Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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How To Paint Ikea Kitchen Cabinets

We’ve painted kitchen cabinets before. We’ve done Ikea kitchen cabinets before. But painting Ikea kitchen cabinets was a new combo move for us. And despite a nagging voice in our heads that asked if it was a bad idea (paint laminate? or slick factory finished cabinets?! can that even be durable?! ), we’re extremely happy with the final result. Plus, it was pretty easy to do – no paint sprayer or fancy equipment necessary! We’re about a month into using them every day and so far they’re holding up wonderfully. They’ve been scratched, scrubbed, kicked, and real-life tested by two kids and so far no scrapes, dings, or dents to report. They look as good

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Adding Smart Blinds

Last month, I wrote a post about the smart tech we love most in our house. And in it, I promised a more detailed post about our smart blinds. They’re hands down one of my favorite smart home features that we’ve added. So let’s dive into where we got them, why we chose them, how they’re powered, their pros & cons, and – of course – how much they cost! NOTE: I cannot explain why I insist on calling them “blinds” when they’re technically roller shades. Let’s start with the question I heard most… even from Sherry! She was very reluctant, but has become a full smart blind convert! Why Install Smart Blinds or Shades?

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How To Build DIY Garage Shelving

We needed some heavy-duty garage shelving for our new shed, so we turned to this easy shelf tutorial from our friend Ana White. They stand up to the weight of heavier items like paint cans or large tools (more than your typical plastic or wire garage shelf) and are also SUPER straightforward to construct. I’ll show how we got there, but here’s where I ended up. We ended up loving this technique so much, we repeated it when we needed heavy-duty shelves in the shed at our beach house too (seen below). They’re such an easy DIY project (even for beginners) and I find them FAR superior to most store-bought garage shelving units. Building long

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The Best Smart Home Tech

It has been almost 4 years since we last detailed the ways we use smart home technology to make our household more efficient. Since then we’ve changed homes, states, and even our smart home systems. So today I thought I’d break down what we’ve added, what we’ve gotten rid of, and what still has a stranglehold on my nerdy tech-loving heart (and even one that was Sherry’s idea!). As usual, none of the products mentioned in this post are sponsored or gifted. It’s just stuff that we have bought and loved – or (in some cases) don’t love so much anymore. So let’s get into it. STILL LOVE: Alexa Voice Assistant Call us basic, but

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Introducing Penny Petersik!

If you follow our Instagram stories, you’ve probably seen the news that we welcomed a new member of the Petersik family recently. But I wanted to take a moment to properly introduce her here on the blog. So… say hello to Penny! After Burger, our chihuahua of 15 years, passed away in October, we were wrecked. It was a huge loss for our family, and in the initial days after Burger’s passing we donated a ton of things he left behind (our vet was able to pass along his treats, food, crate, and heart medication to other dogs in need of those items). Of course we saved a few keepsakes like his collar and blanket,

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How To Add Crown Molding To Cabinets

Updated January 2022 Do your kitchen cabinets feel a little bit unfinished? Or maybe don’t quite reach your ceiling, leaving a weird gap? We’ll gonna show you how we installed crown molding to give our upper cabinets a simple DIY upgrade. It’s one of my favorite, easy kitchen projects – and we completed it in just 3 hours! Why We Added Crown Molding To Our Kitchen Cabinets When we finished our kitchen reno last year we decided to forgo any crown molding on the top of our upper wall cabinets because we decided we liked the clean, modern look of the square edge. Plus we had never installed crown molding before, so I think we

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Adding Storage To A Small Kids Bedroom

When we thought about all the functions that would be helpful to have in our son’s bedroom, which can definitely be described as “cozy” when it comes to the size (real talk: this room is small), he needed: We definitely could have pulled the “your room is really small for a desk, not sure we can do that” card – but we thought it was worth a try thanks to the idea of customizing a built-in desk right next to the bed that could double as a nightstand. And low and behold, it worked like a charm. So yes, this small room has everything on that list we shared. A bookshelf, a desk (that also

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Costa Rica With Kids

We have so many good things to say about our family vacation to Costa Rica! This was our first international trip with our kids and we’re convinced it was the best possible destination for their first passport stamp. It was relaxing, enriching, and fun all of us. So today we’ll answer all of your questions: where we stayed, what we did, and how we navigated a foreign country with young kids. When you have little kids (ours are 5 and 9) it’s tempting to default to the low-stress, easy-to-plan vacation. So part of our goal with this trip was to break out of that rut, and step outside of our travel comfort zone. It was

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How To Stain Your Wood Cabinets Darker

The stain on our kitchen cabinets was too orange and dated-looking. We loved the wood grain, but just wanted a darker, more contemporary color. We just didn’t love the idea of sanding or stripping off the old finish. Luckily, we found a product that would let us skip that messy and tiring step while still giving us the end results we wanted. You can see our results above, and read below for how we got there! What Stain Product Did You Use? We used Minwax Polyshades for this project, which is similar to a gel stain. Unlike traditional wood stains, which have to soak into the wood to work, a PolyShades coat or gel stain

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#182: A Big Catch Up Holiday-ish Special (Surprise!)

So much has happened since we last picked up the podcast mic, so we have a jam-packed show to catch you up on all the things. We’re talking house updates, embarrassing stories, renovation plans, and we even worked in some bad metaphorical diagrams (because describing graphs and charts you can’t see always goes over well in an audio format). We’re also diving into how house projects have slowed down around here, the remaining projects on our list, and how our attitude towards having less on our to-do list has changed pretty dramatically over the years. Plus an impromptu musical exercise that captured our family’s contentment for living in a smaller home, and why Sherry can

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Our Minimized Holiday Decor

It’s wild to think that this is our second year of decorating this house for the holidays (what even is time?!). You got a peek at some of it in our new kitchen door post, but today we’re gonna show it all! I’d describe Year Two in this house for the holidays as a more minimal Christmas but still a festive one. Last year we got a mini real tree for upstairs in the family room as well as putting up our skinny faker (that’s what I affectionately call this tree right here) in the bedroom. But this year we had a more central spot for our main tree… right in the nook our new

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