Young House Love

DIY Home Decorating Projects, Tutorials, & Shenanigans

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My New Favorite Front Door Paint (& Tips For Painting A Door)

You know we painted our front door a new color back when we painted our brick house white in October, and I even mentioned back in that post that I used a new-ish specialty paint that’s made for front doors. It’s called Grand Entrance by Benjamin Moore and the paint color is Tranquility also by Benjamin Moore, and it can either be made in a satin base or a super hyper glossy mirror finish base. Based on all of those excited adjectives I used to describe the latter option, it should be of no surprise to you that I jumped at the chance to buy and try “high gloss” for the first time. Photos don’t

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#130: Can Science Help Us Make Our Homes Happier?

Can the colors, furnishings, and accessories that we choose for our home actually make us feel quantifiably happier? Today we dive into the science of joy and learn how some tried-and-true design tricks might actually be affecting our daily moods (and how to make tasks that we don’t love a little more enjoyable). We also pin down a few ways that we’ve unknowingly added joy to our house, and a few others that could still use some work. Plus, the lesson we learned from waiting too long to give up on a piece of furniture, and a big dollhouse fail. What’s New That’s the Instagram photo above where many of you noticed that we had

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How To Install Cabinet Hardware (With A Video!)

The duplex kitchens are looking more and more like real kitchens, and they took an especially big leap forward this past weekend after we got all of the cabinet hardware installed. But drilling holes into new cabinets can be scary and there’s not a whole lot of room for error or do-overs. So unless you’re a fan of buying a whole new door or drawer front, it’s important that you get everything centered and level on the first try. No pressure, right? Thankfully, after installing three kitchens-worth of pulls and knobs in the last year and a half, we’ve perfected our system. So here’s how you can keep things straight, centered, consistent throughout the entire

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#129: When It Feels Like Everything’s Going Wrong

House projects don’t always go smoothly. We’ve all been there (heck, we’re there right now with the duplex renovation) so we’re sharing some new strategies that we’ve been relying on to keep our spirits up whenever a renovation feels overwhelming, gets delayed, or hits some other unexpected snag. We’re also discussing some upcoming bathroom trends (one of them shook Sherry to her very core). Plus we’re officially starting our no TV challenge. What’s New If you missed the first few mentions of our fridge delivery drama, you can hear the initial story in Episode #126 and the discovery of the dented door in Episode #127. Below is the photo of the “scrape” the second delivery

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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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