Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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Avoiding Buyer’s Remorse & Purchasing Paralysis

Q: “How do you know when you’re investing in the right piece for a room? I’m paralyzed to pull the trigger and then later realize the table, curtains, or rug I’m currently eying aren’t ‘the answer’ for my room and then spend years regretting them.” – Melissa We get a lot of questions like this one. So after around six years spent decorating two houses on a pretty modest budget, with a nice heaping portion of mistakes and trial and error worked in there, here’s what we’ve learned. We definitely don’t get it right every time. Sometimes we’re too risky, and sometimes we’re too safe, and sometimes the proportion or the size of something is

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Fab Freebie: Be Jeweled

***This giveaway has reached is now closed – see who won below!*** Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! And an especially happy one to our randomly selected, lucky winner who goes by the name of… Oona (who will likely celebrate tonight with dinner at “a lovely vegan restaurant”). Congrats Oona! We love celebrating Valentine’s Day with you guys by giving away some free jewelry, and this year Sherry’s especially stoked because the prize is coming from none other than Kendra Scott – one of her favorite places to request that I buy her earrings for various occasions (like the past two Christmases). Kendra Scott has definitely earned me a few husband points, so this (are you ready

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Hanging Small Wall Ledges For Flash Cards, Postcards, Or Books

Aw yeah, we’re living on the ledge. We’ve been waiting to hang our postcard shelves from our first house’s office for over two years and we finally found the right spot for them. Ba-dow: We detailed the whole how-we-made-them process here (you should click that just to see how tiny Clara was) so here’s how we adapted them for this space: we measured how wide the dresser that would sit under them was (we thought they’d look top-heavy and odd if they were a foot longer, which they were at first) we lopped off the extra length on a miter saw, so they were all 2″ narrower than the dresser that sits under them we

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The Wild Wild West

Can you believe it’s been three weeks since our last tour update? But even though you haven’t heard much about it, we’ve been on the road (and in the air) quite a lot lately. It took us nearly to the end of our book tour, but we finally made it all the way to the other side of the United States. So let’s dive right in with our recap of our stops in all three west coast states. #warningitslong We started off in Tacoma, Washington at the Tacoma Home & Garden Show on Friday, January 25th. The people running the show did a great job getting the word out that we’d be there, even scoring

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Using Annie Sloan Chalk Paint And Soft Wax

Dudes and dudettes, I finally tried chalk paint. And yes, I just broke out dudettes. Gutsy move for 2013, eh? Anyway, many of you guys have asked if I’ve given Annie Sloane chalk paint a go, and now that I have, here are the details. First of all, here’s how we used it: John and I brainstormed a few possibilities for the table that we cut down and the two thrift store chairs that we found in West Virginia (they were $8 each) for a while. Here are a few alternatives that we tossed out there: red chairs with a white table red table with white chairs navy table with red chairs navy table with

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Window Shopping: Adler Adoration

It’s been way too long since our last window shopping adventure. As most of you know, these aren’t paid or perked or anything – we just walk through a store with a camera and take pics of whatever inspires us for you guys. This post is actually a few months overdue (woops) but now that I’ve uploaded the pics and sat down to write this post I’m all school-girl-ish again. See, I actually stepped foot into my first Jonathan Adler store ever a few months back (while we were in DC for a signing up the street) and I was OBSESSED. Believe me, it’s not a good look. I get all squealy and grinny and

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Fab Freebie: What’s In A Name?

*** This giveaway is now closed – see who won below! *** After 10,000 interesting name origin stories, random.org has selected our winners as… Beth (who says “my dad picked it out and to this day I’m whole heartily a daddy’s girl.”) and Chelsea (who’s name story is: “My parents got my name from the 1981 movie, On Golden Pond. ‘Chelsea’ was played by Jane Fonda”) Congrats! I realize from the name Online Fabric Store, you might have trouble guessing what this online store sells, so allow me to solve that mystery for ya. Fabric! And seemingly every kind of fabric – like upholstery, decor, quilting, apparel and even garden fabric. Which means that this

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How To Make No Sew Ikat Curtains For A Kids Room

Some people who went for a pattern like this on the daybed might go for something neutral and simple for the windows (like breezy white curtains). Others might pluck one of the colors from the blanket and go for that (bold red cotton panels, taupey-gray velvet ones, etc). We might have been tempted to go with something more neutral and safe if the room wasn’t meant for our color loving kiddo (so the bedding could “be the star”) but since it’s Clara’s new space, and we love kid zones with a few layered patterns and colors, we decided to just go to our favorite local fabric outlet (U-Fab here in Richmond) and see what grabbed

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The Macklemore Thrift Shop Challenge

The day has finally come! It’s about to get thrifty up in hurrrr. Here’s the deal. This “Challenge” – which we issued last Friday – was basically an excuse to all (virtually) go thrift shopping together and share our spoils. Plus there was a scavenger-hunt-ish element tossed in there for kicks. And just like our little Pinterest Challenges, if you guys wanted to partake and blog about it, we have a little linky thing at the bottom of this post so everyone can share their favorite finds. There were just THREE things we asked folks to do in order to play along (well, four if you count blogging about it, although of course you can

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One Little Two Little Three Little Updates

Even though we blog about house stuff every day it’s surprisingly easy to forget to fill you guys in on the little changes that we make… until someone sees a picture and says “wait, you didn’t tell us you did _____!” And sometimes it’s the little things that make you smile when you walk into the same room you’ve been walking into every day for the last 700+ days anyway, if you know what I mean. So since this blog is as much about over-sharing the small stuff as the big stuff, here are three oops-we-forgot-to-show-you updates. You guys have asked where my little ceramic houses that John got me for Christmas landed, and I’m

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A Tuxedo Kitchen Makeover With Wood & White Cabinets

Jaw dropping is not a term I like to just throw around, but I think this makeover earned it. Emily’s got lots of info about her makeover, so I’ll just let her dive right in and show it off to you guys. Here’s her letter: We bought this house as a foreclosure a little over two years ago. We got such a great deal on the house that it hasn’t been as difficult to save our money for the updates it needs. The house was built in 1987 and the interior had not been touched since, except for adding a layer or two of wallpaper over the original wallpaper.  Floral explosion all up in the

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A Fun Pink Polka Dot Rug For The Playroom

You’ve heard of rolling out the red carpet, but what about the pink one? It’s Clara’s favorite color, and a nice warm tone (after filling most of the house with cool blues, greens, and grays, it’s nice to bring in some warm tones to balance things out). Plus the way the playful dots in the rug mix with the bold colors in Clara’s big girl bedding = almost more fun than my brain can handle. In person it’s even more happy! Seriously. Come over right now. As for the price? Pretty darn hard to beat. We’ve had our eyes peeled for a while for something that would work with the blanket and general color scheme

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