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 | | 169 Comments

Free Annual Calendar Printable

Last year we DIYed a calendar for our kitchen complete with a favorite quote each month (you know, for a nice inside-joke vibe). You can check it out here. But last time we were waaaaay slow and didn’t finish it ’til February. So in an effort to keep that from happening again this year, we decided to complete the project before our big move distracted us (in just one week and counting!). We stuck with the same general look: colorful text on a clean white backdrop. But instead of meaningful words and funny phrases, we chose to do this one by the numbers. Sesame Street style if you will. Observe: Basically we took each month’s

[ Read More ]

| By | | 92 Comments

Coming Undone

In case anyone’s wondering, I’ve managed to keep up my make-the-bed-everyday-for-a-month resolution beyond October. Hootie hoo. And Burger has kept up his end of the bargain and still undoes it an hour later. Oh well. Speaking of things coming apart, we realized that this very weekend last year I was holed up in our bathroom demolishing the darned thing (inexplicably without shoes on in the beginning, which we don’t recommend). While that still takes the cake as my most physically grueling disassembly ever, this weekend kicks off another that threatens to be equally taxing on our emotions: packing up. With our move less than a week and a half away we’re starting to take things

[ Read More ]

| By | | 63 Comments

Closure.

You guys probably remember us mentioning “the bed & breakfast” house around the corner from us a few times. We’ve admired it for years. Not just because it has an in-ground pool, a tennis court, and a picnic area, but also because it’s just about the most charming exterior around. Here’s a pic we snapped during a snowstorm last year: In fact, when Sherry and I started our house hunt this fall, we secretly schemed about knocking on their door and begging the owner to let us buy it. But before we could muster the confidence to march up to their doorstep we learned that someone else had beaten us to the punch. The nerve.

[ Read More ]

| By | | 130 Comments

Fixing A Leaky Underground Oil Tank

Surprise! This was the scene at our house yesterday: Allow me to explain. We decided to test the soil around our home’s underground oil tank (we have oil heat) a few weeks back to assure any interested buyer that it’s in tip top shape. Much to our horror, it wasn’t. Soil tests came back indicating that we had a small leak. We felt like somebody punched us in the face. Here we are with our rain barrel and our compost bin along with all of our energy star appliances and our cloth diapers in an effort to be green while our oil tank has been oozing nastiness underground without our knowledge. Shudder. Luckily we learned

[ Read More ]

| By | | 5,785 Comments

Fab Freebie: Merry Maxx-mas

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – scroll down to see who won!*** You know we love a deal. Especially around the holidays when it’s so easy to bleed money. Which is why we’re psyched to have two of our favorite discount stores, T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, here to help us kick off the whole holiday shopping scene by handing over two $50 gift cards that can be spent on gifts, festive seasonal decor, or whatever else tickles your fancy. We’ve always loved snagging cheap finds for our house at both stores – like the nailhead trimmed ottoman in our bedroom (from T.J. Maxx) and just about every pillow in our den (from Marshalls).

[ Read More ]

| By | | 2,804 Comments

Fab Freebie: Paint Me A Picture

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – scroll down to see who won!*** The winner of this week’s giveaway can literally make that request. Because Swedish-born Virginia-based artist Erica Eriksdotter is giving away a commissioned painting worth up to $350. That’s right everyone, put on your fancy pants because soon you could be telling your friends smugly “oh yeah, that beautiful painting over there? I commissioned it.” We really like the color in all of Erica’s work, and we love that our winner will be able to guide the color and design of their custom work to fit their home perfectly. You can even pick the best size for your space (from a 12

[ Read More ]

| By | | 279 Comments

House Hunting: Strange, But True

House hunting has been a fun adventure and, like any adventure, it took some weird twists and turns. So we figured since we highlighted some of our close-but-no-cigar finds (here, here, here, and here) we should take a second to share some of our no-way-no-how finds as well. Because they were actually pretty darn entertaining. First, we encountered a mammoth split level. From the outside it looked like your usual split-level home. Until we got inside and realized it had SIX floors. Yes, six. That’s six times the number of levels we’re currently used to. Granted the top (attic) and bottom (basement) weren’t entirely finished, but still – wow. You can thank my brilliant artist’s

[ Read More ]

| By | | 137 Comments

How To Host A Moving Sale

Apparently gathering over 100 things to get rid of didn’t take as long as we thought (see the full list of purged items here), so we got all crazy and decided to host a last-minute moving sale this past Saturday (just to get rid of stuff while we still had that no nonsense iron will- you know, before we caved and decided to keep a few things around). We took about two weeks to plan our last yard sale, so making the decision to hold this one just two days out was a bit nerve-wracking, but the days aren’t getting any warmer, so we figured why waste time? Plus, hosting a yard sale isn’t rocket

[ Read More ]

| By | | 9,798 Comments

Fab Freebie: The Target Lady

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – scroll down to see who won!*** I love today. Not just because it’s my 29th birthday, but because we are giving away a gift card to (drumroll, por favor)… TARGET! We don’t really need to waste time reminding you guys how much we love Target (we’ve got about a million posts like this and this to prove it). I even created this graphic to try to convey how excited we are: Can you handle that enthusiasm? And while I always love a good opportunity to reference SNL’s Target Lady, this time I’m going to mention a different woman paired up with the red bullseye: HGTV’s Sabrina Soto.

[ Read More ]