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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Our Last Day In Our First House

We promised pics of the old house all vacant and ready for the new owners so here they are (brought to you thanks to sitting in a booth at Panera to get WiFi since we can’t get that stuff hooked up at our new house until tomorrow). As for yesterday, we hoped to share more updates and info for you guys, but as anyone who has ever tried to coordinate a “domino” closing (when one person closes on your house, you wait for the funds to come through and attempt to close on a second house in the same day) knows, there’s usually nothing easy about it. The buyers of our house had an unexpected

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Please Stand By

We’ve got some serious moving in progress going on. We’re not sure when we’ll be able to check in again (heck, we’re not even sure what time we’re closing this afternoon- assuming it doesn’t get bumped to Tuesday) but we’ll stop in with more pics and info as soon as we can. Until then cross your fingers that my ceramic animal menagerie makes it to the new house in one piece and that we actually get to move in this afternoon as planned. We do plan to post some empty house pics of our first home (we figure you guys need closure just as much as we do) and of course share pics and even

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Using Up Everything In The Fridge Before Moving

Remember when we mentioned that we were on a grocery shopping hiatus? The idea was to make a concerted effort to eat as much as possible that we already had in the fridge and the freezer so we didn’t have to worry about keeping things cold for the 6-ish hour delay between being out of our house and getting to move into our new one (which will hopefully still happen Monday afternoon assuming the bank stays on schedule with the transfer). Here’s what the fridge looked like just two weeks ago when we started: And here’s what the fridge looks like now that it’s truck-loading day (after two weeks of eating some pretty “creative” meals

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Moving Lists & Tips

We’re about 90% packed, which is a good thing with moving day looming around the corner (we’re packing the truck on Sunday and officially moving on Monday afternoon if all goes well and our closing doesn’t get bumped to Tuesday). Cross your fingers for us! Here’s how we’re doing on our little to do list that we shared on Wednesday: remove every single item from the wall and patch/paint every nail hole in the house (this was actually about 500 times easier than I expected- just remove all the nails at once, spackle everything at once, and then paint room by room. It’s a lot faster than doing those three things in each room before

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Leaving A Note For The Future Owners

We made a little time capsule to leave behind and it was actually a lot of fun more fun than packing. Our big hope is that someone finds it at least a few decades from now (when there are flying cars and precogs) since it would be kind of a womp-womp moment if the new owners discover it as soon as they move in on Monday. Which is why we hid it very very well. So well that it may never be found. Of course we can’t reveal its location because that could ruin the surprise, but consider it to be something along the lines of “inside the walls” trickery. No “taped under the sink”

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A Packing To-Do List

Look how spiffy our house is looking these days: With less than 5 days until the big move, we’ve learned that packing is no joke. But we’ve got our eye on the prize (our exciting new digs) so we’re trying to keep our spirits up, stay hydrated, and play some good music for dancing as we go (the dancing is for Clara- gotta keep the baby entertained or packing progress can screech to a halt). Oh and we got many of our “secondhand boxes” as we’re lovingly calling them by trolling craigslist and freecycle (and even driving to a local reader’s house when she offered some up to us on Facebook). But admittedly we did

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A Beautiful Front Porch Makeover

When Stacie told us she was redoing the front of her amazingly glorious home in Richmond’s Historic Fan district, we knew she wouldn’t disappoint. I mean, she totally wowed us with her style here and here, so we were prepared to wet ourselves a little when we saw her exterior upgrade. Good thing we were prepared, because her overhaul was nothing short of insane. And like any sweet homeowner she wants to shout out her restoration guy for his commitment to keeping things historic and cutting no corners (his name is Eric Schmoldt at Advantage Construction, whose house we actually crashed here – small world). Hats off to Eric and Stacie. Between her vision and

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What We Put In Our Thanksgiving “Thanks Jar”

We promised to share some of the things that we dropped into our Thanksgiving-inspired “thanks jar” over the last month, which we finally got to read after a month of blindly writing without knowing what the other person was jotting down each day. Here are a few highlights: For finally figuring out what the heck to do with this thrift store glass jar. – John That Clara’s birth was a miracle and she’s a healthy & happy little girl. -Sherry That we sold our house & found a new one that we love (fingers crossed for a smooth closing).- Sherry That Clara finds Burger as hilarious as we do. She just cracked up watching him.-

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Why Cohesive Flooring Is Key In A Small Home

We’re trying to soak up all the things that we love about this house before we move on to our next big project, and we realized that our floors make us inordinately happy. And it’s not just the fact that they’re mostly hardwood in a nice mocha color, it’s the whole cohesive flooring thing in general. Seriously, I never thought these words would come out of my mouth (because it honestly sounds like I’m a motivational speaker or someone who takes design way too seriously) but… cohesive flooring is a game changer. Really. It is. Our house used to have eight different flooring materials and seams. Think about that for a second. Eight! All on

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How To Make Faux Christmas Presents For Decorating The Mantel

Jingle bells! Batman Smells! Robin laid an egg. Batmobile lost a wheel and Joker did ballet. What? You didn’t sing that song at camp while wearing culottes and a tie-dyed shirt? Well I did. Anyway, the point is that I hung the stockings and did a little extra Christmas decorating beyond putting up the tree (just in time to put it all away in about a week when we start packing for the big move in mid December). Gotta celebrate Clara’s first Christmas, even if it’s only for a hot second. Out came the ol’ feather trees (from Target and a local store called Buford Road Pharmacy a few years back) along with the same

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How To Use A Paint Pen On Drinking Glasses

You could call these tumblers titillating. That’s right. I said titillating. Who doesn’t love a good set of small glass cups that can be anything from charming votive candle holders to drinking glasses or even holiday candy serving dishes grouped en masse on a coffee table? I’ve always wanted to try my hand at glass paint (the kind that you apply with a pen and bake on in the oven) so I figured using it to create a cute little DIY holiday gift would be just the thing. Or it could be another epic fail- you never know when you start these things… For this project I originally planned to go to a thrift store

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Making Wacky Meals To Use Up What’s In The Fridge

We’re buckling down and making ourselves eat as much of the remaining food in our fridge as possible. We haven’t gone grocery shopping for at least three weeks (except for the occasional under $30 run for milk, cereal, and some fresh fruits & veggies) and we don’t plan to go at all for the next two weeks (since there’s still plenty to nosh on before we move). We’re concentrating mostly on eating things in the freezer and the fridge since there will be at least five hours between handing over the keys to our current house and getting the keys to our new one (we were luckily able to coordinate both closings on the same

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