Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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Our Family Vacation In Destin, Florida

For those who requested more info about our recent family vacation, here it goes (and you can check out all of our past road trip and vacation posts here). We decided to take our week-long summer vacation in Destin, Florida this year. Since my family wasn’t doing a beach week like usual, and we were already going to be in Atlanta for the Haven conference, it felt like a no brainer to accept the Bowers’ invite to join them for week on the Florida panhandle. Katie Bower’s husband Jeremy did the hard work of finding a house to rent for the week (finger snaps for him, everybody). Since their extended family rents frequently in the

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Feeling Selfie-ish

When we posted this Instagram shot last month we alluded to the fact that it wasn’t our ordinary, everday snapshot (our caption revealed that both of us had to put on make-up for it). That’s because we took that shot while on the set of a photoshoot for Richmond Magazine’s Best & Worst issue. This annual collection of reader-voted favorites includes award categories that range from normal (Best New Restaurant) to trendy / weird / random (TV Anchor Who Never Ages). How did we make the list? Best Local Instagram Feed, y’all! We couldn’t believe it when they called us. I mean seriously, we were like “are you sure that’s us?” You can read the

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The Best Thrift Store Finds

As many of you guys know if you follow us on Instagram or Facebook, Katie B and I did some thrift store trolling while we were in Destin last week. Which is pretty much a tradition at this point (check out our past adventures here and here). We didn’t have our video camera on hand, but we snapped a junkload of photos for you guys. So without further ado, here are my finds – and you can see Katie’s over on her blog if you’d like. I’ll lead with my favorites: these amazing woven twin-sized headboards. They were $29 each and I am COMPLETELY regretful that I left without them. Picture them painted white –

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Gratitude With Gusto

It’s time for our once-a-month pause to shout out how grateful we are to the sponsors who help to make all of our other posts possible. So feel free to check out some summery blue & green things that caught our eye this month (and peruse our usual round-up of discounts at the bottom of the post). The cool color scheme of this Mykonos stencil from Royal Design Studio. WallQuotes‘ $250 “Teachers Rock” sweeps to help enhance a classroom. This green “3D” indoor-outdoor rug from Shades of Light that starts at $69. The Tile Shop‘s mixing of glass tiles in this bathroom spotted on their Pinterest page. This hand-painted-looking pillow from Joss & Main. Samples

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How To Stain And Seal A Deck

You know that part in a movie where the dorky girl rips off her glasses and throws on some makeup and suddenly she’s a bombshell? Well, our deck has already tossed its spectacles aside (i.e. we stripped off the old finish) and now it’s time for some lipstick (i.e. stain). We’re not exactly aiming for bombshell status here, but we’d settle for – I dunno – sexy librarian? I think I’m getting lost in my own analogy. The gist is that with our deck boards cleaned, we could finally apply a new protective finish. After some discussion, we decided to use a semi-transparent stain. Both of us prefer that look over something completely solid, but

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Fab Freebie: Insta-nt Attraction

Hear ye, hear ye, lovers of organization and instagramization. This week THREE of you are getting a couple of picture perfect prizes (bad pun intended). The first comes from StickyGram, who specializes in turning your Instgrams into charming little magnets. Each winner will be getting five sheets of nine different magnets (for a total of 45) that you can tear off and use however you’d like. They also make great gifts. My sister included a StickyGram sheet in each of the Mother’s Day cards that she sent out this year and they were a huge hit. But if you win 45 Insta-magnets, wouldn’t it be great to have a fun place to stick them? That’s

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Painting The Living Room Edgecomb Gray

We’re back from our week at the beach and excited to dive back into things! We were so lucky to have great weather and even got to squeeze in some window shopping and a thrift store trip, so that stuff’s in the hopper. Other than that we were beach bums and pool bums just soaking up the sun. Allow me to keep it real and mention that there were three kids under the age of four, so there were also meltdowns and even a cookie-tossing incident, but it was a great trip. We really loved Destin! Back to the salmon living room walls that are no more. After rolling back the carpet and covering a

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Priming A Bright Wall Before Painting

Remember when our living room was salmon? Well, not anymore… That’s just the primer coat, so we’ll be back on Monday with the full details of what color we chose, why we picked it, and a whole bunch of prep info, in-process pics, and of course the all-done afters. Today’s the last day of our Florida road trip, so we’re doing our best just to soak up the sun before our 14 hour drive back to Richmond. But I’m not going to lie… remembering that we’re not returning to a pink living room is definitely making us more excited to mosey on home. It always feels crazy to eke out a last minute project before

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This One’s For Clara

John and I have realized that our Florida road trip has somehow given us a little house perspective. As much as we’ve been loving the new house (nearly two months after our move I still find myself going up the stairs and whispering “duuuuude, we have a second floor”) and as much as we’ve been feeling more settled with every wall that we de-wallpaper and paint, leaving our second house was definitely bittersweet. It’s kind of hard to explain, but somehow while traveling it’s more obvious to us that we still remember every nook and cranny of that place, and our new house still feels sort of unfamiliar and mysterious. We don’t quite remember every

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A Kids Bedroom With Map Wallpaper & Bunk Beds

…in his bedroom. Well, most of it. Here’s Emma’s hilarious letter about the makeover they turned out for their son’s room: We moved in to this three-storey 1876 “brownstone” (sidebar: it is neither made of brownstone nor located in New York City) three years ago – we’re in Ontario, Canada. We’ve been working our way through the house converting what was four separate apartments back into a single home. This bedroom is up on the third floor and it belongs to our 5-yr old son, Angus. The ‘Before’ photos were taken when we first looked at the house and, at the time, this bedroom was the living room of a medical student at the University

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Fab Freebie: Tektonic Movements

We’re still at the beach but somebody’s about to rock your DIY-lovin’ world. The makers of TEKTON tools are giving one of you a “Complete Toolbox Makeover” in the form of a giant collection of their most popular tools worth over $1,000! It includes 46 different tools and tool sets – meaning that everything from a sleek fiberglass hammer and an awesome 10-in-1 pocket tool to an 135-piece wrench and screwdriver set could be coming your way. I couldn’t even cram half of what you’ll be getting in my measly little mood board below. Please use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter (it might take a second to load, but it should eventually pop up

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Road Trip In Progress…

True to our 2011 resolution, which inspired us to sneak off to Maui last year, this year we’ve road tripped down to Destin, Florida so we can soak up some rays and recharge our drill DIY batteries. Turns out even if you love painting and sanding and stripping wallpaper, it’s nice to step away from the primer and the sawdust to reboot for a week with your family. And since we had already driven down to Atlanta last week for the Haven Conference, we figured why stop there when the beautiful gulf coast was a half-day drive away… Destin was our destination of choice because our good friends the Bowers have said such great things

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