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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A Classic Kitchen With A Granite Island And White Glass Cabinets

When you see the pictures in this post, you’ll agree that Meghan and her husband can churn out a huge transformation. But what we also loved about Meghan’s email was the story behind how their before became a stop-you-in-your-tracks after. So if ever you were to not scroll right to the pictures and just read as you go, this might be a good time. “Like the two of you, my husband and I bought a house that needed work, though in our case we couldn’t reuse much thanks to some frugal prior owners. We decided to gut our kitchen, family room, dining room, and bathroom down to the studs/subfloor when our first child was 12

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Our Family Trip To Hawaii

How about some Hawaii Two-O. Yes, that is a bad play on Hawaii Five-O, which can only mean one thing. It’s time for our second (and final) post about our trip to Maui, Hawaii. In case you missed the first post last Thursday, check it out here to read about: where we stayed where we ate our “neighborhood” how we saved money Oh and we talked about what it was like traveling with a toddler (and what worked/didn’t work) as well as getting Clara adjusted to the time difference here on Young House Life. Now as for this post, we’ll cover: all of the activities/adventures that we tackled while we were there (with a toddler

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Fab Freebie: Tile Shop ‘Til Your Drop

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Random.org had quite the task of sifting through so many entries this week, but it has randomly selected our winner as… Kelley (who has so many ideas for how to use the gift card, including a fireplace surround, kitchen backsplash or master bath floor). Congrats! Ready for this? It’s not only one of our biggest giveaways EVER, but it’s also a giant excuse-buster when it comes to that tile project that you’ve been putting off. This week The Tile Shop is giving one of you a whopping $1,500 prize. In case you think your eyes are playing tricks on you, allow me to

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February Superlatives

Psst- Sorry for the slightly belated post this morning, two out of the three human members of our household have the flu. Boo! For those asking where February Superlatives went, here they are! We were just in Hawaii the week they were “due” so they carried over to this week. And boy are we glad February is over. Well, not the part where we ended it basking oceanside in 80-degree weather, but the part where our heads were spinning from three weeks of secret book project-doing and photoshoot-ing. Yeah, we’re glad that’s behind us. But since we survived all that (and lived to tell the tale!) in addition to prepping for a presentation in Portland

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Tips For Flying With A Toddler

After getting lots of great tips from you guys about flying with a toddler, we thought we’d give you guys a recap about what worked well (lollipops!) and what didn’t (two words: red eye). We spent a lot of time in the air: six flights in total. Two on the way to Portland (layover in Chicago), one direct from Portland to Maui and then a whopping three on the way back to Richmond (with layovers in Seattle and Chicago). The flights between the West Coast and Hawaii were the longest at six hours each, and since Clara’s still under two, we didn’t buy a seat for her (we knew she’d be most comfortable in our

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How To Install A Cork Floor

This is supposed to be the post where I declare “The floors are DONE… enthusiastic exclamation point!” But instead I’m here to say “The floors are almost done… sheepish period.” But they’re mostly down and they weren’t actually that hard to do! Seriously, anyone can do this. Since we last updated you, they’ve gone from this: To this: Note: Some of these photos have the cork looking more red/orange than it is in real life. But if you watch the video where we’re installing it (or the one with Clara in it), it’s probably the most true to life (a rich mocha color). We’ll try to take better pics next time! We thought we could

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This Land Is Portland

After all that sun we got in Hawaii, we almost forgot that we still have some adventures to share from a notoriously less sunny place. We already told you about our day at the Portland Home & Garden Show (you can read more about that here – and if we met that evening, our pic together might be here). And yes, Sherry is holding someone else’s baby and I’m wearing an apron (meant for Clara!). Between all of that presenting/meeting/greeting we actually had some time to take in the city a little bit too. So for anyone planning a visit (or just wondering what the heck we did) here ya go… We got into town

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Fab Freebie: If You Were Here

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** And the random winner who’s about to get their read and their DIY on is… Julie Smith (who said we’d see her at her desk in the office day dreaming of going home and painting her half finished bathroom project). Congrats Julie! That’s the title of Jen Lancaster’s latest bestselling book – and if you enjoy the story of a young couple renovating their first home (ya never know… you just might), this book belongs on your reading list. Jen never fails to crack us up and we were flabbergasted when we she mentioned us last year on her blog. So now that

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Aloha Vacation, Aloha New Floors

See “Aloha” means both “Goodbye” and “Hello,” so… yeah… buh bye Hawaii and hello half-done cork floors. We’re back in Richmond (insert forced enthusiasm here – woot?) and we’re eager to tell you more about our trip. But we’re more eager to dive back into DIY and spill all the details about our big cork floor project that we started right before we left (about twenty four hours before we hopped on the plane actually). Oh and for those who didn’t drop in on us last week since our little vacation announcement, we actually did share two posts (along with a giveaway) while we were gone, so you can find those here and here. We’re

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A Dining Room With Board & Batten And Dark Blue Walls

The boldest color we’ve ever used on any wall is Martha Stewart’s Plumage (which we slathered all over our guest room walls). Long story short: we’ve loved it ever since. So when Jackie sent us her dining room makeover boasting lots of Plumage, of course we were all over it. Here’s her letter: “When we moved into this house, the dining room started with just a table and the bamboo armoire. We didn’t even have dining chairs. Over the last six months I prioritized finishing this room in time for the holidays. It is filled with DIY projects including art silhouettes, board and batten walls, mercury glass vases, jute wrapped monogram, and my favorite: the

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Petersiks In Portland

Wow, so yesterday was a fun little whirlwind. We spent pretty much the whole day romping around the Portland Home & Garden Show (minus a break to scarf down some much-recommended Voodoo Donuts – and yes we tried maple bacon – mmmm).  The Expo Center here is stuffed with gorgeous gardens, cool green living ideas, and tons of friendly Portlanders. Or Portlandians? Portlandites? Whatever they’re called, the people here are crazy nice. We’ll give you an actual Portland shopping/stuff we did/house-crashing trip roundup once it’s actually complete (today’s our Explore-The-City day) but for now we’d at least tell you about our time at the show yesterday. It kicked off early with some interviews with the

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How To Install A Dishwasher

As we mentioned on Monday, before we hopped on a plane yesterday, we tackled our bisque colored dishwasher. And let’s just say the stainless one is a crowd pleaser (we like it, but Clara loves it). We’ll get to that in a moment. We had been telling ourselves that it would be better to do this once the new floors went in (so we didn’t accidentally trap it behind the new cork boards or something). But then we realized that was a dumb excuse because we could just slide it on top of a few cork planks so it would be the same height as the rest of the floor once it goes in. Plus

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