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.

| By | | 90 Comments

A Diamond Stenciled Tan & White Wall Treament

We don’t have stairs in our house. Which we love. But sometimes it’s a bummer when we see people do fun things with them like Roeshel recently did. And the most impressive part is that she did it without buying anything. You go, girl! Wait, forget I said that… just read her email: I’m sure you guys get a ton of submissions for consideration but I recently gave our stairway a little pizzazz using leftover paint and things we already had on hand. It turned out fun! So I’ve included before and after pictures in the event that you like my crazy little makeover. Before was boring. I cut out a diamond shaped stencil from

[ Read More ]

| By | | 92 Comments

How To Remove Grout Haze

Betcha thought our grouting post was the last time we’d talk about installing our tile, eh? We’ll you’d be incorrect, sir – er, madam? We had a few other less-fun and less-interesting steps once the grout party had wrapped. And since a bunch of folks have asked us to detail the de-hazing and sealing steps… here they are! So stay tuned while I try to make them as interesting as I can. Maybe I should get my laser pointer. Anyone who has tiled knows that grout often leaves a bit of a hazy film on your tile. We saw it on both the subway tile and the marble floor tile in our old bathroom and

[ Read More ]

| By | | 5,478 Comments

Fab Freebie: Got The Jewels Like Sherry

***This post is no longer accepting entries – check who won below!*** Just like the auditions on The Voice, random.org had it’s big fancy chair turned around as it blindly chose the winner of this week’s giveaway (I secretly picture random.org like Cee-Lo stroking his cat). Anywho, the lucky winner this week is… Aryn (who thinks she might take Zooey Deschanel wardrobe). Congrats Aryn! It’s not quite like the moves like Jagger, but this week you can get the jew-o-o-o-O-o-o-o-els like Sherry. Yep, in honor of Valentine’s Day we’re gonna give one of you some of the same bling bling (is that still a saying?) that I’ve bought my Valentine (aka: Sherry) over the past

[ Read More ]

| By | | 443 Comments

Installing Crown Molding In The Kitchen

We’ve long disclaimered pictures of our kitchen with “oh, and we still need to add crown molding.” But that stops today! The unfinished edge where the wall/tile meets the ceiling… … is no more! Let’s get a little closer… Wait, let’s rewind so I can attempt to tell you how we got there. For all of those who have been wondering about that dark line above our pantry (a few folks asked if the beam was sagging or if there was a hole) – it’s just another spot where we’ve been missing crown molding. Since there had originally been cabinets to the ceiling along that entire side of the kitchen (including one that wrapped around

[ Read More ]

| By | | 166 Comments

Cutting Down A Cabinet For Tool Storage

Our poor tools. Remember how they used to live in our kitchen? Well, they obviously had to move when that whole cabinet went kaput a few months ago in favor of a nice big peninsula that we were adding. Well, I guess the cabinet didn’t go kaput. It just went to live in our sunroom (aka cabinet purgatory) – along with the drawers full of tools, which have been splayed out on our daybed for three months now. Yeah, we’re organized. Not. Come on, let’s bring back “not.” And slap bracelets. Anyway, as Sherry and I embarked on three weeks of photoshoots in our house for our book (you can survey some of that chaos

[ Read More ]

| By | | 114 Comments

Adding Board & Batten With Coat Hooks To The Foyer By The Front Door

A little bit of us is always envious of a proper entryway in a home (since both of ours have been just a door that opens into a room). Plus, with our own plans to do some sort of board and batten in our hallway eventually, we’re totally loving Jenna Sue’s sweet makeover of her foyer. Here’s her email: We’re in the middle of 92,835 projects at our house, but we recently completed one that we’re pretty proud of and I thought I’d pass it your way. Our entryway started out with old white faux marble tile floors, metallic floral wallpaper, and a cheap outdated light fixture. We ended up replacing the floor with travertine-style porcelain tile,

[ Read More ]

| By | | 583 Comments

How To Hang Homemade Kitchen Shelves

Let’s see… when we last left off on Monday, our open shelves had been primed in preparation for their big hanging debut. While we had the primer out we went ahead and slapped a coat on the hood cover too (using a 2″ angled brush in the cracks followed by a small foam roller to smooth everything out). Things were instantly looking less wood-sy on that wall. Once the primer dried on both – we used Zinsser Smart Prime which is low-VOC and was recommended by a few pro cabinet painters that we know – out came the same high-durability paint that we used on our cabinets (yes, there’s still plenty left!) and we gave

[ Read More ]

| By | | 3,208 Comments

Fab Freebie: Roses Are Red

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** First off – THANK YOU for all of the awesome poems this week. Sherry and I were cracking up at all of your spins on the “Roses are red” verses. Well done, team. Well done. Anyways, random.org has selected the winner of the Teleflora gift card as… Cristina S (who wrote: Roses are red, violets are blue, I’m awful at rhyming & I hope you are too!). Congrats Cristina! It’s almost Valentine’s Day and to show our love for you, we’re giving you flowers. Well, actually Teleflora is giving you flowers. And technically just one of you. But not just any flowers –

[ Read More ]

| By | | 277 Comments

How To Make Wood Kitchen Shelves

Okay, let’s get some open shelves up in this mother. With the hood cover now built, we could finally put the shelves in around it. We were originally going to build true floating shelves (maybe even breaking out Ana White’s instructions) but after looking at some of our inspiration pics again, we decided to open ourselves to the idea of using brackets instead. Note: For anyone wondering how the whole dust/grease situation is with open shelves, check out this post (we’re crazy so we did our research). Apparently the consensus is that if you have a great range hood (check!) and put dishes you use often up there (soon-to-be-checked!) it’s all good. Rarely used items

[ Read More ]

| By | | 141 Comments

January Superlatives

January was one of those you-sneeze-and-you’ll-miss-it months for us. It just flew by! Is it really already February? Crazyville. So before our behind-the-scenes-book-stuff threatens to completely erase our memory of this month, we like to take a moment to look back on all that we’ve done at a glance (and gather all the links in one handy place for ya). And of course we tossed in some never-before-seen stuff for kicks. This month we were all over the place as usual, but focused a lot of our time on the kitchen along with making a mini kitchen for Clara and tackling some random stuff that we’ve been hoarding in the playroom in what we affectionately

[ Read More ]

| By | | 82 Comments

A Fantastic Attic Makeover

When I was growing up and my parents would take us to open houses for fun, my little sister and I always picked the most interesting room as “ours”: the one with the secret compartment, the one with the biggest windows, etc. If we were to tour Kristin’s house, I’m sure the attic they transformed into their daughter Ella’s bedroom would take the cake by a landslide… and quickly turn into a big fight between my sister and I about who had “dibs.” Here’s Kristin’s letter all about it: Hi guys! I’ve been torn for a while about which project to submit, but I’m going to go with my daughter Ella’s room because a) the

[ Read More ]

| By | | 395 Comments

How To Build A Wood Range Hood Cover

Even though I’m sure you figured we’d just grow to love the look of our crazy exposed hood (“oooh, it’s so unfinished chic”) we were ready to get this hood-covering train in motion. Oh and as for the height of the range hood, we just followed the manufacturer’s recommendations (the JennAir website offered a range and we went right in the middle of that range at 34″ above the counter). As for the hood cover, the first thing we did was use photoshop to mock up two different options to figure out what we thought would look best. This was our original thought, since it looks most like a lot of the hoods in our

[ Read More ]