Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

Posts By John Petersik

John Petersik is one half of the duo behind the award-winning home improvement and do-it-yourself design blog, Young House Love. Together, he and his wife Sherry have renovated seven homes, published two New York Times Bestselling books, and designed products sold in Target and Home Depot. They are currently enjoying their downsized home on Florida's Gulf Coast with their two kids and their dog, Penny.

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How To Update Bathroom Mirrors

The upstairs hall bathroom has pretty much been ignored for the past nine months, other than hanging a shower curtain after we moved in and occasionally cleaning the toilet. But these builder basic mirrors have been on our hit list from day one. It took us nearly two years to get around to updating the one in our last hall bathroom by framing it out, so we weren’t about to let these go as long. Sherry has been on the lookout for something with a more interesting shape (round? quatrefoil? Eminem’s face?) so framing these out wasn’t our plan this time. Instead, we glanced at whatever mirrors were around when we dropped in on thrift

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Picking Lighting and Tile For The Model Home

Things are moving at warp speed these days at the Homearama Showhouse, so we have tons of updates to share since last week (especially since more fixtures, cabinets, and counters are now officially installed). Let’s start on the front porch, where the centerpiece of our rustic, vaulted ceiling has been added. It’s from Restoration Hardware, so it was definitely a splurge (our team joined their trade program to save 20%) but we think it’s an awesome thing to see up there before stepping into the house for the first time. As we snapped these photos yesterday, they were just beginning to pull up the protective floor coverings, but the hardwoods were still really dusty (they’re

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Fab Freebie: Great Scott

A certain pregnant lady I know and love has a birthday this week, so we thought we’d mark it by giving the gift of one of Sherry’s favorite things to one of you: jewelry. Specifically, $500 to spend at Kendra Scott! 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 the United States (but we’ve got a border-busting prize coming up for you next week). Click to View Rafflecopter Widget

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Our Hardware Designs – In Target!

It’s been nearly three years in the making, so it’s hard to believe that the day is finally here that we can share our longest-stretching side-gig to date. We’ve been designing a collection of products… and a bunch of them are now being sold exclusively at Target (!!!). Cue the sound effect of a cat sprinting out of a bag. We designed three or four dozen pieces before the final mix was chosen – and those designs, which are an assortment of wall storage and hooks, are available right now at Target.com and will be on endcaps in most US stores starting March 31st. You’ll be able to find them in the Home Improvement section

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Picking The Paint, Light Fixtures, Doorknobs, & Vanities For The Showhouse

I’m thinking we should post pictures of blue ceilings more often on Instagram, at least judging by the reaction we got to this pic from the Homearama Showhouse on Monday. Then again, it may have just been thanks to Sherry’s dancing girl emojis. As those high-steppin’ cartoon ladies indicated, we’re pretty psyched about how things are shaping up over there. The bold “Skydive” color that we chose for the office ceiling (by Benjamin Moore) came out better than we imagined, and we even got to use one of our favorite lights that we designed last year. But although there has been TONS of progress since our last update two weeks ago, it’s unfortunately not the

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2 Free Floor Planning Apps

Let’s talk about Apps And Zerts, shall we? (Yes, that was a Tom Haverford reference, so you might want to grab your super water and sandoozles before we get into the nitty gritty) As I was trying out some new floor-planning apps to write last week’s post about our office floor plans, I took some screen shots and photos to share with you guys, and then that post felt full of enough graphics and words without them so I thought “eh, I’ll just skip that stuff.” Well, no less than a few dozen of you asked for more info on how our floor plans were made – and lo, this post was born. Like a phoenix

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How To Paint Trim With A Paint Sprayer

Whilst discussing office plans last week, a few of your comments about the blue trim situation in that room were the push that we needed. We were fooling ourselves to think we should paint all that trim by hand (we’re talking baseboards, crown molding, and five windows totaling 66 individual panes). So we decided to bite the bullet, break out the paint sprayer, tape everything off, cross our fingers and toes that we didn’t get any bleed-through on those wood floors, and say hasta la vista to some more blue trim this weekend. We had painted all of the upstairs trim with the sprayer before we moved in and before the new floors went down,

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Things We’ll Keep And Change For Baby #2

This being our second trip to the baby rodeo hopefully means that we’re a bit wiser going in. We can cherry-pick from what worked well with Clara while trying to improve on some newborn and baby items, products, and methods that might need fine tuning. Of course every kid is different and what worked for baby #1 may not apply for #2 – so we’re just waiting for those curve balls to come flying towards us – but since you guys have been asking, here are five things we’re planning to redo (as in do again or use again) and five things that we’ll do new. And because they pair up nicely, we’ll look at

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Home Office Floor Plans

It seems our excitement for the plans that we’ve been cooking up for the showhouse office has spilled over to our own office. Well, that and the fact that ours is looking pretty sad lately, having recently pilfered both its armchair and Expedit for the nursery. It doesn’t help that our chalkboard still says “Merry Christmas” on it. So basically, yeah, this office screams “I’ve got my ish together.” We’re excited to be thinking about the office because it’s one of our favorite full-of-raw-potential spaces in the house (so much space! so much light!). And with the baby’s impending arrival (six weeks!) we’re feeling the urge to consolidate our business life so it’s less likely

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How To Paint A Refrigerator With Appliance Paint

So yeah… our fridge is white now. It’s not a new fridge, it’s just our old almond-colored one “freshened up” a bit with some appliance paint so that it would play along more nicely with our white cabinets. After tons of you (literally dozens) mentioned that you had great luck with appliance paint in this post, we were encouraged to give it a try. I’ll admit that I initially had my doubts, but after hearing such rave reviews from you guys, we figured at its best, this update would help an old fridge blend in more until we save up enough money to replace it during Phase 2 of this kitchen makeover. And if it

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Fab Freebie: Have Mercier

Whoever wants a little more ooh-la-la in their home this week is in luck. Nineteen Mercièr is giving someone $500 to spend on any of the items in their shop – all of which are inspired by old world France. They have a nice mix of timeworn and weathered pieces, right alongside bold metals and graphic shapes. So whether you’re trying to complete the look in a rustic room, or just bring a bit of balance to a more modern space there’s plenty to choose from. 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

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Homearama Office & Dining Room

During last week’s update about our Homearama Showhouse for Habitat For Humanity, we included a few peeks at how some of the rooms were shaping up. Well, shaping up in our heads, technically, since we’re still about three weeks out from being able to put any furnishings into the house (the walls are getting painted as I type this, and then the cabinetry will go in and the hardwood floors will be stained on site), so everything has been in shopping list and mood board form so far. But in the last week the builder and his awesome team have been humming along, and we’ve made some really good furniture-and-accessory planning progress in several of

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