Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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Listy McListerson: Updated

Warning: this is longer than the Oscars, so feel free to fast forward to the good parts. These posts actually came about when people asked how we organize all the stuff we have on our to-do list. We explained that we basically just have one long run-on document, and when folks kept asking us to share it (and update it as we went along), it sounded like our idea of a good time. And it’s high time that we actually updated it considering it has been ten months since we last shared it! Yowsa. In an attempt to keep our eyes from crossing when we read it, we separated what we’ve done in each room

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Fab Freebie: City Love

***This giveaway is now closed – see who won below!*** This week’s TWO lucky winners are… Maria G (who loves Kansas City despite being under 12-15″ of snow at the moment) and Fiona (who loves her hometown of Washington DC so much she even loves the traffic). Congrats you two! Today marks the seven year anniversary of our move to Richmond, VA. Woo hoo! It’s crazy to think that it has been that long, and to celebrate this week’s giveaway is from a city-minded artist: Kimberly of Albie Designs. We’ve had her charming illustration of New York City hanging in our hallway o’ frames for as long as there has been a frame collection there

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Finishing Touches In The Playroom

Mwah, hah, hah. Picture me laughing like a cartoon villain while rubbing my hands together maniacally. That’s sort of how I feel when I get to the “finishing touches” part of a room. Home stretch bay-bay! Remember how the middle makes no sense? Well, this weekend I think we rounded a corner thanks to a few small tie-things-together updates (you know, between all the board & batten we’re furiously installing/caulking/painting for Wednesday’s big reveal). So let’s take a look-see, shall we? As you can see, we finally got a new sheet set for the daybed (just a basic navy blue 100% cotton set from Target for a twin bed) to replace the worn and faded

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Squeezing In Some Craftiness

Since we always share our road trip adventures with the Bowers (like this one, this one, and this one), here’s a long overdue recap of our most recent visit – which included lots of kid fun, a fair amount of antiquing & crafting, and even a little luxurious mom outing for good measure (along with a really cute gift idea). Let’s jump right in, shall we? Oh but for those looking for pictures of us doing sexy exciting things like cutting wood and using a nail-gun, that’s going on as you read this. The soundtrack of the day is bam-bam-bam! Yes, we’ve begun our big board & batten project and can’t wait to share our

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A Kids Closet With Some Play Space In It

The closet in the spare room used to be packed with things like luggage, wrapping paper, gift bags, and a bunch of other clutter that had to be dealt with in order to free up space for actual playing and Clara-storage (since this is now the playroom/big girl room instead of a room full o’ junk). So we took everything out (except for the photo albums & yearbooks up top) and it magically disappeared. Just kidding, it ended up in the guest room closet. Which actually seems ok since we’re on year three of living here (CRAZY!) and we haven’t noticed any guests using the guest closet at all, so it made sense for us

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The Big Apple to The Big Peach

This may sound hard to believe – but this is our very last book tour recap post. Yup, all of our scheduled tour stops have officially wrapped up so we’ve just got these last three cities to share our adventures from: New York, Charlotte, and Atlanta. If you want to see our previous recaps, they’re all linked up on this page. And like all the other recaps, this guy is just as long. But I personally think our insane conversation with Mark McGrath (!!!) makes this whole post worth reading. New York City was actually supposed to be sort of our big kick off event back in November. But then Sandy happened and the date

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Knock Knock… Who’s There?…

It’s high time for the winter Pinterest Challenge (not sponsored by Pinterest or anyone else, just dreamed up by Katie Bower to make us stop pinning and start doing). The whole Pinterest Challenge thing started around a year and a half ago when Katie called me to say that she thought we should challenge ourselves to make one thing each season that’s inspired by all the fun stuff that we’ve pinned (and call it… wait for it… The Pinterest Challenge). It’s a welcome slap of stop-pinning-and-start-doing. So slip into your Hoodie Pillow (please tell me you’ve seen that on Shark Tank), sip on some hot chai, and grab some supplies. It’s time to get this DIY

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Framing Kid Clothing And Adding A Few Fun Wall Hooks

This adorable handmade poncho was actually brought back from Peru by my amazing sister-in-law a few years ago (thanks Ali!), and I was literally counting down the days until Clara was big enough to wear it. She has gotten a ton of use out of it over the last few years and it even made it onto the cover of a local mag (it was perfect for the holiday colors they were going for). But alas, Clara’s a growing bean, so it’s a little on the small size these days. Which would ordinarily make me want to cry, but I’ve been planning Phase 2 (aka: Operation Keep This Poncho Forever) for a while. $herdog had

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Hanging Decorative Birdcages In A Kids Room

Put a birdcage on it. That’s right, why stop at putting a bird on something when you can put an entire birdcage on it? Follow up question: why stop at one when you can go with three? Sidenote: we’ve gotten a few questions about the brown sheet on the daybed, so the deal with that is that we still haven’t picked up sheets for the bed, but they’ll most likely be navy and most definitely won’t be that crazy old tan sheet that has been on this daybed for around six years! Haha. So just try to ignore that for now if you can. But back to the birdcages. I’ve been itching to hang these

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January Superlatives: From Big Girl Room to Big A$$ Coat

We can’t believe we’re halfway through February already (January was kind of a blur). So in an attempt to take a minute and appreciate the things that we checked off the ol’ list (which keeps our momentum up and combats any “we didn’t get anything done” nagginess that sneaks up when the to-do list is still super long), here’s our yearbook-superlative-style January round-up. And if you want to look even further back, we’ve got each month of the last two years summarized right here in 24 posts instead of 840. But let’s start with something not-yet-blogged about (and an off the wall theory about bacon and mustaches)… Most Likely To Sport A Mustache: Anyone in

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Kid’s Views On The Coolest House

During our book tour stop in Palo Alto, someone brought us the funniest gift. It wasn’t a ceramic animal. It wasn’t cupcakes. It wasn’t stickers for Clara. It was a thin set of stapled paper that looked like this: Inside was this note: “Dear Sherry & John (And Clara & Burger), I have been a loyal blog reader since Fall 2010. I am currently a teacher and I thought it could be fun for you to see what kids think makes a house comfortable, fun, and exciting to live in. Therefore, I had them freewrite about their future house or their dream home. Enjoy! – Jacqueline” The dozen or so entries are sweet, imaginative and

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How To Make A Floating Frame

Let’s make a floating frame, shall we? I did a little frame hack that’s super easy and free if you have a few basic items on hand – or only a few bucks even if you don’t. So for anyone out there who likes the look of a floating glass frame but doesn’t want to pay around twenty bucks for one, you can probably use an old frame that you already have to whip one up. First, I colored this cool printable that I mentioned in that original art-hanging post (which I got here, printed on card stock at home, and colored with regular old colored pencils). Then I was about to run out and

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