Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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My 1st Mother’s Day & Patio Progress

Oh man Sunday was fun. In that nontraditional I’m-sure-some-other-moms-might-not-get-it way. The whole weekend was sort of an extended Mother’s Day extravaganza since we made time for visits to the farmer’s market and a Bon Air parade/festival with Clara and John on Saturday (Burger’s afraid of firetrucks and loud noises, so he skipped the parade). Then on Sunday, I was awakened by the bean who was holding a handmade card (she scribbled all over it with crayons- so cute) along with an equally sweet card from John and Burger. I was also given a printout that was entitled “The Tale Of Sherry’s First Mother’s Day” which explained that John tried to hunt down the gold Calypso

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How To Make A Modern Patchwork Quilt

I think I’m possessed. What else can possibly explain the fact that I’m laying in bed at 12:52 and thinking these totally-foreign-for-me words: “I’m so excited about my quilt I can hardly sleep.” Seriously. The only explanation is some sort of unbeknownst-to-me lobotomy. I’m the girl who loves to use iron-on hem tape to make curtains and crib skirts (here, here, and here). I’m the girl who whined for about 2,000 words about just how cursed I am when it comes to sewing (here). Can I really be the girl who can’t sleep because of a quilt? Insanity. But I am. Here’s what I’ve been up to. And it is by no means the right

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Fab Freebie: The Royal Treatment

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** According to random.org, the royal treatment is going to Cathleen Pearson (who feels bad for Kate’s balding husband). Congrats! No, not those royals. The majesty behind this giveaway comes from Royal Design Studio, whose stellar stencils will turn your walls into a stylish statement piece (but not in the way that a certain hat made a statement on a certain princess’ head recently). We’re crazy inspired by all of the stylish patterns and fresh color combos they showcase, and one of you will score $100 towards anything you find on their site. Enough chatter – feast your eyes on these babies (Sherry’s over

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How To Lay A Paver Patio: Gravel, Sand, And Stones

The last four days have been nutzo in Patio Land for us (not to be confused with Temptation Island- remember that show?). The good news is that it’s nearly done. Like 90% done. But since I’m a bit low on energy at the moment (and we have to wait for better light to take more pictures), I’m gonna cover as much of our four-day patio-extravaganza as I can muster. The rest will come a bit later when we’re 100% finished (and have a chance to take about a million after shots from every angle). To recap: as of last Monday the area was all marked, leveled, and dug up. Then on Tuesday our nearly 10-ton

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How To Make Your Home Feel Like Home

We interrupt this regularly scheduled broadcast for a quick patio progress report: the wallet-draining patio supplies (mentioned here) have arrived. And now we kind of get why they were so expensive. They’re bigger than our car, it took a giant truck to haul them, they weigh over 19,000 pounds (that’s not a typo or an estimation, it’s on our itemized delivery ticket) and they completely monopolize the carport. John’s out there working away today (T minus one week until Clara’s big par-tay) so I thought I’d slip in this sneak peek of the craziness that is the current patio project. More details soon. But now back to the whole question of “Home Sweet Home?” Anyway,

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How To Fix A Broken Pendant Light

The other day I flipped on the lights in our kitchen and noticed one of the two pendants over the table was out. No biggie, right? The previous owners had thoughtfully left us a spare bulb (since they take tiny special ones) so I popped it in there and voi… nothing. Darn. Apparently my fix wouldn’t be that easy. I’m no electrician, but I figured-slash-hoped I could diagnose and solve the problem without having to call in help and/or buy a new light. Not that we have any special attachment to these fixtures in particular. In fact, we’ll probably replace them for one larger light fixture over the island that we plan to add when

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How To Prep and Level A Paver Patio

Digging is right up there with the Kardashians for me. As in, I’m getting tired of it (What? I’m a guy – we don’t like those shows). I knew there’d be a lot of it involved in DIYing our patio (digging, not Kardashians), but I think I got a false sense of confidence after all of that liriope came up relatively easily last week. Next up was removing the brick path which, based on the looseness of some bricks on the edge, I said to Sherry “shouldn’t be that bad.” At least I can pinpoint the very moment I jinxed myself. Do you hear that? It’s the sound of the universe laughing at me. As

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How To Match Ikea White Paint

It feels like a theme lately to remind you guys that we mentioned that we were going to do fill-in-the-blank a while back and then exclaim that we finally got around to doing it. So this time fill-in-the-blank is finally painting the bedroom finials to match Ed The Bed. See how they’re a bit too white in this pic? It definitely wasn’t rocket science (not much of what we do around here is, haha) but we wanted to share the super easy process when it comes to matching paint to any existing item of furniture, like if you’re planning to add legs to a painted dresser that you already own for example. The first step

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When Home Projects Go Wrong

I learned in grade school that trying to be perfect would probably result in a caffeine-pill-fueled freakout a la Jesse Spano (yes, many of my life lessons were learned thanks to Saved By The Bell). Pretty much since then I’ve been in the camp of try-to-do-it-right-but-perfect-isn’t-possible. So sometimes it’s weird when people mention that they think we live in this perfect world where nothing goes wrong and we never fight and life is just hunky-dory from the minute we wake up to the minute we go to bed. Unicorns and rainbows if you will. I think sharing Clara’s birth story helped a little in that regard (that day was definitely not the fairytale that we

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Fab Freebie: Sew Sweet

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Thanks to random.org, these three ladies are getting a kick start to Mother’s Day: Traci (who inherited her mother’s worrying skills!), April (who got her mom’s love of shopping, travel and new things) and Stacy (who inherited the gift of being a good cook from her mom). Because becoming a mom has mysteriously given Sherry the urge to learn how to sew (more on that here and here) we thought we’d use this pre-Mother’s Day giveaway to dish out TWO fabric-tastic prizes to THREE lucky winners. And they won’t have to sew a stitch because it has already been done for ’em. The

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A Graphic & Fun House Tour

When Courtney of Little Glass Box sent us photos of her amazing 105 year old row house in Baltimore, we knew we had to house crash the heck out of her, so here we go. First lets meet the fam (there’s Courtney, her son Olly, and her hubby Ryan): How funny is that photo? You can already tell their house is going to playful and charming, right? Here’s the dining room, full of geometric pattern and rustic elegance thanks to the mix of the stenciled wall (Ryan did it himself) and the reclaimed wood table (Ryan built it himself). Notice a theme here? Ryan is handy. And guess who’s obsessed with the big wood horse

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April Superlatives

Note: This is a retroactive post that I cobbled together in December of 2011 so I could make this page full of monthly recaps for the entire year (our first in our new house!). Yup, I’m just a bit type A. So here’s what we tackled throughout the month of April – high school yearbook style. Most Outdoorsy: Digging Out The Liriope That Covered Nearly 80% Of The Future Patio Area Most Domestic: Making Sue The Napkin into Sue The Pillow Biggest Crybaby: Sharing Clara’s Terrifying Slash Miraculous Birth Story Most Likely To Result In Cursing: Having An Epic Battle With My Sewing Machine And Squeezing Out A Party Banner Hoppiest: DIYing An Easter Basket

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