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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Fab Freebie: Ideas For Ikea

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Random.org has selected the two random folks who are about to get $100 to IKEA. And they are… Jennifer (who improves lives by teaching and will also be adopting a child from Ethiopia) and Ashley (who says needs some improvement for herself). Congrats! If you take one thing away from this post, it should be this: two people are winning $100 gift cards to IKEA this week. Woot! But if you have room for a second thing, know that it’s because Ikea is hosting their second annual Life Improvement Project that, among other things (like hilariously helpful “instructions” for living a better life)

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How We Saved Money On Our Kitchen Appliances (63% off!)

We bought nearly $3,800 worth of kitchen appliances this weekend. But if you know anything about us, you know we love a deal. So here’s how we managed to shave off about $1,400 from that total (we ended up paying 63% of their original cost). Yee haw! Before I dive into the heavy math, let’s cover some basic questions first. Why new appliances? We’ll make this one multiple choice: A: We prefer stainless steel over the current bisque / black mix we’ve got going on. B: The wall oven has a big burn mark up the front of it and cooks/burns things unevenly. C: Our refrigerator is slowly dying (the ice maker doesn’t work and

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A Quick Trip To The Carolinas

Last weekend my cousin got married in Brevard, North Carolina. Translation: weekend road trip! Okay, so it wasn’t on the scale of our road trip to Texas for my cousin’s wedding two years ago (different cousin, btw – I’ve got lots of ’em) but it was still a good time. Brevard is in southwestern NC somewhere between Asheville and the South Carolina border (so close actually, the rehearsal dinner was in SC). It’s about a seven hour drive from Richmond, though we broke up our ride with a stop in Charlotte to see our pals Matt and Kristin. The wedding was obviously the highlight of the trip (you can see some pics over on Young

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Stenciling A Wall In The Dining Room

Coming off of the heels of our own adventures in stencil land, we just had to share this note from Ginny who stenciled her dining nook earlier this year. Methinks she had a clawed hand of her own going on after she finished (just like my lady wife). Here’s what Ginny had to say about her dining area makeover: I wanted to create a dining corner in my living room. Well, although I bought my table, finally got the chairs I wanted, and tried to dress it up, it still didn’t feel like a dining room to me. It was just this table in the corner of the room. Then it hit me like a

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Fab Freebie: Gone Fishing

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Our two lucky winners as selected by random.org are… Susie (who doesn’t like fish, despite her former employment at Red Lobster) and Sarah (who especially loves Maryland crab, shrimp, salmon, and freshly caught smoked trout). Congrats ladies! Back when I lived in Brooklyn there was this cool dishware store down the street called Fishs Eddy that I loved. Last Christmas I even bought Sherry two coffee mugs from there. And now, in what can only be called a full circle moment, we’re teaming up with them for a giveaway for you guys. They’ve got tons of fun colorful patterns so we’ve put together

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September Superlatives

It’s that time again! When we take a moment to look back on all that we’ve done in the past month 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, just because we’re over-sharers. This month felt pretty scattered since we did everything from finding secondhand night stands and starting to stencil some walls to building a 13 foot desk, altering a light fixture, framing out a mirror, making free art, and beyond. So let’s take a walk down memory lane, with yearbook-esque superlatives. Why? Because that’s our idea of a good time. Most Pro-Banquette: Starting off the month with a

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Online Tools for Planning A Space in 3D

Break out the 3D glasses! Okay, not really. Put them away. This blog will not be coming to you in any additional dimensions today. As you saw in our latest kitchen planning post yesterday, I finally bit the bullet and learned me some Google Sketch-Up (as many of you recommended) to help us plan our kitchen renovation. But having been a loyal user of Floorplanner.com in the past and having recently become acquainted with Ikea’s Kitchen Planner, I thought I’d give you my take on how these three 3D modeling tools stack up against each other… because there’s actually not a clear winner in my book. Each have pros, cons, and a different scenario where

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Why We Decided Not To Do A Banquette In Our Kitchen

For all those wondering when the heck we’ll tackle that kitchen banquette idea that we mentioned a few weeks ago (here and here), well… probably never. Cue the frowny face emoticons. Here’s the deal. After getting lots of positive feedback on the idea a few weeks ago (over 1,400 comments total!), Sherry and I were certain your collective enthusiasm would push us from “we think this is a good idea” to “this is definitely a good idea.” And it nearly did. But parts of us still questioned the whole commitment-factor when it came to actually doing it (we definitely described it as a half baked idea when we shared it). We worried if it’d really

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A Classic Marble Bathroom Renovation

Just as we mentioned last week, Reader Redesigns are back y’all!! And we’re kicking things off with Michelle’s amazing bathroom renovation. She and her husband David gutted the crazy yellow bathroom, completely reconfigured the layout, and built it back up in beautiful greys and fresh sparkling whites. Here’s her letter: Hi Sherry & John! Your bathroom at your first house sparked me and my hubs to renovate our 1952 en-suite bathroom. We followed soooo many of your tips (we ran into all of the same demolition problems, including the wire mesh). It was no bueno! But thank goodness all of the hard work is done. I shared the big final reveal of the bathroom here

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Fab Freebie: Canine Design

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Burger barked a few times at random.org and it spit out our two winners. They are… Ruth (who’s jealous of the “sleep wherever you want” factor) and Mattie (who envies the happiness her dog finds in a squeaky toy). Congrats ladies! Everyone else – don’t forget about the discounts listed among the giveaway details. They’re still valid! Tomorrow is Burger’s 5th birthday (I’m sure you already had it marked on your calendar), so this week’s giveaway is distinctly doggy-themed in his honor – thanks to two puppy lovin’ shops. The first is Oliver Blu Designs whose punchy animal silhouettes find their way onto

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How To Add Molding To The Top Of Your Cabinets

Yup, we got a little trim. As you read in last week’s Day In The Life post, we recently tackled the add-trim-to-the-hooter-and-the-hotter-office-desk project. The basic game plan was to add some simple baseboard or molding to the bottom of our cabinets so they looked more like built-ins. In other words, the bottoms were looking a little unfinished… I took measurements and headed off to the store with my little cheat sheet. Notice how I mark which way my cuts go? When I’m making angled miter cuts I’m so anxious about cutting the wrong way that I leave myself as many reminders as possible. One very critical measurement, not shown here, was the trim height. We

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Anatomy Of A Blog Post

Ever wonder what goes into writing one of our posts? No? Well, we’re gonna tell you anyways. Consider it another peek behind the scenes and into our crazy blogging minds a bit further. We probably take our post writing a bit more seriously than most folks (but maybe we should since paying the mortgage depends on it) so we’re certainly not saying this is how it should be done. It’s just how we do it. In general terms, most of our project-oriented posts go through these stages: from planning & prep through doing & documenting things, all the way to posting & responding to comments. Those of you who write blogs about your home probably

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