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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Turning Kid Art Into Custom Fabric

Well, Clara can go ahead and add fabric designer to her resume. With her 23 month photo in the can (see the full photo project here), it means the next monthly picture in line is the big 2-4… otherwise known as age 2. And since we concluded her first year of weekly-fabric-backdropped photos… … with a custom fabric design that we made through Spoonflower by scanning her name drawn out in marker on paper (and tiling it in Photoshop), we though we’d make it a tradition and create more homemade fabric for her second birthday. We thought about doing something similar with Clara’s name for our she’s-two fabric (perhaps in Sherry’s handwriting instead of mine)

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House Crashing: John And Sherry Plus 8

You know how excited we get to snoop around houses and share the goods with you guys (we’ve even crashed open houses and stores), so just picture our excitement to crash EIGHT houses on one block for your viewing pleasure. It definitely wasn’t our most traditional house crashing adventure – it was actually a home show here in Richmond called Richmond Homearama, where home builders team up with local designers to construct and decorate eight houses in a variety of styles. Most of the homes are already sold by now, but you can still stroll around for ideas and inspiration. So we thought we’d show you a few of our favorite nooks and crannies. It

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How To Add Floor Trim, Transitions, and Reducers

Since sharing this photo over a month ago, some of you have asked for more detail about putting the transitions around the cork floor in our kitchen (and around the fireplace’s floor surround). Oh but remember we’re eventually going to be refinishing the rooms with the orange wood flooring to match the darker cork tone, so it should look something like this down the line (pardon the bad photoshop): Finding the right thing for the job was a bit of an effort on our part since our Lisbon Cork doesn’t come with matching transitions. In fact, the guy at Lumber Liquidators recommended against any kind of cork transition because they’re not as durable as a

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Fab Freebie: The Closers

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** We gave random.org the assignment again of helping us choose our winner and they chose… Sarah (who could think of 10 little projects that have added up that she could use this for). Congrats Sarah! Since the early days of YHL, we’ve been buddies with the foursome over at One Project Closer. Ethan, Fred, and their wives Jocie and Kim dish up tutorials, tool reviews and decor posts to help us all get (say it with me) one project closer to our dream house. Recently they’ve launched a series of “Pro-Follows” where the boys tag along with professional contractors to document big projects

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A Quick Kitchen Update With Stenciled Floors

If you ever wanted to quiet that voice in your head that says “Kitchen makeover? Are you crazy? You don’t have the money for that!” – let this transformation by Erin inspire you. Here’s her letter: I wanted to share my blog post on our kitchen remodel with you. It’s a temporary remodel, as cheap as possible, until we can afford to completely gut it and get a new kitchen in a few years (hopefully!). The biggest purchase was new appliances, besides that we spent max $100 for paint, stenciling supplies, and a shelf above the microwave. I also finished the floor by stenciling on it, and I love the results! I don’t know if

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How To Build A Rockbox

Yes, just when you thought the sandbox-citement was over – it continues. We chatted all about how we built the base of the box here and how we made the lid with a locking system that secures it to the fence here – but it still wasn’t done. That’s the funny thing about DIY in general – you might expect a kitchen reno to run across 35+ posts and to last four months, but you never think that something like a simple sandbox will be a three part process. On the other hand, sometimes projects that we think will be really complicated end up being no sweat and we wonder why we put them off

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Finishing Our Sandbox Project

Ready for the next chapter of our sandbox project? If you’re not, I can tell you one person who definitely was. Her name rhymes with Blara. Here’s where we left off. Box built (more on that here) and awaiting sand. But in need of a cover first. Having looked at a bunch of other DIY sandbox covers (like the awesome ones from Dana Made It, Small & Friendly, Modern Parents Messy Kids, and Dover Projects) and based on our own experiences, we compiled a mental list of what we wanted (and didn’t want) out of our cover. Our checklist was something like this: Should primarily keep out natural debris (leaves, acorns, etc) and animal “debris”

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How To Build A Sandbox

Building Clara a sandbox has been a project that was nearly a year in the making. Just check out this post about her first birthday party from last May (yes, our girl is a month away from being TWO). So much for “any day now.” My excuse, well, our excuse is that we couldn’t figure out where we wanted it. We debated building one on wheels that could sit in the middle of the patio when in use (and be pulled out of the way and stored at all other times), but with so much land around us it felt like we should just find a permanent spot for one instead of making an eternally-rolling-around

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Fab Freebie: The Killer Radio Star

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – soon to see who won below!*** After a busy giveaway (and a surprising amount of NPR-heads), random.org has selected our winner as… Kathy (who says music is therapeutic to her and on a bad day, songs on the radio can always pick her up). Congrats Kathy! How excited are we to be giving away a Model One Radio this week? You probably know that our cheery yellow one is one of our favorite things that we’ve bought for our new kitchen (more on that here). Sure it’s been dubbed “the best sounding table radio ever made” by some (MSNBC in this case), but our love for it

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Adding White Built-In Bookcases Around A Window

Linn’s built-in project is such a great reminder of how upgrading your bookshelves from furniture to attached “architecture” can really give an entire room a boost. Here’s her letter: I wanted to share a before and after of custom made built-in bookcases which my husband and I constructed! Seeing how our old bookcases left much to be desired in terms of looks but also in terms of practical storage space, and not wanting to spend a fortune having someone else custom build shelves, we decided to take on the project ourselves. I have always loved the cozy look that built-in shelving provides a home, it gives it so much more character and charm in my

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How To Frost A Window With Frosting Film

This post is actually about three bathroom updates, the first of which concerns this baby – the window. Aka the anti-privacy device located conveniently above the place that we do our most private business. It’s kinda ridiculous that we haven’t done anything to it sooner, considering the window is nearly a straight shot view to the neighbor’s house. It’s not like we live right on top of each other – heck, we’re not even sure they can see much from this distance (we can’t see anything in their tiny far-away windows) but it’s still just a little odd to see this whenever we step out of the shower or whenever I’m standing up doing my

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The Peeta-siks (The Hunger Games & Hunger Names)

It’s official. Hunger Games fever has hit Casa Petersik. I actually got it first. I thought I’d take a stab at reading the book before potentially seeing the movie. I had heard it was a quick read, and boy was that right – I knocked it out in 24 hours. Sherry resisted following in my footsteps, thinking she had too much on her plate to squeeze it in. But I convinced her to try one chapter and before she knew it she was closing that book and cracking open Catching Fire (which she finished a few days later, and I’m currently in the middle of). We’re supposed to get our copy of Mockingjay next week.

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