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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Getting A Permit To Build A Deck

Permission accomplished! Wait, before we get to the deck/permit stuff that this post is really about, we wanted to mention that we keep hearing from folks who had no idea that we have a family/personal/behind the scenes blog called Young House Life (which we started nearly a year ago – my how time flies). So if you’re looking for photos of our messy house, pictures of us being weird, life-stuff beyond the home improvement happenings at our house, and Burger/Clara galore, that’s the place. We usually post 3-4 times a week (very randomly) and you can get there by clicking the word “Life” under our header or by clicking the button that says “Our Family

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Trying Different Rugs In The Kitchen

Ah, the rugs in our kitchen. They were $34 from The Company Store ages ago (maybe 2008?). They originally lived in our first house’s kitchen and third bedroom, and they’re awesomely durable and neutral – but they don’t really do anything for the new kitchen (in person they’re a little too small and sort of clash with the avocado walls since they’re so honey-oak-colored). So “find a new kitchen rug (or rugs)” has been on our lingering kitchen to-do list for the last couple of months. We decided to tackle this rug situation – well, more like it decided to tackle us – on a recent stop at HomeGoods. Sherry found a pile of awesome

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Fab Freebie: One, Two, Three, Flor

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Random.org sifted through the 9000+ entries and came up with our winner. She is… Jenn (whose favorite number is 13 because of The Offspring song “Pretty Fly for a White Guy” and the lyric “He went for a tattoo yeah, he’s getting it done. He asked for a 13 but they drew a 31″). Congrats Jenn – looks like 13 ended up being pretty lucky for you this week! Happy Memorial Day! We’re spending the holiday with our family, but wanted to drop in with today’s giveaway. And let’s keep the counting that we did in the title going all the way to

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Front Yard Landscaping Progress

Okay, y’all ready for another what-we’ve-been-doing-outside post? This particular rundown, as you may have guessed from my title (why yes I can pun in Spanish), is about some hosta business that we pulled off, thanks to a bunch of extra hostas growing randomly in our backyard (this backyard garden bed is a hot mess but we’ll get to it someday!). Since they weren’t doing much for us back there, we dug ’em up – about five in total – and decided to put them to better use. For starters, they certainly could help our bedraggled mailbox (which became quite weedy this spring). The mums that were there turned into dead sticks in the winter and,

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Adding A Board & Batten Wall With Hooks To The Entryway

We never get tired of seeing a solution like the one that Sada and her husband Reagan sent our way. They took an otherwise useless wall in their entryway and turned it into both a functional space for coats and a pretty spot for displaying art and personal mementos (we think they did an especially awesome job picking meaningful, happy art and arranging it in a really charming way). Here’s their letter: My hubby and I recently redid our entryway! With the way that our house is laid out, I knew we were never going to be able to have a beautiful “mudroom”, however, we have this huge blank wall right by our front door.

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Sourcing And Buying Materials To Build A Deck

Our deck project kind of got back-burnered amidst all of the party/dollhouse/bedroom stuff, but we have made one decision in that time: much like both of our parents chose for our houses growing up, we’re going the pressure-treated wood route. But making that call was no easy decision. We actually weighed a bunch of options, got a few quotes from a few different sources, and endured the all important “sleep on it” step. Then we second-guessed ourselves a few times because the right choice isn’t very obvious. Haha. There are so many ways to go, so it really is one of those it’s-different-for-everyone things. In the end it just came down to personal factors about

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Planting Boxwoods, Petunias, and Hydrangeas

It feels like forever since we posted about any gardening we’ve done (over a month, actually), but that doesn’t mean nothing’s happened. We’re just a little behind on writing about it (I like to think that we were waiting for things to fill in a bit so we could snap some pics for ya). So let’s play catch up. Remember when we transplanted some bushes to perk up the area behind our patio? Well, that was all fine and good for that side of the patio. But it left this big empty, ugly spot in its wake. So a couple of weeks ago we got our hydrangea on again (thanks to a pair we picked

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Fab Freebie: Wrapped In Comfort

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Someone’s about to get more comfortable because random.org just helped us pick them as the winner. That lucky person is… Kristen B (who says a walk on the beach seems to help everything for her). Congrats Kristen! I realize the title of the giveaway sounds like a cheesy line from a fabric softener commercial, but this prize isn’t about wrapping you in comfort – it’s about wrapping your furniture. Your Ikea furniture to be exact. See, the Australian company Comfort Works had the smart idea of offering slipcovers custom fitted some of Ikea’s popular couch and chair styles. You can get your Ektorp

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How To Hang Pictures Over The Bed

Do you remember these puppies that we picked up at a yard sale last year for $10 a pop? They’re old professionally framed prints of the berries and wildflowers of Alaska, which we thought were sweet since we honeymooned there. So we spray-painted the frames (and mats!) and hung them on either side of our bed. If that doesn’t jog your memory, perhaps this old pic from that post shall will. Well, recently they’ve – say it with me now – come together. Here’s how it all went down. Actually, speaking of going down – it kinda started when a certain ram went down during our book shoots. Since neither all the king’s horses nor

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An Eclectic Glam Tween Bedroom

Clara may be another year older, but she’s still a long ways off from her tweenage years. Which is why it was fun to live vicariously through Courtney’s makeover of her 11-year-old niece Emily’s room. Having virtually crashed Courtney’s own home last May, we knew there’d be some great eye candy, and we often hear from folks who’d love to see a tween room or two, so here ya go. Hi guys! I hope all is well in the Petersik house. I wanted to show you my 11 year old niece’s room that we helped her makeover. She would be so excited for her room to be featured! This was an accumulation of four very

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How To Build A Dollhouse

Update: You can check out Part 2 of this project right here. But let’s start at the beginning. When Sherry and I started talking about building a dollhouse for Clara, I was afraid. I know, I know – scared of a dollhouse? Get your laughs out. But that ominous word conjured up these elaborate images of perfectly crafted, to-scale replicas of Victorian mansions that seemed waaaaay beyond my skill / patience level. But once Sherry showed me some of her inspiration pictures on Pinterest (from Mousehouse, Natty Michelle and Under The Sycamore) my cold sweats dried up and I actually got a little excited. Yes, excited about a dollhouse. Now get those laughs out. More

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Replacing An Old Bathroom Light

We don’t talk much about our hall bathroom. In fact, in 17 months of living here, it’s been the subject of just two posts (knocking down a towel bar and fixing the toilet). And since we later used almost the same color as the inspiration room in our guest bedroom, we’re no longer planning to use that color in here, so we’re kind of back to square one. But we finally made a little lighting progress, as today’s title suggests. There was nothing especially offensive about the existing fixture – nor anything especially exciting about it. It felt sort of builder basic to us. And kind of “backstage make-up room” to us thanks to the

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