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 Build A Deck

The deck is officially done. Sound the celebratory cowbells! I actually finished it on Friday and we’ve spent the last few days crossing all appendages and waiting for an inspection (I couldn’t bear to share my triumph until I was actually sure it was a to-code triumph). The inspection finally happened yesterday afternoon, and – ta-da! – we passed. Relief flooded over me like all the sweat that I put into building this thing (lesson learned: build decks in the spring or fall). Here she is in all of her wood-riddled, approved-by-the-county glory: It’s definitely an upgrade from the tiny rotting balcony that we started with: We thought it’d be great to have it done

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Fab Freebie: Get Your Fixture Fix

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** And the random person getting their fixture fix this week is… Anne L (who simply described the problem in her bathroom as: “Pink carpet in bathroom?! Nasty!”) Congrats Anne! Got a bathroom that could use a new faucet? Or new showerhead? Or new just about every fixture? Well then you’re in luck. The generous folks at Moen are dishing out an ENTIRE suite of bathroom fixtures in your choice of three of their most popular collections: the modern 90 Degree, the sexy Voss or the classic Boardwalk. You’ll get: Two bathroom faucets A rainshower showerhead and matching tub spout One 18-inch towel bar

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Window Shopping: High Bridges & Green Fronts

We took a little day trip last weekend to a nearby town called Farmville. It’s about an hour away from Richmond and, as the name suggests, involves driving deep into rural Central Virginia. The reason for our adventure was actual to do a family bike ride on a new rails-to-trails park that opened up around Farmville called High Bridge Trail State Park. For those of you who catch our Instagram pics on Facebook or Twitter, you saw a picture of that very (very, very) high bridge already. But coercing Sherry into riding her bike over this steel and wood skyway was my main thrill of the day. And hers was something else entirely. She was

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A Painted White Brick Fireplace In A Vaulted Living Room

Should all brick fireplaces be painted? No way. We always tell anyone who’s on the fence not to touch that brush. But if you’re 100% sure you prefer the look of painted brick, then it can be a great way to bring an airy and light vibe to a room (we sold our first house in two weeks with two painted brick fireplaces so it didn’t seem to be a resale deterrent at all). This makeover from Jamie and Ehren is all about crisping up a space – both with white fireplace paint and some darker blue paint worked in there for contrast on those awesome built-ins. Here’s their letter: Hey YoungHouseLovers! Your blog inspired

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Fab Freebie: Let’s Be Honest

*** This giveaway is closed – see who won below!*** The randomly-selected-and-very-lucky lady in this week’s giveaways is… BeccaK (who wishes “I could trust the lube & oil folks when I go for an oil change – is a radiator flush REALLY necessary?”) I’m with ya on that one Becca. Congrats! As much as we love a good looking home, we also like ours to be as good for the Bean and the Burger as possible. So this week we’re dishing out $500 worth of products from The Honest Company to keep your casa clean and green. You may know this family-friendly company thanks of their familiar-faced co-founder, the lovely Jessica Alba. And when you

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The Process Of Building A Deck

When we last left off in our deck saga, our hero (that’s me in this case) was avoiding battling the heat as he tediously valiantly drilled in screws across the middle of our deck. Since that chapter of this drawn out harrowing tale, John The Weary Daring continued this mind-numbing history-making task. Since that’s about as exciting as I can fake my latest day of deck work, I’m just going to skip to this part where you can see the middle of the deck all laid down and screwed into place. Let’s just say I was glad the deck was finally more solid surface than it was holes for me to fall into. I could

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A White Kitchen With Green Glass Mosaic Backsplash Tile

We loved Stacy’s kitchen makeover, not only because it’s beautiful (and a huuuuuuge improvement over the original) but also because we thought it was a great example of balance. Stacy found out where she could eke out the most savings and took her time figuring out what she could do herself (and where she needed a little help). And the fact that her new kitchen appraised for… well, we’ll just let her tell you the story: Hi John and Sherry, I waited about a year after I bought this house before I started re-doing the kitchen. It gave me time to save up, live with the space to see what it needed, and figure out

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The First Stages Of Building A Deck

What party? The decking party, that’s what. Never been to a party where people put decking down? Then you have not lived, my friend. But come to think of it, my party didn’t have any guests so maybe I’m the one who should reconsider my definition. Anyways – let’s talk deck boards, since I gave you this sneak peek of my progress last week: As you may be able to tell from that photo, we bit the bullet and went for the “zippered” seam pattern that we saw at our local art museum. But before we talk about planning for that, we actually had two commonly asked questions on our last post, which were: What

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Fab Freebie: Ready, Eames, Fire

***This giveaway is now closed – see who won below!*** This giveaway hit our 10,000 entry cap just a few hours before usual closing time, so random.org had its work cut out for it picking a winner. They selected… Kelsey (who thinks “an Eames chair is the foundation to a good collection”). Congrats on your new foundation piece! Who wants to win an Eames chair this week? Better yet – who wants to win several Eames chairs this week? Well, one of you is going to, because the folks at the Herman Miller Store are gonna hook you up with $2,000 worth of product! That’s enough to choose practically anything from their catalog of iconic

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July Superlatives: Trips, Trucks & Toads

Ack. It’s August. Which means it’s almost September which means summer’s almost over which means it’s practically Christmas. Insert panic attack here. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating, but I still can’t believe it’s August. So it always helps us keep the ol’ momentum up and avoid burning out by slowing time down for a second to take an appreciative look back on all of our happenings from last month along with some bonus never-before-seen stuff. It may not stop the Earth from rotating (only Superman can do that, silly) but it definitely inspires us to keep plugging away! Plus it makes browsing our archives a lot easier (you can read back through January of 2011 right

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How To Build The Base Of A Deck

“Can’t we just lay some decking already?!” That quote’s an homage to this kitchen post from last December about all of the little annoying prep steps we had to squeeze in before we could get down to painting cabinets – and I feel like we just hit the same stage in the deck project. Which means we’re making progress, but we’re impatient little DIYers. After getting all of the joists set in place we were soooo excited to finally lay down the decking… until I realized I had a bunch of nitty gritty details to take care of first. Womp womp. But not to worry, you’ll actually see decking going down at the end of

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Fab Freebie: All That’s Fit To Print

***This giveaway is now closed – see who won below!*** And our random winner is… Robyn R (who’s in luck because her fantasy printer prints photos – which she says would save her so much money). Looks like your dream is about to come true, Robyn. Congrats! Having a wireless printer is one of our favorite tricks to keeping our office looking put together (well, if you ignore the messy stacks of paper on our desk). So we jumped at Epson’s offer to give away one of their most versatile new models – the $499 Epson Stylus Photo R2000. It’s built for creative types, not just because its 8-ink process shoots out glossy archival prints

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