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 Cheap Dining Chairs From Craigslist

We finally scored some chairs for the dining room, thanks to this craiglist ad emailed to us by our friend Sandra (muchas gracias!). You’re probably thinking: what are they thinking?! Parsons chairs? Yup, that’s exactly what we’ve wanted since day one. Thirty bucks? Yeah baby. Weird green and blue swirly pattern? Um… no comment. But since the price was right (we actually bargained them down to $25 per chair, coming to $200 total for all 8) and the shape/lines were right (they’re solid and very well-made) we figured it was time to pounce (with some reassurance from a few online tutorials about dyeing fabric, making slipcovers, or reupholstering parsons chairs). So in the end we

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Fab Freebie: The FLOR Seasons

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** And the one lucky winner (as selected by random.org) is… Laura (who says “Me likey fall. The air smells so fresh and clean!”) Congrats! Everyone’s favorite modular carpet square maker is back for another giveaway, and this time it’s bigger and better than their awesome 2009 prize. This time FLOR is gonna hook our winner up with enough tiles to build a custom 8 x 10′ rug – which also breaks down to be enough tiles to create a runner and a smaller area rug if that’s more your style. Oh, you’ll be able to pick from ANY of their 100+ colors and

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An Antique Wood Dresser

As we PS-ed in last week’s rug post, our hunt for a new master bedroom dresser recently came to a surprise end. We’d been trying to find something to replace this old Malm dresser that we’ve had for 5+ years (we literally bought it on an Ikea stop the day we moved from NYC to Richmond in a big red minivan) which will soon go live in the guest room. It’s clearly too small for the wall. It’s not 100% functional anymore (the middle drawer got little wonky during the move) and it has a few visible battle scars from bouncing around our last house (at various points it lived in our bedroom, our guest

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We Made The Washington Post!

Considering that delivering The Washington Post was my first real job (because what 6th grader doesn’t like getting up at 5am everyday?), it’s kind of an “is this real life?” full circle moment for me that my current gig (this blog) has landed us in the pages of that very same newspaper. My dad (a.k.a. my newspaper delivery partner) has never been more proud. We had no idea it would be such a big write up (with a giant cover picture in the Local Living section, but after we got over our vanity (is my hair weird? does Clara look cute?) we couldn’t believe how awesome it was. Who are we and what did we

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Spring Flowers Are Blooming

Spring is in the process of sprung-ing here in Richmond and we’re boiling over with excitement. Warm weather? Yes please. Green trees? Bring it. Flowers blooming? Duh, winning. So to those of you who aren’t on the brink of spring yet, we thought we’d send a virtual dose of the season – courtesy of some photos of what’s starting to happen around here – like the little buds that are showing up on the hydrangeas that we’ve inherited. Spring is especially exciting this year because we get to be surprised by whatever magically decides to pop up around the new house – and we finally get to see what our property looks like in all

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Making Five Dollar Art With Colored Paper

Remember that grid of eight Ribba frames above our sectional (that we got right the second time around)? Well, we figured out some in-the-meantime “art” for them (so we don’t have to stare at those brown squares every night). You know, until we come up with something better. And it only cost us five bucks. Okay, $5.17 if you’re being picky. So worth it. We’re still not 100% sure what we want there in the long run, but we’re leaning towards something graphic and colorful. And since the brown frame back is the opposite of that, we wanted to at least put something in there temporarily that wouldn’t cost much or take any time to

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How To Hang A Grid Of Picture Frames

2, 4, 6, 8, Who Do We Appreciate? Planning! And why do we appreciate it? Because we get burned when we don’t do it. At least we did on the frame arrangement we just hung above our sectional. Here’s the story. We’ve always planned to take the big empty space above Karl and do a grid of large picture frames. We sort of envisioned it as a larger version of the frame grid that we hung above the couch in our old den… … but instead of 8 x 10″ frames we’d use oversized 20.5 x 20.5″ Ribba frames from Ikea for more impact (since we already own and love four of them – and

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How To Remove A Fan And Hang A Light

Happy New Year!!! (that sentiment will make sense in a little while – hold tight) The time had come to bid adieu to the fan in our bedroom so we could introduce a light fixture with a bit more interest. Hold on fan lovers. Put the pitchforks (or fan blades?) down and let me explain. We also removed the ceiling fan in our first home’s bedroom and picked up a high-powered Hunter table fan that did the trick, which we plan to use regularly in the warmer months here as well. It’s not that we’re anti fan – my wife likes to make the beyond corny joke that we’re “fan fans” – but we just

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Covering Drywall Cracks With A Ceiling Medallion

Whitney Houston once famously said “crack is whack.” I don’t think she had the ceiling of Clara’s room in mind when she said it, but hopefully she’d agree that the situation around Clara’s aqua-colored capiz chandelier could indeed be called “whack.” You never saw this in any previous photos – nor could you really notice it that much in real life – but when installing Clara’s light fixture (which we got here for $50) we became well aware of this unsightly ceiling problem that was previously hidden beneath the larger based ceiling fan. So we finally got around to fixing it. And it was easy thanks to this $19 ceiling medallion that we got at

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Fab Freebie: Line Drawings

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries –  see who won below!*** Thanks to random.org’s, our three winners are Jane (who considers herself an accomplished doodler – especially during a meeting), Molly T (who dubbed herself the least crafty person ever) and Lizz (who’s no artist, but is killer at Pictionary). Congrats ladies! You guys probably know Freshline Illustration from our monthly sponsor shout outs, but soon three of you will know them as the ones who hooked you up with some sweet art / pillows / stationery for your own home. And many of Freshline’s colorful and playful illustrations can be personalized with monograms, anniversary dates, or even your full family tree. PRIZE: A

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Using Side Tables As Night Stands

Okay, make that two night stands. Though technically they’re just the living room side tables… … that were displaced by the arrival of Karl. So even though they’re not technically nightstands, we love our Target tables (from the Victoria Hagan collection, purchased a few years back) and those seeded glass lamps (from the now sadly non-existent Nate Berkus collection at Linens N’ Things) too much to let them go unused. So they’ve now found a new home in the master bedroom. At least for now. Not only do they start to balance the room more, they’re a huge help in the function department. Sherry’s poor short arms couldn’t take storing her cell phone and magazines

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