Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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Our Laundry Room Makeover Plan

Thanks for all of the laundry room ideas last week, guys. We spent a lot of time mulling over every last suggestion, and even got some quotes for a few things (like moving the hookups, the doorway, and possibly bumping out a wall). One common alternate suggestion (we’ll call it “Option 3”) was to take our original Option 1 and rotate the laundry appliances 90° so that it’s out of sight. Then we could put access to the storage room on the back wall so there wouldn’t be any more of that walk-through-one-room-to-get-to-another-one issue. It was an interesting idea for sure. We hadn’t considered it before because, well, it would require moving all of the

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How To Spray Paint A Brass Chandelier

Continuing the recent trend in our house – Clara is the latest family member to get a ceiling fixture in her room. And methinks Sia might break out in song about it (“from the chan-de-li-eeeer!”). If it looks familiar, it’s because you’ve seen it before in our dining room. Well, a previous incarnation of it at least. We’ve always been intrigued by this chandelier, which was here when we moved in.  The finish wasn’t totally our style, but the swirls and flat arms (it almost looks like an intricate paper chandelier) always made us think it could be a good candidate for Clara’s room. The main problem was that it was too big. Even without

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Buying A Teil Duncan Painting For Our Anniversary

As of Monday, John and I have been married for seven years. Or a hand and two fingers, as Clara likes to joke (“what’s seven?… A HAND AND TWO FINGERS!” *maniacal laughter*). As you can imagine, when you get married on 7/7/07, your seventh anniversary feels like a special one. The golden birthday of anniversaries, if you will. We went to Hawaii for our fifth anniversary, and have always thought we’d end up going somewhere awesome for our seventh (Australia is the ultimate dream – maybe for our tenth – but for lucky seven we were thinking about somewhere in the Caribbean). But as this summer approached we realized the last thing we wanted to

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Fab Freebie: Light Saber

‘Tis grilling season. And Saber Grills will be sending one of their high-end grills someone’s way, along with $100 to help kick-off their next cook-out. The winner can choose between two stainless steel grills: a full-size Saber model ($999) or its built-in cousin ($1,199). They’re created by outdoor cooking experts (hence their collection of recipes), so they’re designed to get the most flavor out of your food with things like infrared heating for quick and efficient cooking. Plus they boast cool features like commercial grade stainless steel and halogen lights on the hood for nighttime grilling. Neighbors are about to be jealous. Please use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter (it might take a second

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How To Convert A Lamp Into A Pendant Light

After over a year of living without one, another bedroom has been upgraded to have a ceiling light fixture – and this time it’s Teddy’s room. Woo to the hoo guys. It’s the best thing ever. I know that sounds like an overstatement, but you don’t know how convenient ceiling light fixtures are until you buy a house without any in all of the rooms upstairs except for the bathrooms. When I saw this stick light on Joss & Main I thought it was fun and beachy-yet-geometric. And call me crazy, but I immediately looked at it and saw a ceiling pendant. To make sure I wasn’t being weird, I ran the idea of converting

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Beginning Our Laundry Room Renovation

There’s nothing like having a newborn to make you appreciate having a nice spot to do laundry. Ours functions just fine, but I’d say it still falls a bit short of “nice” in the looks department. So we’ve decided it’s major overhaul time. Things have made minor progress since the beginning. Blue trim was painted. Old blue bi-fold doors came off. Flooring was replaced. Hallway walls were painted. And, oh yeah, we unexpectedly had to buy new appliances. I actually bothered to spray those bi-folds white back when we painted the trim and doors upstairs and they’ve been living in the storage room ever since. Once every few months Sherry and I talk about re-hanging

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Writing Our Second Book

We’ve been mentioning our second book off-and-on for several months now, usually followed by promises to give you some details soon, so we’re finally fulfilling that promise. How did you get a second book deal? Our original deal with our publisher, Artisan Books, was for two books, so we’ve known since signing on with them in 2011 that we’d be doing a follow-up to our first book, which came out in November of 2012 (more on that whole experience here). When will this one come out? Right now we’re working towards a fall of 2015 release – although that depends on lots of factors (many beyond our control) so it’s not set in stone yet.

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Fab Freebie: Earn Your Stripes

Well, more like win your stripes, since Dash & Albert is offering up a $500 gift card to one lucky winner. We’ve been fans of their stylish and logic-defying ability to combine softness and beauty with indoor & outdoor durability, having used them in our own home (remember this patriotically-titled post about our stair runner?) as well as in our showhouse. They’ve got lots of classic patterns and on-trend colors that reach beyond rugs to items like pillows, ottomans, poufs, and even bags. Please use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter (it might take a second to load, but it should eventually pop up below this paragraph). This giveaway is available to residents of the United

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Adding Overhead Lighting & Extra Outlets

Yes, that’s an electric slide reference. And I’d bet money that it’s cracking my mom up while my brother is rolling his eyes and vowing never to read this blog again. Let’s talk about electrical updates, like hanging a new capiz chandelier in the bedroom, and putting our heads together to gain a few bonus outlets and cut down on drywall holes while running electrical wiring. After last week’s post about our four new outdoor sconces, we mentioned we had some other wiring work done inside at the same time, so here’s the rundown on everything we added, where it went, and how much it all cost. We’ll start with the prettiest result so far

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Hanging A Collection Of Frames All Over The Wall

Our master bedroom has moved leaps and bounds over the last few days in terms of not looking like a big empty room with a bed in it. And by leaps and bounds, I mean frames and curtains. And more frames. Plus a few more frames after that.   Before we started putting a bunch of holes in our walls, this is what the room looked like (and what it has pretty much looked like since we painted it nine months ago). It was in desperate need of curtains at the very least, but we’re not done with those yet, so just ignore those and let’s talk about the frames.   We had long talked

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Adding Outdoor Sconces To Our Back Porch

There’s something illuminating going on in our sunroom. And I’m not talking about the fireflies Clara is constantly trying to catch and befriend (she told me the other day that she wants one to live in her room FOREVER). Befriend? Imprison? Potato, potahto. Yep, our sunroom – er, veranda if you’re nasty fancy – is finally sporting some lighting, courtesy of the new fixtures that we added to the posts in the four corners of the room. Our original plan last summer had been to install light kits on the two fans in the room, but we never found fan lights we liked… and then we slowly warmed up to the idea of sconces around

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Fab Freebie: Art Meets Science

It’s not every day that you get an email from the country’s largest science museum, which is why my nerd-dar went off the charts after the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago reached out to offer up $350 towards some museum-worthy art. They’ve launched a photography shop offering dozens of museum images as fine art prints and wrapped canvases. The images cover everything from historic pictures and illustrations (some of my faves being old trade catalogs, like the “Types of Screws” chart below) to photos of museum exhibits and artifacts, like their iconic baby chicks, colorful architectural prints, or old timey bicycles. Please use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter (it might take a second

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