Young House Love

DIY Home Decorating Projects, Tutorials, & Shenanigans

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The Only Grout We Ever Use (And How To Pick The Right Grout Color)

If you’ve got a tiling project in your future (even the distant future), remember, bookmark, voice memo, tattoo, or do whatever you need to do to remember Mapei Flexcolor grout. I know this sounds like I’m overreacting, but take it from people who have grouted 7 bathroom floors, 3 showers, 3 mudrooms, and 2 backsplashes in the last two years: this grout has been life-changing. And no, this is not sponsored by either Mapei or Floor & Decor, which is where we typically buy ours (sorry, necessary disclaimer because this post is going to sound pretty gushy). I meant to proclaim our love for this grout after finishing the beach house tiling two summers ago

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#128: Finding More Life In Less Stuff

Minimalism can still feel like an “out there” lifestyle, so this week we’re bringing in expert Joshua Becker to share how dipping your toes into the minimalist waters can lead to big gains at home and in life. He shares how to stop the slow creep of household clutter, what minimizing can teach our kids, and how it might even help you achieve some of your biggest life goals that have nothing to do with organizing or paring down. Plus, we take you inside a part of our house that many of you have never seen before, and we share what we’re both doing in the pursuit of a better night’s sleep. What’s new Below

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How To Install A Removable Wallpaper Mural

We’ve been eager to try a wallpaper accent somewhere in the duplex, and last week we finally installed not one, but two, removable wall murals! And I can’t begin to describe how much easier and cheaper it was than we expected, plus it turned out like ten times better than we had even hoped. If you’ve listened to our podcast recently, you may recognize this space as one of the small sleeping nooks on each side of the duplex. The rooms are only about 8′ x 8′ and our goal is to turn them into fun bonus sleeping spaces. So they felt like natural candidates for a bold injection of color and pattern. We had

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#127: The Real Housewives of Airbnb

This week we’re sharing a simple kitchen change that made it WAY more efficient for us (we’re kinda kicking ourselves for not doing it sooner). There’s also an update on some duplex delivery drama and we’re sharing three specific tips for book lovers who actually want books on their shelves (as opposed to filling them with a ton of decorative objects). Plus, the new show on Netflix that’s debatably as life-changing to us as Marie Kondo’s (we LOVED it – and we also chat about Marie’s show too). You can download this episode from Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and Spotify – or listen to it below! Note: If you’re reading in a feed reader, you may have to click

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A Tiny House Makeover (Ok, It’s A Dollhouse)

I was surprised how many questions I got about the little dollhouse sneak peeks I’ve shared on IG stories over the last few weeks as I fixed this up with the kids. And then I polled you guys to see if you wanted a post about it, and 91% of you voted yes, so here it is! You can read more about how these came to be on this podcast from a few weeks back, but the gist is that the kids really wanted super detailed dollhouses to fix up, and we got two of them secondhand on Facebook marketplace to “renovate” together. This little makeover was lots of fun for us all, since the

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#126: Is Your Home Making You Grumpy?

Lots of us want a more organized home, but are we going about it the wrong way? Today we’re talking with a home efficiency expert about how rethinking our approach to organizing could end up making us all happier – and maybe even help us be more patient partners and more present parents. She also explains why we should treat our kitchen like an operating room, how Sherry’s minimized closet could be better, and why garages are so hard to keep under control. We’re also sharing how a random phone call and a dicey forecast sucked the momentum right out of our duplex progress, but we’re still finding some silver lining in the news. Plus

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What I Put On My Face & In My Hair

This update post was spawned when I listed a lot of this info at the bottom of another post all about our home & personal care products (it was a giant rundown we shared in 2017) but since people were having trouble finding this info buried at the bottom (and I had to keep adding updates as I changed something) this post was born. HAIR/SHOWER STUFF This is my current favorite shampoo and conditioner, and I also use this AMAZING Shine Creme, which I apply when my hair is almost fully air dried (long story short, I realized my hair is actually curly and not just frizzy like I thought – this stuff is great for thick hair whether

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Things Are Getting Homier At The Duplex!

Last month we shared how refinishing the floors at the duplex made us feel like we turned a major corner at a house we’ve been renovating for over a year (remember when it looked like this?!). And now we are firmly in “the fun part!” You know, where you get to start bringing in rugs and light fixtures and furniture and accessories so it goes from looking like a construction zone to an actual home. It’s THE. BEST. Especially after months and months of expensive improvements that you don’t even see when the drywall goes back up (like plumbing and electrical upgrades). So let’s just get right into it. Behold, this wall of the left

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#125: A Tale Of Two Kitchens

Our holiday was full of fun, family, and a freakish amount of Ikea boxes filling the duplex. So this week we’re sharing how we navigated the task of installing not one, but two kitchens over winter break – including how things got off to a rocky start – and when we actually saw the light (both literally and figuratively). We also got AN AVALANCHE of feedback from you guys on the small sleeping nook we debated filling with various bed layouts in our last episode, so today we’re sharing how we’ve adjusted our plans to make the room work for as many families as possible. Plus, we tried out a new money-saving trick (why haven’t

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Installing Your Own Under-Cabinet Lighting

We’ve done so few upper cabinets in our recent kitchens that we actually haven’t installed under cabinet lighting in ANY of them. But we did install it under the cabinets in our laundry room and – surprise! – I just came across a bunch of pictures of the installation process that I took waaaaaay back in 2014 but never shared. It’s a remarkably straightforward process, so it could be an easy upgrade if you needed more task lighting in your kitchen, laundry room, or any other space with upper cabinets. The cabinets in here are from Ikea, so we also used one of their stock under-cabinet lighting options called GRUNDTAL Spotlights. These don’t appear to

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#124: One Small Space And Three Options (HELP!)

Today we’re talking about a small space that’s stumping us at the duplex and we’d love to hear what your family would like to rent most. You’ll also hear how an unexpected Christmas request from our daughter sent us on quite the hunt for a house-related gift – and how we stumbled across a new 4-in-1 tool that’s extra handy to have in your junk drawer. Plus we’re asking the hard-hitting questions, like can your astrological sign really help you decorate your home? You can download this episode from Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and Spotify – or listen to it below! Note: If you’re reading in a feed reader, you may have to click through to the post to

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How Floor Refinishing Totally Transformed The Duplex

Last week Sherry and I got to see the freshly refinished floors at the duplex for the first time. And despite having just gone through this last year at the pink beach house, we were still taken aback by what a HUGE difference it makes. Which explains why we’re about to hit you with a bunch of before & afters right now. We can’t get over how finished it makes everything feel. It’s like changing this one surface suddenly takes the whole place from “renovation zone” to “move-in ready.” I mean, let’s just appreciate how far we’ve come for a second. This is that same room (the living room on the left side of the duplex) when

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