Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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House Crashing: Lovely At Last

We’re working on wrapping up a few projects for you today – pics and details to come! – plus we have a well overdue house crash to share. It feels kinda unnecessary in this case, but we’ll say it out of formality: Meet Nicole (and her smiley son August). If that picture alone didn’t make you say “Wait, that’s Nicole from Making It Lovely!” then allow us to say “that’s Nicole from Making It Lovely.” You guys know we like to crash homes of all types (we’ve shared nearly fifty of them, from modern apartments and traditional homes to eclectic or retro spaces or crazy bright and colorful ones – each from big bloggers, small

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Book Projects By You (Over 300 DIY & Craft Projects!)

As soon as we decided to number all the tips in our book over two years ago we hoped to someday create an online component where folks could upload their take on any of the projects along with the project number. And that day has finally come! So not only will folks be able to access this page right here, we’ll also be linking to it directly from our book page – so if you’re ever bored and want to check out a ton of reader submitted projects that have been completed after checking out our book (which will just keep growing over time) this post should eventually be chock full of them! It’s sort

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How To Build A Wood Frame Around A Bathroom Mirror

But first, who framed Roger Rabbit? I dunno. I can’t remember how that movie ended. But as for who framed out our hall bathroom mirror? We did. Putting a dressed up frame around a plain builder mirror is one of the easiest ways to upgrade a bathroom, especially if you’re working with the tile and not doing a total gut job (which we thankfully are in this room since the classic b&w tile is in great shape). It’s actually kind of crazy that we haven’t really tackled this yet (well, we sorta did it here I guess, but this mirror has been naked for the last two years since we moved in). There are companies

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Fab Freebie: Homes On Homepage

*** This giveaway is now closed. See who won below! *** An early Christmas present (in the form of this $500 Visa gift card) has randomly chosen to come to the hands of… Mary (whose dream house would be a “big cozy log cabin out in the woods” complete with fishing pond, swimming pool, hot tub, huge whirlpool tub in her bathroom and a giant walk in closet. Her fantasy list doesn’t end there, so check out her comment for the rest). Congrats Mary! With a URL as broad as Homes.com, there are a lot of topics you might think they cover. Because people buy homes. They decorate homes. They do home improvements. You get

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How To Make An Ombre Gradient Christmas Tree

In the esteemed words of Snooki… the party’s here! Woop woop, the tree is up. And this year now that Clara’s a big girl who we think can handle real ornaments (well, we got a few shatter-proof ones for the very bottom just to be sure) we went with a gradient from white to hot pink to red. Booyah. Or as I’ve been saying way too often: boom goes the dynamite. Oh and we have a bunch of meaningful/special ornaments that we love the most, but we save those for our real mini tree (we got a tabletop one last year and loved it so much that it’ll be a tradition). So we’ll post about

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Ten Flights Later…

Happy Friday! Quick updates first: If you’re trying to order our book (to read, for Christmas gifts, to use to kill bugs, etc), and you’re getting a “sold out” or a “1-2 month wait” message through Amazon, B&N, or anywhere else online, there are thousands of books making their way to warehouses in trucks right now, so in a few days they’ll be entered into the system and should all be available for immediate shipping then (so check back in a few days and they should definitely arrive before Christmas!). #godspeedlittlebooksintrucks Tomorrow we’ll be in DC doing some Living Social events at 918 F Street. These are pre-ticketed events, so if you’ve snagged a spot

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Five Random Bits

Since it’s Thursday afternoon and we’ve been known to veer off into random territory (like this, this, this, and this), I thought I’d toss another one on the barbie, er, blog. Below are things you probably never knew about me and John. Is it proof of our over-sharing tendencies? Yes. Evidence that we’re more than a little weird? Absolutely. But we just had so much fun with a Ten-Things-You-Didn’t-Know-About-Us post waaay back in 2009… … that we thought it was high time we broke out this post three years later. So without further ado, some random bits: 1. I’ve always wanted to name a band. Not be in one or marry a rockstar. Just name

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Sunroom Makeover Planning

Just like we did in our first house, we find ourselves bouncing around from project to project and from room to room (we’ve tackled the living room, guest room, nursery, bedroom, kitchen, dining room, office, laundry room, patio, deck, etc). But there are still a few completely untouched spaces after two whole years of living here (other than slowly filling them with clutter in some cases)! Up until about a month ago they were: the sunroom the playroom the hall bathroom the guest bathroom the basement the carport (which we want to convert to a more curb-appealing structure) the front porch (we want to frame out the columns, remove the scalloped trim, etc) Those are

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House Crashing: A Happy Casual Farm House

You guys know Lesli, right? She’s a friend of ours who lives in out in the country (Greenwood, Virginia) and happens to be an amazing painter (you might remember our giveaway with her). She has an awesome blog and a sweet old house – complete with extra high ceilings that we covet and 100+ year old details that make “old farmhouse” the dream for so many people (us included). So we can’t wait to show you around. Let’s get to snooping… Almost every item in Lesli’s home has been loved back to life. Like the old bench that sits in her entryway, which she got secondhand for $50 and painted a fresh new color. All

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What We Look For & Look Past While House Hunting

Q: I have a house-hunting question for you. What do you look for? What do you look past? Help! My main complaint of all the older homes that we’re looking at in our price range is that they all feel dated, but that seems to be what you guys look for. How do you know which dated houses are worth buying and which ones are lost causes? I keep worrying we’ll end up in a money pit! – Aviva (not the one from Housewives of NY). A: First of all, I’m glad you clarified that you’re not NYC Aviva. Haha. And second of all, we actually get this question a lot. So when it comes

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How To Frame Instagram Photos With Jewel Cases

“Who has two thumbs, an Instagram addiction, and just bought a bunch of jewel cases?” I think we all know the answer. THIS GUY had a little art project up his sleeves. Ever since jumping on the Insta-wagon back in April, I’ve been itching to get some of our photos printed. We just never had a place for them and were always a little wary of the quality through various printers. But a few weeks ago when I spotted a Facebook coupon for five free Instagram prints using Picplum, I ordered away (nothing to lose, right?) and I was pretty impressed with my handful of free 5×5″ prints… so, like the sucker they hoped I’d

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Fab Freebie: A Cultivated Kitchen

***This giveaway is now closed – see who won below!*** Sorry for the hit-and-miss quiz taking y’all. Apparently you guys enjoy a good quiz as much as we do! Anyways, the lucky (random) winner this week is… Kate Bateman (who was able to get a quiz result and said her “Traditional” diagnosis was almost spot on). Congrats! I bet most of you guys spent a fair amount of time in the kitchen over the last few days, and if it had you yearning to make some changes in there, you’ve stumbled onto the right giveaway. The folks behind some of our favorite stores (West Elm, Williams-Sonoma, and Pottery Barn) have a sister site chock full

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