Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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Ram Down!

Remember our dear sweet never-hurt-a-fly Ramsey who watched over us in a not-creepy-at-all way when we slept? He was a beloved member of our household and even inspired Burger to do yoga. Well, Ramsey will be missed. And yes, it totally felt like this tragedy of yore all over again. Except John didn’t draw a depiction of the event… … because it actually wasn’t John’s fault. But yes, yesterday we bid a fond farewell to our TJ Maxx find when he somehow popped off the wall in the kitchen where he was temporarily hanging for a book vignette above the fireplace. No one was even in the room to attempt to catch him on the

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A Diamond Stenciled Tan & White Wall Treament

We don’t have stairs in our house. Which we love. But sometimes it’s a bummer when we see people do fun things with them like Roeshel recently did. And the most impressive part is that she did it without buying anything. You go, girl! Wait, forget I said that… just read her email: I’m sure you guys get a ton of submissions for consideration but I recently gave our stairway a little pizzazz using leftover paint and things we already had on hand. It turned out fun! So I’ve included before and after pictures in the event that you like my crazy little makeover. Before was boring. I cut out a diamond shaped stencil from

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Our First Big Art Purchase

That’s what Clara said when she woke up and saw our freshly hung real art in the kitchen. It was cute. And we laughed. And then she squealed “She’s swimming! Look, fishies!” which are most definitely not in there, but the girl has quite an imagination. So hooray for imaginary fishies. I described this gal as “real art” because it’s actually our first big art purchase ever. It’s a large print of an original oil painting by an amazing Etsy artist that we just couldn’t get out of our mind. And at $195 it was definitely a splurge for folks like us who usually frame free art that we make ourselves or hunt thrift stores

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How To Remove Grout Haze

Betcha thought our grouting post was the last time we’d talk about installing our tile, eh? We’ll you’d be incorrect, sir – er, madam? We had a few other less-fun and less-interesting steps once the grout party had wrapped. And since a bunch of folks have asked us to detail the de-hazing and sealing steps… here they are! So stay tuned while I try to make them as interesting as I can. Maybe I should get my laser pointer. Anyone who has tiled knows that grout often leaves a bit of a hazy film on your tile. We saw it on both the subway tile and the marble floor tile in our old bathroom and

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How To Make Colorful DIY Bookends

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! We’re celebrating with Burger, Clara, each other, and a photography crew in our house for the third straight week. But there’s a twist today: we’re trying not to vomit! Poor Clara got sick the entire evening on Saturday and into the morning on Sunday and now it appears that John and I have the bug… but the show must go on! The good news is that we finished all of our secret projects so we just have to get the last 20 in the can by Friday and we’re done-zo. Oh yeah and we’re supposed to shoot some cover shots tomorrow (ahhhhhhhhhhhh) but we won’t think about that right now. So

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Fab Freebie: Got The Jewels Like Sherry

***This post is no longer accepting entries – check who won below!*** Just like the auditions on The Voice, random.org had it’s big fancy chair turned around as it blindly chose the winner of this week’s giveaway (I secretly picture random.org like Cee-Lo stroking his cat). Anywho, the lucky winner this week is… Aryn (who thinks she might take Zooey Deschanel wardrobe). Congrats Aryn! It’s not quite like the moves like Jagger, but this week you can get the jew-o-o-o-O-o-o-o-els like Sherry. Yep, in honor of Valentine’s Day we’re gonna give one of you some of the same bling bling (is that still a saying?) that I’ve bought my Valentine (aka: Sherry) over the past

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Installing Crown Molding In The Kitchen

We’ve long disclaimered pictures of our kitchen with “oh, and we still need to add crown molding.” But that stops today! The unfinished edge where the wall/tile meets the ceiling… … is no more! Let’s get a little closer… Wait, let’s rewind so I can attempt to tell you how we got there. For all of those who have been wondering about that dark line above our pantry (a few folks asked if the beam was sagging or if there was a hole) – it’s just another spot where we’ve been missing crown molding. Since there had originally been cabinets to the ceiling along that entire side of the kitchen (including one that wrapped around

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Cutting Down A Cabinet For Tool Storage

Our poor tools. Remember how they used to live in our kitchen? Well, they obviously had to move when that whole cabinet went kaput a few months ago in favor of a nice big peninsula that we were adding. Well, I guess the cabinet didn’t go kaput. It just went to live in our sunroom (aka cabinet purgatory) – along with the drawers full of tools, which have been splayed out on our daybed for three months now. Yeah, we’re organized. Not. Come on, let’s bring back “not.” And slap bracelets. Anyway, as Sherry and I embarked on three weeks of photoshoots in our house for our book (you can survey some of that chaos

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Adding Board & Batten With Coat Hooks To The Foyer By The Front Door

A little bit of us is always envious of a proper entryway in a home (since both of ours have been just a door that opens into a room). Plus, with our own plans to do some sort of board and batten in our hallway eventually, we’re totally loving Jenna Sue’s sweet makeover of her foyer. Here’s her email: We’re in the middle of 92,835 projects at our house, but we recently completed one that we’re pretty proud of and I thought I’d pass it your way. Our entryway started out with old white faux marble tile floors, metallic floral wallpaper, and a cheap outdated light fixture. We ended up replacing the floor with travertine-style porcelain tile,

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Decorating Kitchen Shelves

Remember yesterday when our shelves looked like this? Well, then I had fun doing this (if you’re at work, you can watch this without sound and totally get the gist): If you check out the video you can see that I can actually reach everything up on those top shelves except for the stuff in the corner by the window, but it’s easy enough to sit on the counter to grab it. Who knew I’d be able to reach all that stuff? I totally expected to have to scream “Joooooohn” whenever I needed something up there (he’s the chef of the family so that probably wouldn’t have happened very often anyway). Or use a step

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How To Hang Homemade Kitchen Shelves

Let’s see… when we last left off on Monday, our open shelves had been primed in preparation for their big hanging debut. While we had the primer out we went ahead and slapped a coat on the hood cover too (using a 2″ angled brush in the cracks followed by a small foam roller to smooth everything out). Things were instantly looking less wood-sy on that wall. Once the primer dried on both – we used Zinsser Smart Prime which is low-VOC and was recommended by a few pro cabinet painters that we know – out came the same high-durability paint that we used on our cabinets (yes, there’s still plenty left!) and we gave

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DIY Tulip Bouquet

While we wait for our primed and painted open shelves to dry (ahhh, tomorrow is H-Day, aka: haaaanging day!) we realized that we’ve been waaaaay overdue for a budget blooms post. Remember when we used to do them every month? Yeah, we fell off. Oops. And a few of you have actually requested them, which is just what the doctor ordered since book chaos + kitchen chaos = a hankering for a sliver of beauty in a completely trashed house like ours. Seriously, it looks crazier than it did the day we moved in. Bed in the living room? Check. Painting and repainting a five foot swatch of wall in the playroom different colors every

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