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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Ripping Up Old Wall To Wall Carpet

I realize four months isn’t an eternity, but it was about 3.9 months longer than we wanted to spend with the last vestiges of the old carpet upstairs. Especially since it was in our bathroom. Ah, carpeted bathrooms. We didn’t remove it – or the portion that extended into our closet – back when we removed the rest of the upstairs carpet because we knew we didn’t want hardwood floors in the bathroom. So, in the absence of a new flooring decision, we just left the old stuff. The old, wrinkly, creamy stuff that blended right in with the creamy walls and creamy trim. But yesterday morning (yup, about 24 hours ago!) we decided to

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Blogiversary 6: You Guys Are Hilarious

As our sixth blogiversary winds down (and we stow the t-shirt launchers and airhorns until next year) we wanted to thank you guys for the good times. Hashtag thanks for the memories (please tell me you’ve seen this). Last year’s blogiversary concluded with a geeky graphic round-up of some of the most interesting stats from our annual reader poll, and this year nearly 30,000 of you guys took the poll at the end of Wednesday’s post, which was a pretty big contrast to our first blogiversary poll where I copied and pasted all 199 comment responses into a spreadsheet by hand). It was interesting to see what has changed since last year’s infographicized recap (and what

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Blogiversary 6: Did Somebody Say Oprah?!

The funny part about talking about our Oprah-related experience during blogiversary week is that we talked about almost appearing on Oprah’s show during our very first blogiversary week (spoiler: we got bumped last minute by Ty Pennington and some twins in need of a makeover). So it seems, now five years later, that things have come full circle. Was that an O pun I just made? Yes. Yes it was. First of all, the exciting news. For anyone who wasn’t able to watch or stream the short film when it aired on Sunday, the kind folks at OWN have generously provided a clip for us to share here. So here it goes. The nice thing

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How Do Bloggers Make Money?

Consider the next part of this post as an update to this one from two years ago where we first broke out a few pie-charts to generally illustrate how we spend our time and how we make money as bloggers (because even our parents get confused about that sometimes). Things have changed over the last couple of years – not dramatically – but enough that we felt it was time for an update. So let’s kick this charty goodness off. Behold, a very simplified / approximated breakdown (all the pie charts in this post are very general guesses, btw)… First, we should point out that this is not a complete representation of our waking hours

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Fab Freebie: Who Loves A Trip?

We knew it’d be pretty tough to top last blogiversary’s prize of $2,500 worth of swag, but this year we somehow wrangled an adventure and luxury filled Virginia vacation worth an estimated $3,000 for you guys! Virginia is for Lovers, the fine folks who promote tourism in our home state, just started a new series featuring real Virginians… and they actually asked to profile us for it! We had so much fun during our day trip to Virginia’s Eastern Shore – complete with beach time, antiquing, fresh seafood, and even paddling in kayaks to a vineyard. And now, for one lucky winner and a guest from anywhere in the world, they’re recreating that trip with

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A Day At The Beach… With Some Cameras

If you caught this Instagram photo we posted back in July, you could probably tell it wasn’t your average trip to the beach. We were actually participating in a photo and video shoot for Virginia is for Lovers, the fine folks who promote tourism in our home state. They were starting a new series featuring real Virginians taking new adventures in the state, and they actually asked to feature us (!!). It’s pretty obvious that we love Virginia, so we couldn’t wait to sing our home state’s praises and check out a few places we’d never been. We were invited to explore Virginia’s Eastern Shore for the day with them, which, for those unfamiliar with

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What Our First & Second Houses Taught Us

Q: Now that you’re in your third house, I’m sure there are things you’ve learned about budgeting, decorating, house hunting, etc. having been through the process a few times now. Would you ever consider writing a post about what your first and second house taught you? -Alison A: Sure we’d consider it. In fact, here it is! Like anything in life, you hope your previous experiences will help make you smarter about your next one. And I think having our first home influenced the selection and design of our second and now the same thing is happening again – plus we now have the extra benefit of comparing the first two. We talked in this

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Showhouse Floor Plans

Remember we mentioned the show house that we’d be working on to benefit Habitat For Humanity over the next ten months? Well, we’ve been itching to give you guys an update but we haven’t broken ground quite yet. It’s not that we’re behind schedule (the goal is to be under-roof by Christmas) but it turns out there’s a whole lot of prep before a house is even built. So as people who have never built a house or been part of that process before, it has been really interesting to see what goes into it. Over the last few months we’ve been having lots of planning meetings and have even made some site visits to

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House Crashing: Four A Good Cause

Some of the same folks behind Richmond’s Homearama (who are working with us on our Habitat For Humanity Showhouse – which we’re planning to update you guys on ASAP) invited us to similar-but-new show called the Massey Street of Dreams. Like Homearama, it features custom built homes that are decked out inside by designers & decorators who collaborate with each builder and their team. But this show’s the brainchild of cancer survivor George Emerson, so it’s got a charitable slant in that all proceeds benefit our local VCU Massey Cancer Center. So just like we had fun sharing these eight homes with you guys, we’re psyched to share the four pretty places that make up

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How To Install A Wood Plank Ceiling

When we decided we wanted to do a wood planked ceiling in our sunroom, I think I kind of just envision walking into Home Depot, strolling down the beadboard ceiling aisle, and loading up our cart. Piece of cake. Easy as pie. Insert third dessert related idiom here. Well, turns out there are lots of options for achieving the beadboard look. Historically, beadboard was made up of individual tongue-and-groove planks – kinda like a hardwood floor. Except between each board is a little ridge or indentation, aka the “bead.” Just look at this assortment of choices… There are also lots of panel options. You know, those full 4ft x 8ft sheets of the beadboard pattern?

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First Day of School, 2013

It happened again. Our little lady is back in preschool. And the difference from last year’s first day photo nearly put our jaws on the floor. We knew she had grown, but wow. Since her monthly photo project stopped at her 3rd birthday, it was fun to break out this other photo tradition and snap some pictures. Although I had forgotten about the weird results when you say things like “smile big!” “No, like you’re really happy and excited.” She’s going back to the same preschool she went to last year, though now for three mornings a week instead of two like last year. She’s excited to be back with her friends, to get to

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Fab Freebie: Fall For Coupons

Coupons.com covers the gamut – from digital, printable, social, mobile, and loyalty card program discounts for spots like Target, Barnes & Noble, Amazon and lots more. In addition to wanting to help you save some green, right now they’re also celebrating the change of seasons and diving into fall decorating (sometimes all it takes is swapping out a piece or two to transition the mood in your home). So they’re kick-starting that change with a $300 e-gift card to Sears, which you’ll be able to stretch with the dozens of Sears discounts that Coupons.com offers.   Please use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter (it might take a second to load, but it should eventually

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