Young House Love

DIY Home Decorating Projects, Tutorials, & Shenanigans

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Summer Pinterest Challenge: Making Acrylic Art

It’s Tuesday the 10th… so it’s time to share this season’s (completely unofficial) Pinterest Challenge (not sponsored by Pinterest or anyone else, just dreamed up by Katie to make us stop pinning and start doing). Cue the choir of glue-gun-wielding angels! I actually tried my hand at painting, just because I thought it would be fun to get back into. Other than this painting that I did a while back, I haven’t painted much beyond walls, accessories, and furniture for the last decade or so. Are my Pinterest challenge paintings going to land me an art opening anytime soon? Not on your life. Haha. But it was so much fun and I found spots for

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Fab Freebie: Life is Bee-utiful

***This giveaway is closed – see who won below!*** Thanks for all of the anniversary wishes everyone! Random.org has helped us select a winner of this giveaway and it is… Tracy H (who says since she’s from Baltimore, she calls everyone “Hon”). Congrats Hon, er, Tracy! In honor of our five-year anniversary on Saturday, we’re pulling inspiration from the bees that adorned our wedding invites (more on that here) for this week’s giveaway. And no, you won’t need a beekeeper’s suit for any of the prizes that we’ve assembled for this bee-tastic freebie. Here’s what you’ll score: Two Hive Vases from West Elm (just like I bought Sherry for Mother’s Day). You’ll get one of

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Add Something Old To Every Room

Ok, ok, I’m on the train. But first a dance break before I get into it (warning: there are a few semi-scandalous dance moves a la MTV’s The Grind). Back to the train that I’m on. You know how a bunch of designers have been saying things like “every room should have something old in it”? Or have I been the only one noticing that lately? Sort of like how they say “every room should have something black in it” (but other than oil rubbed bronze curtain rods or dark mocha wood, virtually nothing in any of our rooms is black – although 95% of my shirts are black, so maybe that counts?). Either way,

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In The Esteemed Words Of Sisqo…

… she had dumps like a truck, truck, truck (more highly inappropriate singing about butts here). And speaking of trucks, here’s the story of the little two dollar Goodwill truck that I got Clara in Georgia (mentioned in this video yesterday). This is what it looked like when I snatched it up: Perfectly charming and vintage-ish, but a little less “Clara” than it could have been. So I thought it would be fun to get Clara involved in a little makeover. Yes, Clara would be the ultimate truck graffiti artist, but first I applied one coat of blue paint, just to set the stage for her scribbles (the entire project was free thanks to using

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Reader Redesign: Life’s A Beach

It’s no secret that we’re suckers for a dark room turned light and bright. And during the summer months, we’re especially keen on the beach-y, coastal vibe that Jessica achieved with the help of our pal Rhoda. So check out her letter below: We finally finished our family room makeover. I feel like I’ve been working on this room forever. The colors in the room before were traditional and on the darker side. The old furniture was a set we bought many years ago and was in a much smaller room (so it looked a bit lost). I decided to change the look from traditional to a cottage-y pottery barn style. This was a joint

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Goodwill Goods, Grimaces, and Giddiness

If you have read our blog for the past year or so, there’s one thing you know. Goodwill + Katie B + me (+ John with video camera) = all kinds of ridiculousness. This time we literally ran around the store supermarket-sweep-style and tossed things that we thought were cool into our cart. Then in the name of keeping it real, we made a one-take-only video about everything that we found. No cuts. No corrections. John just pressed record and we jabbered on. So much so that we had to break up the video across both of our blogs since we went on (and on). You can check out the first half of it over

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June Superlatives: Northern & Southern Fun

Since it’s a holiday here in the US (America’s birthday, no less!) we’re spending the day with our family, but we thought we’d take a minute to look back on the month of June (once again we’re late with our little recap – sorry guys!). But in an attempt to TOTALLY REDEEM OURSELVES (name that movie), we’ve also linked to a bunch of Fourth of July related posts of yore for ya (here, here, and here) and we snuck a few never before seen things into this recap – like a new family portrait that the lovely and talented Katie B snapped for us while we were in Atlanta (how is no one crying?!). If

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House Crashing: Where Soft Meets Bold

Yay! We finally went through over 1,000 photos that we snapped during our ATL adventure and we cobbled together the first of a few House Crashing posts for ya. This one is all thanks to Jae, who lives in the Atlanta area, and invited us over to snoop around and take some pics. Her house is an awesome example of embracing color and boldness in some spaces, while balancing it with light and airy rooms. Such a fun mix. So without further ado, let’s get crashing… Look, here’s Jae to welcome us in. She could not have been sweeter in person. We were laughing the whole time we were there (Katie B came too and

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It’s Baaaaaaack…

Yup, this highly embarrassing video can only mean one thing: we should never be on camera it’s Pinterest Challenge time (not sponsored by Pinterest or anyone else, just dreamed up by Katie Bower to make us stop pinning and start doing). My favorite part is the outtake. Yes I’m saying I’m going to pee on myself at one point. Elegance is my middle name. The whole Pinterest Challenge thing started over a year ago when Katie called me to say that she thought we should challenge ourselves to make one thing each season that’s inspired by all the gorgeous stuff that we’ve pinned (and call it… wait for it… The Pinterest Challenge). It’s a welcome slap of

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Fab Freebie: Mixed Media

*** This contest is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** And our lucky winner of over $400 worth of art is… Kate (who loves the mix of love salty and sweet: chocolate covered pretzels, salted caramel, trail mix, etc). Congrats! There are so many incredible options when it comes to bringing art into your home, so we thought we’d put together a mixed bag of three very different, but equally cool artists’ work. The first comes from D is for Dino, a local guy who also moonlights at our favorite candy store. He makes awesome graphic prints that are crisp, beautiful, and contain “a hint of geekery.” Here are a few of

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How To Build A Deck: Conquering A Failed Inspection

If at first you don’t succeed… dig more holes. At least, that’s what was on my agenda after failing our first deck footing inspection (this post explains that debacle). This project definitely isn’t moving along at the speed of lightning, but we’re creeping slowly towards the goal of a finished deck to enjoy family meals on by the end of the summer – maybe even by this time next month if we’re lucky. But remember this speed bump? Since our original plan got the big ix-nay because we were trying to attach ledger boards to unapproved surfaces (although it was initially approved by the county), our new plan required us to make it a free-standing

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Father’s Day, Animal Friends, & Cheesy Grins

Work continues on the deck (looks like we’ll have an update for you on Monday barring any unforeseen disasters inspection failures!) so to end this week with a dad-worthy bang, I thought I’d share something that a bunch of you have been requesting: a belated Father’s Day recap (like last year’s) – especially since the day included a few home related activities and presents. The day started off much like any normal Father’s Day might. We went out to one of our favorite brunch spots (deLux) and enjoyed some french toast in their open-air back room (we also enjoyed an impromptu walk beforehand because we accidentally arrived 20 minutes before they opened – oops). Our

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