could piddle! Love your blog!” – Jaye It’s been way too long since our last window shopping adventure (10 months?!?!), so to everyone who has been requesting them (especially if you used the word piddle), we’re psyched to share the goods. For those who remember these things, we just stroll around a store (we’ve done big chains, small local shops, and even random little stores that we find while road tripping) and take photos of all of the things we love. Not for compensation or anything – these sprees are just for fun. So

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Planting Boxwoods, Petunias, and Hydrangeas

It feels like forever since we posted about any gardening we’ve done (over a month, actually), but that doesn’t mean nothing’s happened. We’re just a little behind on writing about it (I like to think that we were waiting for things to fill in a bit so we could snap some pics for ya). So let’s play catch up. Remember when we transplanted some bushes to perk up the area behind our patio? Well, that was all fine and good for that side of the patio. But it left this big empty, ugly spot in its wake. So a couple of weeks ago we got our hydrangea on again (thanks to a pair we picked

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Fab Freebie: Wrapped In Comfort

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Someone’s about to get more comfortable because random.org just helped us pick them as the winner. That lucky person is… Kristen B (who says a walk on the beach seems to help everything for her). Congrats Kristen! I realize the title of the giveaway sounds like a cheesy line from a fabric softener commercial, but this prize isn’t about wrapping you in comfort – it’s about wrapping your furniture. Your Ikea furniture to be exact. See, the Australian company Comfort Works had the smart idea of offering slipcovers custom fitted some of Ikea’s popular couch and chair styles. You can get your Ektorp

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How To Get A Wool Rug For Cheap

As we mentioned here, the bedroom is “still looking rough and we’re not sure about a lot of things – just waiting for inspiration to strike – which might involve repainting and rearranging furniture along with refinishing the floors”). We even elaborated a bit in the comments when folks started asking what we meant by that or if we hated the current color by saying: “We love the paint color but something is off about the bedroom and we’re not sure we can rule anything out – including the paint color. Everything is a suspect until proven innocent. Haha. Something is limiting us, so we’re not opposed to changing that thing once we pin it

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How To Hang Pictures Over The Bed

Do you remember these puppies that we picked up at a yard sale last year for $10 a pop? They’re old professionally framed prints of the berries and wildflowers of Alaska, which we thought were sweet since we honeymooned there. So we spray-painted the frames (and mats!) and hung them on either side of our bed. If that doesn’t jog your memory, perhaps this old pic from that post shall will. Well, recently they’ve – say it with me now – come together. Here’s how it all went down. Actually, speaking of going down – it kinda started when a certain ram went down during our book shoots. Since neither all the king’s horses nor

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An Eclectic Glam Tween Bedroom

Clara may be another year older, but she’s still a long ways off from her tweenage years. Which is why it was fun to live vicariously through Courtney’s makeover of her 11-year-old niece Emily’s room. Having virtually crashed Courtney’s own home last May, we knew there’d be some great eye candy, and we often hear from folks who’d love to see a tween room or two, so here ya go. Hi guys! I hope all is well in the Petersik house. I wanted to show you my 11 year old niece’s room that we helped her makeover. She would be so excited for her room to be featured! This was an accumulation of four very

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Decorating A Dollhouse

Hold onto your miniature hats, it’s time for the fun part of painting and personalizing the dollhouse! Our last post was full of the building process, which you can see by (clicking here) – so let’s move on to how we finished everything off. After it was all assembled, it was time to schlep our 31″ x 31″ creation up into the sunroom for some priming and painting. Just like our office cabinets, kitchen cabinets, and the play kitchen we made for Clara, I used a coat of Zinsser Smart Prime (it’s no-VOC but amazingly good for blocking bleed through when you’re painting raw or stained wood) followed by two coats of Bejamin Moore’s low-VOC Advance paint (really

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How To Build A Dollhouse

Update: You can check out Part 2 of this project right here. But let’s start at the beginning. When Sherry and I started talking about building a dollhouse for Clara, I was afraid. I know, I know – scared of a dollhouse? Get your laughs out. But that ominous word conjured up these elaborate images of perfectly crafted, to-scale replicas of Victorian mansions that seemed waaaaay beyond my skill / patience level. But once Sherry showed me some of her inspiration pictures on Pinterest (from Mousehouse, Natty Michelle and Under The Sycamore) my cold sweats dried up and I actually got a little excited. Yes, excited about a dollhouse. Now get those laughs out. More

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How To Cut Your Man’s Hair

Let’s talk about DIY haircuts, shall we? This is one of those posts I never thought I’d write (it’s definitely not very home related) but due to a surprising amount of requests, here it is. I guess anything that has to do with saving money and doing something yourself is fair game, right? I have no idea how I got into cutting people’s hair, but throughout high school and college I just played around, cutting off a guy’s mullet here and giving my BFF a super short pixie cut there (all at my “client’s” requests, of course). Why did they trust me? I have no idea. Maybe I just have a trustworthy face? I most

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Replacing An Old Bathroom Light

We don’t talk much about our hall bathroom. In fact, in 17 months of living here, it’s been the subject of just two posts (knocking down a towel bar and fixing the toilet). And since we later used almost the same color as the inspiration room in our guest bedroom, we’re no longer planning to use that color in here, so we’re kind of back to square one. But we finally made a little lighting progress, as today’s title suggests. There was nothing especially offensive about the existing fixture – nor anything especially exciting about it. It felt sort of builder basic to us. And kind of “backstage make-up room” to us thanks to the

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A Worm Themed Birthday Party

Aw, yeah. Clara’s second b-day party was full of food, family, friends, fun… and worms (she picked the theme based on her deep love of looking at, drawing, and even dreaming about worms). So… worm to your motha! We were so thankful to be surrounded by the people we love, the bean had the best time, and the 75 degree weather and sunny skies were the icing on the worm cake. Or should I say worm cupcakes. Let’s get this party (breakdown) started… But let’s start at the beginning. Clara was born two years ago today. Wait, that’s too far back. Let’s just cover the party. Here’s the sunroom all decked out for the big

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