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 Stain & Seal The Deck

With our power washing done we could finally stain and seal our deck, which we completed and re-furnished on Tuesday (literally hours before our first showing!). But let’s rewind to where we left off yesterday. We mentioned that after finishing it in late August we were told to give the pressure treated wood 2-3 months to dry out before sealing any of the moisture from the treatment in (apparently sealing or staining PT wood too soon can lead to terrible results). So by the time staining was advised, it was too cold out to apply the stain. But even after spring rolled around and we power washed, it still wasn’t quite ready. What was standing

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Using A Pressure Washer To Clean Wood, Brick, And Cement

Note: This post features a heavy-duty, gas-powered pressure washer we rented from the store. To see how we now use a $99 electric version we own, please see this Getting Started With Pressure Washing post. Guys. I have a new favorite thing. And no, it’s not a pint-sized plastic vehicle. Yup, we took our spring cleaning to the proverbial next level and rented ourselves a 2000 PSI pressure washer (just got it at the Home Depot in their tool rental department). For 80 bucks and thanks to borrowing my dad’s Kia to haul it, this puppy was all ours for a day. I was happier than a hip hop hamster. I had never used a

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Aquatoberpril (A Water-Drinking Challenge)

Don’t worry, I don’t know how to pronounce that blog post title either. It’s just a nod to the fact that my  “Aquatober” challenge – where I try to spend the entire month of October drinking water instead of soda and other sugary drinks – has extended itself all the way through April. Hence, Aquatoberpril. In my original post about Aquatober I noted that I have varying success every year I try to detox myself (and my wallet) on all of the soda I consume (it’s my liquid vice of choice). Some years I don’t make it the full month. Some years I make it a bit further. Well, this time I’m still going strong

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We Bought A New House!

So, funny story about the house below. We bought it and we’re moving in. We know this news probably evokes a whole range of reactions. Excitement for new makeovers. Sadness for leaving our current house. Curiosity about all of the logistics. Confusion. Anger. The inexplicable urge to do The Carlton. Starting this story requires rewinding seven years, back to our first house hunting experience in Richmond in the spring of 2006. We had just moved from New York City and Richmond real estate felt very spacious and very cheap by comparison. It made dreamers out of us. We checked out a bunch of neighborhoods, and fell for an awesome old area with nice big wooded

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How To Build A Garage Pergola

Parking our car got a little more scenic this weekend with the completion of our carport pergola. Or, cargola (pergolaport?) if you will. Last week we talked about dressing up our carport with the help of some pergola plans from Workbench Magazine. The plans took a lot of the guesswork out of it, but there was still plenty of actual work. All-in-all it took about 4.5 days of work (the half day was spent picking up the materials, which we talked about here) but I’m gonna boil it down to one simple post. So here we go.   What you need to know is that there were four main parts to this building project: 1)

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A Dark Gray Nursery With A Tree Mural & Striped Curtains

This nursery that Dave and Carrie created for their daughter had us smiling from the second we saw the first picture. Not only is it bold and playful, it also has some sweet personal touches and a lot of handmade/DIYed goodness going on. Here’s their letter: Hey S & J, We recently welcomed our first child into the world, Everly Harper. Before we even knew Ever (that’s what we will lovingly call her), we knew we didn’t want a typical nursery for her – and we definitely didn’t want anything close to what the room looked like when we bought the place. My wife was inspired by a woodland themed nursery that we found through

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Planning And Prepping A Carport Pergola

What carport? This carport. You know, the one that almost kept us from considering this house because we were so anti-carport? My how we’ve changed our tune after spending a few years with it… Sherry actually mentioned the new tune we’re signing back in this Listy McListerson post: “we originally wanted to convert this into a garage, but now we’re leaning towards adding a trellis arch so it’s all lush and pretty like a carport with a pergola instead of being closed in and dark like a garage (we’d lose some light from two windows into the laundry room and office if we closed it in).” The lost windows were a big game changer, since

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Fab Freebie: Getting ‘Toned

***This giveaway is now closed – see who won below!*** And the lucky winner of some Pantone-tastic paint is… Gretchen (who’s really into “robin’s egg blue with a few pops of tangerine”). Congrats! Y’all have heard of a little thing called Pantone, right? Well the folks who declared Emerald the color of the year have a slew of color experts who have also inspired a line of paint. And our bloggy friend/decorative painter Kristen clued us into MyColor inspired by Pantone – which is a series of project-sized paints for furniture, accessories, walls and beyond. In addition to the cool clear packaging, these quarts of eggshell paint (which are sold online and at Lowe’s) are

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This One’s For Boston

We consider this site to be our happy place. A sanctuary away from all the other messes that life can throw our way and a record of the things that we’ll find joy in remembering sometime down the road. So I was hesitant to address this week’s bombings in Boston here, since they’re about as far from happy as you can get. But two days before the idea ever crossed my mind that participating in a race could end in tragedy, I did just that. Last Saturday I ran Richmond City’s 10k, which USA Today ranked right alongside the Boston Marathon itself. Me and 40,000 others ran 6.2 miles up and down our city’s most

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March Superlatives: Crown, Color & Can Lights

Lights. Camera. March recap time! Last month was a busy one – lots of nail gunning (crown & fireplace), playing with paint (including a new color in the kitchen) and even a couple of geeky tech upgrades. So we’re taking a moment to appreciate all the things that we checked off of our list in March as a motivator to make April just as productive! Oh and you can catch superlative recaps of the last 2+ years here (in 26 handy posts instead of 870!). Plus, we’ve got a little clue about what’s happening next week in the mix… Most Colorful: Monday’s giveaway. Here’s a hint. Scariest: Beginning the process of installing crown molding to

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A How To Video For Hanging Crown Molding

Mission: Finish installing crown molding around the rest of the house (with the nursery done, we still had the guest room, the playroom, and the hallway on our list). Status: Complete. And thanks to the magic of the internet, something that took us about two weeks on and off, will appear to have been done in two seconds. Behold. Yep, as I mentioned in this post about hanging crown in Clara’s nursery, it ignited a burning desire to install crown in the other main areas of our house that were oddly missing it (our bedroom had it but the other bedrooms didn’t, one hallway had it but the other one that was connected to it

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Fab Freebie: Finnishing Touches

*** This giveaway is now closed – see who won below! *** And our randomly selected winner of $500 to FinnStyle is… Erika (who just finished with all four of her kids having the stomach flu and is praying it never comes back). Congrats on your prize! Nope, that’s not a typo up there, the double-N is for FinnStyle – whose site is full of sleek, bold, and colorful pieces that are commonly associated with Scandinavian designers (everything from home accessories and bedding to dinnerware and clothing). And if you’re like us, what pops out most are the iconic Marimekko pieces that populate much of the site. So if you ever wanted to get your

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