Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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My Little Ponies

First, let’s appreciate how fun My Little Ponies really were. I think I had around 6 as a child. And it was magical. But in house-news-that’s-somewhat-related-to-the-throwback-mention-above, after what feels like months (ok, it actually has been months) we’re finally ready to fill the empty wall space on either side of the sink nook in our bedroom with something. And since I had fun making a little Pinterst inspired painting (but then resolutely decided that I didn’t want it to live in the bedroom)… It was time for John and I to have a few long chats about what we really wanted to fill the empty space across from the bed (no pressure, we’ll just wake

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Our Weekly Baby Photo Project Continues

Clara’s first birthday last Saturday made for a natural conclusion to 52 weeks of fabric-filled photo-y goodness (click here to see ’em larger). But we’re going to keep going. Kind of. Before we move on to that though, let’s talk about the last photo-filled year. We’re just as surprised as anyone that we managed to maintain our weekly ritual fifty-two times in a row. In fact, today is the first Friday in 12 months that we haven’t busted out the camera, a yard of discount fabric, and a white-onesied Clara, and then used Photoshop to add the week number to her onesie after the fact. It’s kinda sad in a way. But just looking at

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How To Make A Geometric Painting On A Canvas

What is it about painting that makes me feel all frenchified and beret-worthy? Anyway, I finally got around to painting one of the giant (and deeply discounted) 40 x 30″ canvases that we scored for $23 from Michael’s thanks to 50% off with an additional 25% off on top of that (more details about how that happened at the end of this post). Ever since discovering this inspirational poster design from here (thanks to my good friend Pinterest) I knew I wanted to adapt it a bit. You know, go wide instead of vertical and have some fun with a few $2 paint samples from Lowe’s (total spent on paint: $9 for three pots which

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How To Build A Fence

As several of you noticed in Monday’s party recap, our patio area boasted another feature on Saturday (beyond more balloons and little kids than you can count). Yep, there’s a new 6′ privacy fence going on back there. When did it get installed? In the sliver of days between completing the patio and hosting the party. But time was so tight that I didn’t get to blog about it until after the bean’s shindig (aka: today). Here’s how it all went down up. Throughout my patio-ing, Sherry regularly reminded that me she wanted to beef up the fence situation between us and the neighbor before Clara’s birthday party. Her goal was to prevent this big

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How To Make A Pull String Piñata

We had a bunch of requests for a tutorial on Clara’s pull sting piñata, so here ya go. And if you have no interest in this project but want to blow off some steam after work you could easily turn this post into a drinking game and take a sip every time I say the word piñata. But beware, you won’t be ok to drive afterwards. Anyway, I had never heard of a pull string piñata until I got some unsolicited baby party catalog with one and I instantly realized that it was a genius idea for wee ones. Clara’s not exactly strong enough (or coordinated enough) to whack a regular piñata with a bat,

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Adding Some Linen Slipcovers

Remember back when we got our conference room slash hotel-ish parsons chairs on Craiglist for $25 a pop? We always envisioned cheerful apple green ones (and even tried a crazy chair-painting project with limited zero success) so in the end we admitted that slipcovers or reupholstering would be the way to go. And after a long a$$ time spent going back and forth between the merits of slipcovers and reupholstering we decided that slipcovers would ultimately be the best choice for us (since we love the idea of tossing them into the wash). But we didn’t want anything fussy and long for fear of taking the dining room from hotel conference room to hotel banquet

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Fab Freebie: Give Me Liberty

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** According to random.org, our lucky winner who is getting their wish for Liberty is: Cindy A (who joins the crowd who loves oil-rubbed bronze). Congrats! If clothes make the man, you might say that hardware makes the kitchen. So it’s pretty sweet that Liberty Hardware is hooking one of you up with the chance to give your whole kitchen (or bathroom, for that matter) a major facelift thanks to $400 (yep, four-zero-zero) worth of knobs, pulls, switch plates, hooks, or anything else from their stylin’ catalog. So this could be your shot to make your kitchen more modern with sleek stainless steel pulls

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Hosting A House Party For Our Daughter’s First Birthday

Oh man did we party like it was 1999. Clara’s big birthday bash was so much fun, and even the weather miraculously cleared up for us (which I fully contribute to all the anti rain dances you guys did – so thanks). Of course you’re all virtually invited, so let’s get this show on the road. Here’s what the living room looked like decorated with some giant balloons and the fabric flag banner that I begrudgingly made for the bean just minutes before the first guests arrived. On the other side of the room I hung a paper pendant that I made a while back above the hallway sliders and John taped up all of

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Planning Our Daughter’s First Birthday

Clara’s big birthday shindig is tomorrow! Along with her actual birthday. It seems utterly insane to think that this time last year she was just arriving. Oy, how time flies. And since so many of you were asking for par-tay details I figured I’d toss up a quick little pre-party-prep post about all of my “supplies” for the bean’s big day. You’ll have to excuse me if you think I’m going overboard. I’m just a little obsessed with our girl and we’re so honored and excited to celebrate her first year here (more on the reasons for my über appreciative b-day behavior here). First I made these easy paper poms with tissue paper and some

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Cloth Diapering Tips

Here’s a little peek behind the scenes at our house (oh what glamorous and exciting lives we lead). Cloth diapers can be laying out in a sunny windowsill to dry, and a strange devil-may-care chihuahua might come prancing along… … and decide to do a little birdwatching… … followed by some leisurely lounging… … right on top of the diapers. What a weirdo, right? But he’s our weirdo. (Cue the collective “aww.”) And since one of the most common questions that we get has nothing to do with home improvement we figured we owed you guys an answer. It’s always some iteration of “How are you liking cloth diapers? Is it harder now that Clara’s

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Listy McListerson (Updated)

We thought it was high time we updated our to-do list (which you first saw here) now that we’ve lived here five months and crossed off a few things (and added about a million more, which just seems to be how it goes). As for how we keep things straight, we just write everything out in one big list, circle the small things that we want to tackle right away, cross things off as we go, and underline the long term things that that we want to save for and tackle when we finally have the funds (and are feeling more sure about our approach so there’s no shoulda-woulda-coulda going on later). Looking at those

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How To Build A Paver Patio

Hallelujah, the patio is done! I’ve caught my breath a little bit and regained feeling in most of my muscles, so I’m back to tell you the end of the tale. Let’s see, where did we leave off? Oh yeah, with us me passed out on the mostly-laid pavers late Friday night. As you know from Sherry’s post yesterday, we took Saturday off to have some family time / start Mother’s Day early. Then on Sunday afternoon, I decided to take an hour or two to finish cutting the pavers around the edge. Apparently my day away from patio made me forget how much effort each step of this process takes. My “hour or two”

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