Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

Posts by Sherry Petersik

Sherry Petersik is one half of the duo behind the award-winning home improvement and do-it-yourself design blog, Young House Love. Together, she and her husband John 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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Beach House: End Of The Year Tour!

Beach house progress, both big and small, feels like it’s happening so quickly that we hardly have time to keep up with documenting it, but I did walk through the whole house yesterday and make a big ol’ video tour… which basically catches you right up to date! So excuse this post for only having around a dozen photos (we have thousands on our phones, but they’d take us all day to upload and explain, and nobody got time for that with Christmas being less than a week away). First let’s start at the front door. We hung a wreath (from Tar-jay) and put some battery powered LED candles with timers in the windows (so they’re

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2017 Holiday Gift Guides

I’m a little late with this, so thank you to everyone who so sweetly inquired about the whereabouts of our annual gift guide. Here she blows! We’ve crammed everything into one big post – so here you’ll find a gift guide for grown-ups, one for the kids (including a bunch of things we got for our own kids or that they already have & love) and a bonus gift guide full of stuff that’s under $20 (some is even under $10 – and a few things are under $5!!!). So without further ado, let’s get to the goods. Holiday Gifts For Grown Ups 1. I’ve purchased four of these gorgeous pillows covers (these & these are my faves). 2. This

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House Crashing: A Rental-Ready Renovation

You guys remember our friends Carey and Jordan? We House Crashed them earlier in the year and their mudroom slays me every time I lay eyes on it. Well, we’ve crashed another one of their places – this time it’s a rental home that they recently renovated and furnished. So yes, more eye candy AND more budget friendly tips and ideas to steal for yourself. rug / round baskets / hooks / rectangle baskets / door color: Poppy by Ben Moore The rental is a sweet ranch home in the Richmond area that they’re using primarily as a long term furnished rental, but also as a short term Airbnb between renters. It’s full of furniture and

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Living Room Updates, Major Sales, And What I’m Buying

Our living room is still in flux since we took Karl to the beach house and bought our new sofa (one new living room thing = me wanting to CHANGE ALL THE THINGS!), but I couldn’t wait to show you a few sneak peeks and share a ton of weekend home sales going on right now. We’re talking about $60 side tables and $119 living room chairs and kitchen stools for under $100, so let’s get into it. The two cane-back living room chairs that we recently bought are on sale for 30% off (just $119 per chair plus you get an additional 15% off with the code TURKEY). They’re not too low (they’re around the

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Using An Antique Jenny Lind Bed In Our Little Girl’s Room

Ever since we shared a picture of the kids bedding we picked up at HomeGoods for our daughter’s room in the podcast show notes for Episode #69, we’ve been meaning to share a room update. Over the last few months we’ve been giving our little girl’s bedroom an update, complete with new paint and an antique bed scored on Craigslist! Why Update Her Bedroom? Because dang it, kids grow up. And sometimes they don’t want their 7-year-old room to look like their “little kid” room anymore (please can’t 7 still be little?!). So here’s how our daughter’s room has grown up a bit – but not too much. Thank goodness there aren’t New Kids On

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Installing An Ikea Kitchen In Our Beach House

Dude. We got things DONE this weekend at the beach house. And by that I mean, we showed up with a giant to-do list and only got about half of it checked off, but it really felt awesome after four days there (thanks to the kids having no school on Monday & Tuesday) to lock the door knowing that we’d knocked out a huge portion of the kitchen. We still have to get a fridge and a dishwasher, add floating shelves around the stove, add a backsplash, do the toe kicks & quarter round down at the cabinet bases, and the island will have a larger counter with a sink in it and a 12″

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A Foyer Makeover With New Lighting & Furniture

Come on in and let’s have a walkabout. But not one of those wildlife walkabouts, just a jaunt around the foyer since we haven’t properly introduced you to many of the updates in here. I’d describe this room’s evolution over the last year or so as just generally lightening things up (thanks to switching out an old dark foyer table and the dark slate floor) and layering in some more tone-on-tone texture (in the new light fixture, mirror, and woven baskets). So let’s break it down with a whole bunch of pics, shall we? Safari hat: optional. Actually just for fun, here’s a before shot from a similar angle: And back to the after again.

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The Beach House Has Furniture!

If you guys follow us on Instagram or Facebook, you’ve already heard the news: not only does the beach house officially have furniture (!!!) we finally got the spend the night there this past weekend! Two nights, in fact! It’s still a far cry from “done.” There’s a lot of remaining furniture that we need to get (nightstands, dressers, headboards, a top for our coffee table, etc) along with various other decor stuff that’s missing (rugs! art! lamps!). Not to mention some bigger tasks like installing the kitchen, adding built-in bunk beds upstairs, and constructing bench seating in the breakfast nook. But even so, just having some furniture (a couch! beds to sleep on!) and

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Three Quick Front Porch Updates

Beach house stuff is flying along, and we owe you guys a giant post (in the meantime you can see some pics on Instagram and Facebook) but we have some breaking porch news, which is that it no longer looks neglected and abandoned. Plus I got a little “creative” with the bushes so they’ll never die on me again. I don’t have a great “before” photo because it wasn’t something I ever thought to capture for posterity, but think dirty old doormat, dead plants, discolored brick, and spiderwebs (but not of the Halloween-decoration variety). One thing that tipped us off to the problem was taking our annual First Day of School photos out in front

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Refinishing Heart Pine Floors: Before & After

You might think I’m being dramatic. Me? Dramatic? Yes. But in this case, no. Our freshly refinished heart pine floors are complete game changers in the house-feeling-more-finished column. FO SHO. I mean, look at this shot of the kitchen that we snapped when we were there this past Saturday checking them out / doing alllll the drooling: Just as a reminder, here’s what that room looked like a few months ago, right after drywall went up: And let’s take it waaaay back for a second. Here’s what this room looked like when we bought the house last October. In the words of Pepe Le Pew: “Le Yikes.”  So this visit was full of bulging eyes and

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How To Refinish An Old Clawfoot Tub

We were determined to refinish the old, stained clawfoot tub in our beach house bathroom. Having it professionally reglazed or refinished seemed daunting (it’s heavy!) so we were determined to make this a DIY project. Luckily, it was surprisingly easy to do ourselves and only cost us about $50 and a fair amount of free elbow grease. So let’s just dive right into what worked (and what didn’t) and how we nursed this baby back to life. Finding An Old Tub We were fortunate that this tub came with the beach house when we bought it, although its condition clearly left something to be desired. The room was literally falling apart around it and we

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The Best Green Household Cleaners And Personal Care Products

Since sharing this round-up back in 2009 and this one from 2012, we’ve been getting quite a few requests for an updated breakdown of the household cleaners and personal care products we’re using to keep our home (and bodies!) clean these days. And I always get a bunch of questions about my skin routine. We do our best to keep our collections of soaps and cleaners pretty simple and streamlined (including my makeup, which all fits into a bag the size of a pencil case) because less stuff = more money, more time, and more space. So if you’re looking for a few ideas on what you might be able to cut out or simplify, hopefully this

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