Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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Father’s Day, Animal Friends, & Cheesy Grins

Work continues on the deck (looks like we’ll have an update for you on Monday barring any unforeseen disasters inspection failures!) so to end this week with a dad-worthy bang, I thought I’d share something that a bunch of you have been requesting: a belated Father’s Day recap (like last year’s) – especially since the day included a few home related activities and presents. The day started off much like any normal Father’s Day might. We went out to one of our favorite brunch spots (deLux) and enjoyed some french toast in their open-air back room (we also enjoyed an impromptu walk beforehand because we accidentally arrived 20 minutes before they opened – oops). Our

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A Bathroom Makeover With Floating Shelves

Now that we’re back home (and back in the swing of things), let’s start this off with a deck sneak peek. Oh yes, more holes are happening. So rest assured that we’re working towards a passed inspection (remember when we failed here?) and we hope to have an update on that early next week. So be sure to hold your breath for us! But back to our Reader Redesign. Despite this email starting off with a cheer to my alma mater’s rival, I couldn’t help but share this awesome bathroom makeover with an even more awesome price tag. Plus, although we may not agree on college teams, we can definitely relate to a bathroom that

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Fourth Of July Table Settings

Alternate post title: The Vow (Not The One With Channing Tatum). Ok, now it’s the one with him in it because I mentioned him in the title, but he has nothing to do with this post. He’s not my type anyway. You know I like ’em tall, lanky, and bookish. And not formerly of a male dancing background. But back to my vow. This year I wanted to actually share 4th of July ideas with enough time for other people to see them. I’m usually so last minute about holiday stuff, sometimes I post 4th of July ideas on the actual 4th of July (like this) which doesn’t do anyone much good. So yes, I

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Haven, House Crashing, & Obligatory Weirdness

You ready for a post full of embarrassing photos (of me and Katie B) and adorable photos (of Clara and Will) with a few house crashing and shopping-on-the-road sneak peeks mixed in? Oh yeah. Let’s do this. The crazy thing is that even though this little recap of our four days spent in Atlanta has over 40 photos in it, it’s just the tip of the iceberg road trip, so we’ll be back with a few detailed House Crashing posts, a nice juicy window-shopping post from on the road, and a thrift store video that Katie and I cobbled together all in one take (yes, someone comes up to chat with us right in the

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Renovating Arguments – They Definitely Happen

Occasionally we get comments like “I don’t know how you spend all day together without fighting.” While I appreciate the assumption that we have some flawless, all-smiles marriage – we fight. We get upset with each other… and Clara… and even Burger. I’m not saying we have Real Housewives-worthy throwdowns (our table flipping count is still at zero) but like any normal couple we argue. Sometimes in a healthy, I-fight-because-I-care way. Sometimes in a probably less-than-healthy Sherry yells and I give her the silent treatment way. But the point is – yes, we fight (skip to about 11:45 on this old blogiversary Q&A video for a brief mention on the subject). As upfront as we’re

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Fab Freebie: Magnesium

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Wow. You guys are a lot more opinionated about the periodic table than I had assumed. Anyways, random.org selected the winner of this giveaway as… Andi W. (who likes Sodium for all of the salty snacks it provides, but admitted “My inner nerd wants to vote adamantium.”) Congrats Andi! Hold onto your seats, chemistry nerds. We’re giving away some magnesium this week. It’s coming in the form of Oreck’s latest and lightest-weight upright vacuum ever – the Magnesium. In fact, at less than 8lbs it weighs in at about half the poundage of an ordinary upright. Not to mention its skinny but strong

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Building A Frame To Make A DIY Upholstered Headboard

We owe you a huge post about all things Haven/ATL, but we’re actually driving home today (after crashing a bunch of awesome houses, doing a thrift store tour with Katie B, hosting an informal backyard wedding for Clara and Will, etc) so we’ll share what we snuck in before we left for Atlanta: the beginnings of a headboard for the freshly rearranged masted bedroom. With Ed the Bed officially minus posts, we quickly turned our attention to making him plus headboard – as you saw Sherry mock up in Photoshop last week – along with darker floors and a darker dresser: We wanted something upholstered over something wood/tin/woven/stenciled/painted since we wanted something cushy to lean

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Buying Rugs For Our House

It feels like the last few months have been The Age Of Rugs. We got this one from a local outlet for our bedroom… … this one from Urban Outfitters for our kitchen… … and just got this one from Joss & Main for our office…   It was actually kind of hard to find an 100% jute rug that was 6 x 6, so when this guy came up for $89 (down from $150) we finally pulled the trigger.  Especially since Pottery Barn sells a nearly identical one for $129 down from $149 and Overstock has something similar for $115. We had always wanted something round to soften all the angles in the room

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Outdoor Updates And A Landscaping Tour

It’s yard tour time, baby! Every year we try to take a few video tours of the inside of our house, just to look back on how it has evolved (you can check those out here). And we even made a little outdoor tour post last year, complete with a full video of John bush-wacking his way around our yard. So we thought it would be fun to make that an annual tradition. Just so we can see how the exterior of our house is evolving as we tackle projects big (like the patio and the deck) and small (like all of the transplanting/seeding/weeding that we do – more on that here). The funny thing

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Oops We Failed Our Deck Inspection

#FAIL Oh how I wish that hashtag was in reference to some cheeky Internet meme. Instead, it’s about the result of our deck’s footing inspection. Sigh. Picture us singing “you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both, and there you have, the facts of DIY life.” So here’s the deal. We scheduled the inspector to come look at the six holes we had dug for our footings. By my understanding, he’d simply be looking at each one to make sure they were in the correct spots and dug to the right width & depth. Pretty straightforward by my assumption. But if you recall, we chose to go above and beyond by

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Cutting The Posts Off Our Canopy Bed

Yup, we finally gave Ed a little haircut. For over a year and a half we tried to work with the posts on Ed the bed, but the realization that we didn’t have a lofted ceiling or a floor plan that made sense of those big dramatic posts slowly worked its way into our conscious and we finally decided that just because Ed was born with long hair posts doesn’t mean that a little haircut is cruel and unusual bed punishment. So here he is before… … during… … and after… This whole bed-trimming project was free, took about an hour of work, and we totally dig the more open look. It was just too

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Finding The Right Spot For The Bed In A Bedroom

First lets rewind to this post where I said “As for if the bed can move, the floor plan of this room is a definite challenge thanks to “things” on each wall (two very off-centered windows, a nook across from the door, and a nook with the sink tucked into it on another wall – and a chandelier in the exact center that looks off if the bed isn’t in the right place). So we’ve tried the bed in a bunch of spots, but the place that works best for us is where it lives now (it’s the only long flat wall in our entire room).” Well, after seeing a few inspiring glossy mag photos,

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