Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

| By | | 102 Comments

How Wall Color Can Affect Your Mood

Now that my bun in the oven is totally “out” (there’s nothing like announcing it to the world at large) I’m liberated to admit things like “lately I’ve been reading nursery decorating books.” And my favorite one so far is Feathering The Nest by Tracy Hutson. But wait, don’t tune out yet all of you non-baby people… Because not only is it packed with gorgeous eye candy (much of which is totally green and intentionally geared towards stimulating baby’s brain and keeping children’s safety in mind), it also has lots of interesting researched information, like a detailed write up about the impact of color. And it’s not just baby-skewed. Many of the color studies were

[ Read More ]

| By | | 129 Comments

Organizing Our Paint Cans In The Basement

We’re back with our weekly basement update and since we’re edging closer towards the best word ever (finished!) this week’s project is quick and easy. It actually has to do with that built-in cabinet (to the right of the Ikea workstation) that we painted white last week. Remember it was bare but we promised we had a storage idea in the queue for you guys? Well, here it is… Yup, those are matching paint cans. And yes, we’re ok with you calling us nerds. We’ve actually been meaning to move our paint from the garage to the basement for a while. It’s a lot more temperate thanks to its underground location (it stays cooler in

[ Read More ]

| By | | 22 Comments

DIYing A Paver Patio In The Backyard

Even though spring is a ways off, Sara’s before and after pictures had us feeling all sunny and cheerful. Here’s her letter: I’m a longtime reader of your blog, and I have a big Reader Redesign for you. My fiancé and I bought our house last summer and have slowly been fixing it up. I’m so excited to share our biggest project to date: a DIY paver patio. We got a quote from a contractor that wanted around $8200 for the job! We decided to do the work ourselves, and also add a wall for extra seating. With no experience. And only two weeks to get it done before our big summer party. Yikes! We

[ Read More ]

| By | | 93 Comments

10 Inexpensive Home Updates That Make A Big Difference

There are definitely some projects that we’ve taken on (and hired out) along with a few accessories that we’ve brought home that stand out in our mind as particularly worthwhile, especially because they were all around $100 (some much less, some a bit more) and they made a heckova difference in our casa’s function and form department. Without further ado, our top ten list: 1. Widening the two doorways between the living room, the kitchen and the den (we paid a mason around $100 to help us with the den wall since it’s load bearing and had an electrician help us widen the living room wall since there were some wires in the way- also

[ Read More ]

| By | | 36 Comments

Painting An Old Wood Cabinet With White Paint

When Michelle sent over her fab furniture makeover we had to share her mouthwatering before and after pics. Here’s her letter: About a month ago I found your site by accident and completely fell in love with it! You’ve even inspired me to start my own blog! I could go on and on but I don’t wanna waste your precious time cuz you guys are busy little bees. I just wanted to show you a piece of eye candy that I re-designed! I bought this dresser off of craigslist.org for only $20! Then I painted it white, slapped some new hardware on it and replaced those bar looking things on the doors with glass. Isn’t it amazing what a little updating can do? Hope

[ Read More ]

| By | | 126 Comments

How To Add Gift Wrap To Clear Glass Doors

We’re back with our weekly basement update (here’s where we left off) and this week we painted the dingy built-in cabinet, added some art, obscured the semi-sheer doors to our armoires and brought in a bevy of bins to organize everything we have on hand (and everything we’re sure we’ll acquire down the line- now there’s lots of room to grow). Here’s just a taste of the latest updates: But before we get to all the dirty details we owe a huuuuuge thank you to the wonderful peeps at True Value who made a lot of this week’s undertakings possible thanks to their generous gift card (which we’ve been using left and right these days).

[ Read More ]

| By | | 186 Comments

You’re A Curious Bunch!

First of all, thanks so much to everyone for sharing in our baby-bomb excitement and wishing us well on our little “project.” You guys are the best! This new-ish development (actually it began in August, which feels like eons ago) certainly means that we’ll be working away harder than ever on our house and we promise to share every dirty home improvement detail with you. And speaking of details, we’re interrupting our regularly scheduled programming to field a bunch of the questions you guys asked on Wednesday in this as-promised Petersik Baby Q&A. Q: How far along are you? When are you due? Baby Petersik (or “the bean” as he or she is affectionately known

[ Read More ]