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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The Big Apple to The Big Peach

This may sound hard to believe – but this is our very last book tour recap post. Yup, all of our scheduled tour stops have officially wrapped up so we’ve just got these last three cities to share our adventures from: New York, Charlotte, and Atlanta. If you want to see our previous recaps, they’re all linked up on this page. And like all the other recaps, this guy is just as long. But I personally think our insane conversation with Mark McGrath (!!!) makes this whole post worth reading. New York City was actually supposed to be sort of our big kick off event back in November. But then Sandy happened and the date

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January Superlatives: From Big Girl Room to Big A$$ Coat

We can’t believe we’re halfway through February already (January was kind of a blur). So in an attempt to take a minute and appreciate the things that we checked off the ol’ list (which keeps our momentum up and combats any “we didn’t get anything done” nagginess that sneaks up when the to-do list is still super long), here’s our yearbook-superlative-style January round-up. And if you want to look even further back, we’ve got each month of the last two years summarized right here in 24 posts instead of 840. But let’s start with something not-yet-blogged about (and an off the wall theory about bacon and mustaches)… Most Likely To Sport A Mustache: Anyone in

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Kid’s Views On The Coolest House

During our book tour stop in Palo Alto, someone brought us the funniest gift. It wasn’t a ceramic animal. It wasn’t cupcakes. It wasn’t stickers for Clara. It was a thin set of stapled paper that looked like this: Inside was this note: “Dear Sherry & John (And Clara & Burger), I have been a loyal blog reader since Fall 2010. I am currently a teacher and I thought it could be fun for you to see what kids think makes a house comfortable, fun, and exciting to live in. Therefore, I had them freewrite about their future house or their dream home. Enjoy! – Jacqueline” The dozen or so entries are sweet, imaginative and

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Choosing The Right Lamp Shade Pendant

I kinda want to jump on The Voice bandwagon. Not in the sense that I want my shot at getting Adam Levine to turn his chair for me – at which point I would look him dead in the eye and say “keep your hands off my woman, Levine!” (it never hurts to lay clear boundaries with a guy like him). I want to jump on the bandwagon in the sense that The Choice (spinny chairs meets dating), The Taste (cooking) and The Face (modeling) have. Only my spin-off would be called The Shade and it would be a competition to find “the next great light for Clara’s big girl room.” And no one would

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Fab Freebie: Be Jeweled

***This giveaway has reached is now closed – see who won below!*** Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! And an especially happy one to our randomly selected, lucky winner who goes by the name of… Oona (who will likely celebrate tonight with dinner at “a lovely vegan restaurant”). Congrats Oona! We love celebrating Valentine’s Day with you guys by giving away some free jewelry, and this year Sherry’s especially stoked because the prize is coming from none other than Kendra Scott – one of her favorite places to request that I buy her earrings for various occasions (like the past two Christmases). Kendra Scott has definitely earned me a few husband points, so this (are you ready

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The Wild Wild West

Can you believe it’s been three weeks since our last tour update? But even though you haven’t heard much about it, we’ve been on the road (and in the air) quite a lot lately. It took us nearly to the end of our book tour, but we finally made it all the way to the other side of the United States. So let’s dive right in with our recap of our stops in all three west coast states. #warningitslong We started off in Tacoma, Washington at the Tacoma Home & Garden Show on Friday, January 25th. The people running the show did a great job getting the word out that we’d be there, even scoring

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Fab Freebie: What’s In A Name?

*** This giveaway is now closed – see who won below! *** After 10,000 interesting name origin stories, random.org has selected our winners as… Beth (who says “my dad picked it out and to this day I’m whole heartily a daddy’s girl.”) and Chelsea (who’s name story is: “My parents got my name from the 1981 movie, On Golden Pond. ‘Chelsea’ was played by Jane Fonda”) Congrats! I realize from the name Online Fabric Store, you might have trouble guessing what this online store sells, so allow me to solve that mystery for ya. Fabric! And seemingly every kind of fabric – like upholstery, decor, quilting, apparel and even garden fabric. Which means that this

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A Tuxedo Kitchen Makeover With Wood & White Cabinets

Jaw dropping is not a term I like to just throw around, but I think this makeover earned it. Emily’s got lots of info about her makeover, so I’ll just let her dive right in and show it off to you guys. Here’s her letter: We bought this house as a foreclosure a little over two years ago. We got such a great deal on the house that it hasn’t been as difficult to save our money for the updates it needs. The house was built in 1987 and the interior had not been touched since, except for adding a layer or two of wallpaper over the original wallpaper.  Floral explosion all up in the

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Hanging A Pegboard In A Basement Workshop

So I finally finished decking out the other half of my Instagram-arted basement pegboard. Yup, I added a little makeshift shelf that I primed and painted, got a non-electrical music device (how’s that for mysterious?), and even hung something kitchen-related as art. Actually a lot of you guys have been asking what we did with the cutting board that we picked up a couple of months ago as part of The Shops At Target collection, so… I give you… America The Pegboard-iful. I just thought it made for some cool (and sawdust-proof) art, since I’m into maps and all. It worked out nicely that the blue-painted edge of it coincidentally goes with my navy pegboard.

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Fab Freebie: A Literal Fab Freebie

***This giveaway is now closed – see who won below!*** You guys hit the 10,000 entry cap to giveaway within 24 hours, so you must love some Fab as much as I do (or perhaps you just like $500). Either way, we’ve crowned a random winner and it is… Whitney (who says “Most of my apartment is muted gray, yellow, and blue, but my kitchen has bright red baking dishes on display.”) Congrats Whitney! I’m a recent addict to Fab (I own more t-shirts from there than I probably should admit). So imagine my reaction when I got an email from them offering to do a – wait for it – $500 Fab gift card

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Two Fun Ways To Use Instagram Photos

What’s better than one fast and easy project with family photos? How about thirty. Just kidding. How about two. Cool? Let’s do this. First up, we have Photo Project Numero Uno. We’ve had fun with the little Sherri Conley cards-turned-art that we hung above our sofa in eight Ikea frames two years ago. First with bright paper behind them and then with some textured fabric as the backdrop around a year later… … but lately we’ve been jonesing for something a little more personal. It all started when Sherry and I were talking about how Instagram seems to capture “real life” better than formal camera pics from a big event. Why? I think because we

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Fab Freebie: World Play

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** And the lucky / randomly selected / soon to be quite worldly person is… Briana (who says “London, Ontario is special to me. That’s where I first lived on my own, went to University, met my husband, and I just loved that city. Plus, it has the best spaghetti restaurant ever, Spageddy Eddy’s!”). Congrats! And for everyone else, scroll down to the contest entry details for a sweet little discount the Wallpapered folks added for everyone. One look at Pinterest and I don’t feel quite so alone in my fascination with maps. So to everyone else out there who digs a little cartography

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