Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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There’s something in the air…

Nope, not a crisp fall chill. Not falling leaves. Not the smell of apple pie and pumpkin spice. Ok, so maybe those are in the air too, but you know what else is floating around? A certain challenge, that’s what. So who’s with us? Here’s how to play along. Just pin some inspiration and do your own spin. Yup, this highly embarrassing collection of our old Halloween photos can only mean one thing: we were into odd things as children it’s high time for a fall Pinterest Challenge (not sponsored by Pinterest or anyone else, just dreamed up by Katie Bower to make us stop pinning and start doing). I’m laughing the most at my wolf

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Fab Freebie: She’s Not Jenny From The Block

*** This giveaway is now closed –  see who won below!*** It was fun hearing all of your rap names, guys. That and seeing how many people entered “C.LO” instead of “L.CO.” That does roll of the tongue a bit more easily… Anyways, our random winner is… Rebecca (or should we say “Rebizzle” since that’s her high school nickname, which has stuck around for 15 years). Congrats! When Sherry and I were looking for some big, bold paintings to add some oomph to a few book photos back in January we turned to a local painter (and friend!) named Lindsay Cowles. And when she arrived at our house to loan us some gorgeous canvasses for

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How To Organize A Basement Workshop

Now that we’ve cleared out our backyard’s weed & liriope convention, let’s move on to another area that has been sorely lacking our attention. Yes, let’s spend some time in our basement, shall we? Oh wait – that sounds like an invitation to get murdered or something. Um, let’s just talk about our basement. You may recall that it recently went from a shameful deck-debris-filled no man’s land… …to a slightly more presentable space thanks to our Bagster rental a few weeks ago. Well, that Bagster purge and our recent yard sale were the kick in the butt that I’ve needed to finally put some energy into this room. Because honestly, we’ve put ZERO effort

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A Full Bathroom Reno For Under $2000

It’s not often that a before photo actually makes me laugh out loud. But I did so I’ll cop to it right now. Just check out the shower tile in Erin’s main bathroom for yourself. Thankfully the incredible overhaul that she and her husband did means that old tile is nothing but a (somewhat hilarious) memory. Here’s her letter: Hi John & Sherry, we’ve been working on remodeling our foreclosure mess for just over a year now, and so far we’ve completed three bathroom remodels! I’m still doing a happy dance from how this last one turned out. This room started out as bad as it could get with dirty white tile & brown grout,

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Drilling Holes In Your Pumpkins For Spooky Wood Snakes

Just to be clear, that post title is meant to be said in a Dr. Dre-esque fashion like he does in this song (aw yeah, $herdog still rocks out to the clean version of this 1999 classic). And now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about something hardcore. Pumpkins, yo. This year we got lumpy bumpy orangy-red ones instead of the usual smooth yellow-orange guys just for kicks. The coolest thing about them is that they have stems on the bottom and top, which is kind of fun. Pretty much as soon as we got them home we got to work hollowing them out, and I directed John to make a

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Landscaping Updates In The Backyard

Update: Thanks so much for all the kind words and general awesomeness on yesterday’s post. You guys rock my socks. Ladies and gentlemen, we actually have a backyard. Well, we still need to get some grass going on, but three phases of digging and transplanting and weeding (here’s phase one, and here’s phase two) have definitely turned our Jumanji-esque backyard into a nice clearing for Burger & Clara to run around in… once that aforementioned grass makes itself at home. And we still have a ton of giant trees on the side and back of our lot to keep it from feeling too open and stark, which seems to be the sweet spot for us.

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Behind The Scenes Details Of Writing A Book

It’s Tuesday afternoon, which means it’s high time for some over-sharing (aw yeah, let’s talk about feelings, shall we?). The very first hot-off-the-presses copy of our book arrived via Fed Ex yesterday and it kind of melted my brain a little, I think. We couldn’t stop beaming at it and saying things like “It’s real! It has pages! It has a cover! It has our names on it!” – but I’d be lying if I said that “crazy-pants excited” was my only response to seeing it there on the floor looking all real and book-like. I’m also skeered. Really scared actually. And since I’ve spilled my guts about 14 months of breast feeding, owned up

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We Bought A Moose Lamp

Knock Knock. Who’s there? Moose. Moose Who? Moose Lamp!!! Wait, but some of that pic is photoshopped. I can explain. It all started when I saw a moose lamp at an moving sale back in West Virginia when we were there to makeover Granny’s bathroom… I couldn’t resist grabbing him for ten bucks. His shade was an odd too-small shape and his paint was flaking off in a few places… … but I knew I could take him from log-cabin to log-cabin-chic with a little spray paint and a new shade. So guess what? Dude, I got on that (see how these odd, usually-animal-related “Dude Get On That Already” challenges started here). I got on

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Fab Freebie: It’s The Tiny Things

***This giveaway is now closed – see who won below!*** Now that the Christmas countdown clock has ticked to 67 days left, how ’bout we announced who random.org selected for this prize? That lucky person is… Janaya McKeon (who is “crazy excited for my husband and I to share our very first Christmas together as a married couple, and dreading the inevitable weight gain that accompanies me.”) Congrats Janaya! There are 70 days ’til Christmas, y’all. Yup. It just got real up in here. So if you’re looking to help keep the holiday hysteria at bay, we’ve got a great way to check one thing off your list: cards. Tiny Prints is gonna hook one of

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Slowly Updating Our Landscaping

When it comes to our jungle-esque backyard, we last left off with transplanting/digging up one giant 15′ garden bed and leveling it all off in the hopes of growing some lush green grass. And we’re back with a little backyard update (why yes we did spend the weekend getting muddy and why no, I still don’t have Madonna arms, but maybe a third day of bush whacking will be the charm?). Much like any other “room” in the house, it’s definitely a do-it-in-phases thing, especially since it’s such a you’ll-be-sore-after-each-phase process, but there’s something awesome about digging around in the yard for a few hours while the bean naps and Burger sleeps lazily in the

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How To Host A Yard Sale

When Sherry and I hosted our first yard sale over four years ago, we remember feeling rushed to get everything outside and set up, being stressed about how to price everything, and constantly obsessing over how much money we had made as the day went on. It’s like we were both so excited to sell stuff that we didn’t like (so we could go buy more stuff that we did like) that it became a bigger deal than we initially expected. Fast forward a few years (we also had a moving sale back in 2010) and we found ourselves hosting another clear-things-out yard sale now that it’s 2012 (I guess our pattern is every two

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A Peaceful Gray & White Nursery

Nancy’s room for her son Owen is a great example of how a nursery or kids room can be cool and sophisticated while still being playful and fun. Which is pretty awesome, especially when the price tag is a mere three hundred beans. And since we get a bunch of folks asking for kids rooms, we couldn’t wait to spill the pics along with Nancy’s note below: Hey guys! I have been living in my home for four years now, and I finally decided it was time to decorate it. I started with my two year old son’s room, and now I am questioning why I didn’t start with my room first. I may just

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