Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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Our Kitchen Remodel Is Done! Before & After Photos

Want a full tour of our newly renovated kitchen in 4,390 words or less? Well settle in and sip some LaCroix, because this is the post for you. Shall we begin with a few before and afters? You probably remember this view from our living room where you couldn’t actually see the kitchen. Well, now it looks like this: And here’s the old view from the other side, which is what you saw when you stepped in the door from the garage. These days it’s looking a little different. There’s obviously TONS of stuff to cover about this space, but today our main goal is to dish out lots of after photos and tell the story behind the major

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#20: White Walls: Overdone Or Still Totally Awesome?

20 episodes! Holy moly! I mean, yeah, cool… whatever bro. Here are the show notes for Episode #20 of Young House Love Has A Podcast. On this week’s episode we’re talking about white walls. We’ve all seen the ubiquitous white wall trend, but do bloggers and designers just choose them because they look good in photos? In person do they feel bright & cheery or cold & stark? We talk to two bloggers – one who loves ‘em and one who isn’t sold – and we weigh in with our own pros & cons on the subject. We’re also spilling the beans on a new outdoor project that we’re taking on, Sherry braces herself for an uncomfortable

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Our Kitchen Remodel Progress: Gutting & Rebuilding

Hopefully, by now you heard that we redid our kitchen. We shared how we landed on a completely new layout last week. But moving things around on paper is one thing, so today we’re taking you through how things happened in real life – including how a certain wall came down to get that open view into our living room. This kitchen was our biggest renovation project to date, and it fell somewhere in the middle of the DIY spectrum. It wasn’t entirely hired out (like our first kitchen mostly was) and it wasn’t completely DIYed (like our second kitchen mostly was). For some tasks, we decided that minimizing time was more important, so hiring professionals was the best choice.

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#19: Why We Didn’t DIY Our Entire Kitchen Remodel

Bazinga. It’s the show notes for Episode #19 of Young House Love Has A Podcast. On this week’s episode we’re talking about when it’s best to do something yourself and when it’s better to hire it out. We faced that question a lot during our big kitchen renovation, and today we’re discussing how we made the call, including strategies for saving time and money. We also bust out our five favorite routines that keep household clutter in check (bonus: they’re all pretty easy!).  Plus, we share some unconventional ways that we’ve discovered original artwork and we learn how to do some pretty weird stuff… like turning a bedroom into a vampire den. Yup, you read that right. You

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Kitchen Remodel Planning: A Totally New Layout

As many of you have already heard (either on our podcast or via the pic below that we posted on Instagram), we’ve renovated our kitchen in what turned out to be the biggest, most comprehensive renovation project that we’ve ever undertaken.  It was long, it was fun, and – much like planning a wedding – we’re thrilled with the outcome, but very grateful to have it behind us. (Unlike a wedding, there was not nearly enough cake involved). Like our living room and dining room makeovers (which we detailed in our second book), we decided to bring this renovation fully to completion before sharing it. We learned from redoing those rooms that letting go of the whole blogging-in-real-time thing keeps

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#18: Grace Bonney Talks Design, Blogs, & Girl Bosses

Here they are: the show notes for Episode #18 of Young House Love Has A Podcast. Does that mean the podcast has reached episode adulthood? Can it go off now and get a tattoo without our consent? (silently ponders). Anyway, on this week’s episode, Design*Sponge founder Grace Bonney shares what 12 years of design blogging has taught her about her style, the Internet, and why there’s no such thing as work-life balance. We also take you behind the scenes of our new coloring book, turn to a titillating source for some design advice, and talk about the curse that’s plaguing John this year. Plus, find out what we’re doing to cut down on unwanted clutter from

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#17: Our Latest (And Largest Ever!) Home Renovation

Fun fact: 17 is a prime number! You know what else is fun? The show notes for Episode #17 of Young House Love Has A Podcast, which you’ve officially found. On this week’s episode we’re excited to chat about a HUGE project at home that we’ve been working on (we’re spilling the beans about it here first!). We also help a listener who’s looking for fast & cheap ways to fill her empty walls – including some of our favorite sources and easy tricks for affordable art. Plus we share a tech upgrade that’s allowing us to be lazier in the bedroom, gear up for a well-hydrated October, and mull over the 2017 paint color of the year. You

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How To Turn One Duvet Cover Into Two

Yes, it is I, Sherry The Mediocre Seamstress, back with another post about sewing something while half wanting to fling the machine out the window, and then acting like a triumphant American Gladiator when I’m finished, parading around all sweaty and half clothed in full peacock mode. Behold, I have transformed one boy’s duvet cover into two. The issue was simple: my BFF had inherited her husband’s boyhood set of twin beds for their son’s bedroom. They had been using just one in their old house, but now had room to set up both in their new house (which is just a block away from mine! INSERT ALL THE EXCITED EMOJIS!). But alas, she had only one duvet cover

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#16: Squashing DIY Fears With Ana White

Behold, the show notes for Episode #16 of Young House Love Has A Podcast. In this episode, we chat with furniture designer and tool ninja Ana White about how she found the courage to dive into building everything from beds and bookcases to tiny houses and forever homes. We also go behind-the-scenes of our recent teachers lounge makeover (you’ll never guess what item threw us the biggest curveball) and discuss Gwyneth Paltrow’s recently listed house… using words we never imagined. Plus it turns out we’re both kinda on the fence about a particular design trend in the bathroom. You can download this episode from iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and TuneIn Radio – or listen to it below. Then use this page

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#15: How Fancy Is Too Fancy For A College Dorm?

Welcome to the show notes for Episode #15 of Young House Love Has A Podcast. On this week’s episode we’re chatting about college students who are catching national attention with their extravagant dorm decor, and we’re sharing where we fall in this debate (and open up about our own experiences with college housing). We also get some great design advice from HGTV’s Vern Yip, and spill our first impressions of meeting Emily Henderson for the first time. We also nerd out over a smart home we visited, and learn a hard lesson about why rice is sometimes not your friend. You can download this episode from iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and TuneIn Radio – or listen to it below! Then use this page

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A Teachers Lounge Makeover

Kids going back to school means that teachers and staff are going back too, so we were psyched to make their return a little brighter for one local public school who reached out to us for help with their teachers lounge. So here’s the scoop. Back in June, someone who had seen our makeover of Hudson’s room reached out to see if we’d be interested in another volunteer makeover for a good cause. The principal and the PTA’s goal was to update the teachers lounge over the summer to surprise the staff when they came back in September. Teachers and school staff are SO DESERVING, so it was an easy yes for us. While the PTA had earmarked

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A DIY Cork Wall For Kid Art

When your kid reaches the stage where they beg you to hang up nearly every painting, drawing, and stickered creation that comes out of her school bag, you may find yourself needing some more display space. Here’s how we hooked up our daughter with a giant cork board wall with a nice framed-in look and lots of room for art galore. The “bell-etin board” that she used to be referring to was this smaller fabric-covered cork board that hung in our office for the last eight months or so (it was originally made by Sherry for our old closet) – but it had been getting pretty crowded. Sherry had the idea to turn things up a

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