Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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Fab Freebie: Art For Two

Finding one-of-a-kind art that you love isn’t always easy, so we’re psyched about this week’s giveaway from ArtTwo50. They’ve got a virtual gallery full of tons of original art from over 500 artists ranging from abstracts and portraits to landscapes and beyond – all priced at $250 including shipping. While you can browse their art on their Pinterest page, the real fun starts when you download their free iPad app, which allows you to take a picture of your empty wall and virtually “try on” different pieces before making your selection. You can even post on social media to get feedback from your friends first. And speaking of friends, ArtTwo50 is giving away a $500

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Introducing Our Dog To Our New Baby

A few folks were asking on Instagram for some specific info about how we introduced Burger to Clara, and how we tried to make the whole transition from living with a dog to living with a dog and a baby as smooth as possible for all parties involved. We definitely did a little googling and even chatted with our vet about what we could do to make things easier on Burger (and us) when this whole GIANT LIFE CHANGE happened, so here’s what we ended up doing, and how it worked out. 1. John left the hospital for about half an hour to bring Burger a blanket with Clara’s scent on it after a day

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A Soft Blue-Gray Paint Color For The Kitchen

Another Monday, another leap forward for our kitchen. Here’s where we were last week, after priming and painting the trim, doors, crown molding, and paneling white. And here we are today, with the walls freshly coated with a little Nelson Blue (the light blue color that we’ve planned on from the start). Shall we all let out a communal sigh of relief that the walls aren’t covered in wallpaper anymore and there are no more spackle holes and raw drywall from under those cabinets that we removed? Together now. Ahhhhh. Update: There have been a few questions about the intercom and why we didn’t remove it yet, but we’re not sure if we’re going to

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Our DIY “Thanks Jar”

For the fourth year in a row we’ve filled up our little thrift store jar that we etched with the word “Thanks” back in 2010 (you can read how we made it here). So before everyone dives headfirst into the gravy bowl (what? that’s not a thing?) we thought we’d stick with the annual tradition of sharing a few glimpses of some things that ended up on the list this year. Spoiler alert: one of them’s you guys. So let’s just pause for a moment so I can tell you how good your hair looks and how nice you smell and how flattering that shirt is and most of all, how grateful we are that

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Wendy’s Dilemma: Ideas Anyone?

We’re not sure how many of you are knee deep in a turkey somewhere (wait, that sounds terrible) but there’s nothing we like more than a group brainstorming session, so if you’re around, Wendy would love your suggestions. She has an exterior issue and she’s ready to dive right in (you know what that means… after pics! Hopefully really soon!) so here’s her letter: I’ve been a YHL reader since house #1 and I’m so excited that you’ve started this group advice feature!  I have a problem I hope you and your readers can help with. We’ve lived in our home for about four years, and the front needs a major paint job. It’s a

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Painting The Ceiling A Little Darker (And Glossier)

We’re doing Children’s Hospital stuff today, but a bunch of you noticed a foyer ceiling update in the background of yesterday’s post, so we owe you those details. We actually knocked it out before the big kitchen paint-fest, but that post cut the line because it was too exciting to save for later and we have the patience of toddlers (not to be confused with having the body of a baby). We usually hate painting ceilings (big rooms = sore backs) but the foyer’s a relatively small swatch of space, so I ended up just rolling the whole thing while Sherry knocked out some simple cutting in around the edges. If you wanna see some

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Painting Dark Trim & Paneling In The Kitchen

Remember when the kitchen looked like this back when we first laid eyes on our house? Whelp, now it looks like this… It’s crazy how different certain angles look in person. It’s like walking into the room and wondering who added five extra lights. It’s just so much brighter. Yes, we dove headfirst into priming and painting the kitchen baseboards, crown molding, and window trim (52. freaking. panes.) and ended up just going all out and tackling the paneling and the doors to the pantry and the garage while we were at it. We have nothing against dark paneling, we just prefer the painted look for our house, especially after drooling over a few awesomely

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So Many Holiday Projects

Heads up: this post might be a bit of a smorgasbord. I think it’s because life has been feeling kinda smorgasbordy lately (in a good way) and sometimes it’s hard to organize life into tidy, tightly-themed blog posts when it’s really all over the place behind the scenes… I say it’s “in a good way” because we feel like we’re really starting to gain momentum around a goal that we mentioned in this post of taking on more “off-campus” projects. In other words, projects that aren’t centered solely around improving our own spaces and, in more than one case, are for a good cause. The Homearama Showhouse that we’re doing for Habitat For Humanity, being

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How To Make A Clock

This week I was actually inspired by a request from Clara, which came by way of John’s mom. She was laughing as she told me that she overheard Clara telling her cousin that she didn’t have a clock in her room. Random, right? So I thought: I’ve never made a clock… but I bet I can make her something fun – maybe even something that she can interact with somehow. They sell those clock kits, so it can’t be too hard, right? So here’s where I ended up… And here it is living it up on the wall in Clara’s room. I originally thought it could be fun to use a birdhouse and add the

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Using Hot Water To Remove Wallpaper

The wallpaper in our dining room is gone. Phew! Hooray! Ahh, fresh ready-to-paint walls, you make my heart sing. (And seemingly endless blue trim, you make my eyes twitch). You might remember that each time I tackle wallpaper removal I’ve tried out a different method so I can report back to you guys on who’s the fairest of them all what’s the most effective of them all. Yes, I’m the Anderson Cooper of wallpaper. Except less handsome and more pregnant. Up until this point, I had tried boiling water sprayed on with a spray bottle for method #1, a steamer for method #2 (the one that’s in the lead so far for the easiest), and warm

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Listy McListerface: Updated

So sorry to everyone who requested an update on this sooner! We first shared our new house to-do list back in May and later updated it at the end of July, so this check-in is well overdue. But one fun thing about going longer than you meant to before updating a list is getting to cross things off like crazy. Picture me grinning maniacally for a far too extended period like the people in this video who think they’re getting their photos taken while the camera’s really on video mode. These posts came about when people asked us how we organize all the stuff that we have on our to-do list and we explained that we

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Fab Freebie: It’s A Little Bit Bunny

Virginia-raised Bunny Williams has made quite a name for herself in the interior designer world thanks to years of designing some pretty amazing rooms (which you can see in magazines, her books, and even on her Facebook page). So when she offered an upscale mirror from her line of furniture and decor items at Bunny Williams Home to one of you guys, we said “done deal.” So this week someone’s gonna win one of these three statement mirrors: the textured Ruffled Mirror, the sleek Garbo Mirror, or the curvacious My Pretty Mirror – which range from $900 to over $1600 in value! Please use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter (it might take a second to

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