Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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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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Fab Freebie: This Little Life Of Mine…

*** This giveaway has reached its cap of 10,000 entries, and has been closed – see who won below!*** After reaching our cap within 24 hours, we’ve gone ahead and let random.org pick our one lucky winner. They are… AJ (who can’t wait to take our next picture for our annual anniversary photo). We know the feeling. Congrats! …I’m gonna let it… be organized online? If you’re one of those people that can’t seem to get a handle on your family photos – between your camera, phone, computer, and Facebook / Instagram / Flickr – you just might find the answer to your prayers in ThisLife. It’s a free cloud photo storage tool that, among

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Making Our Post Holes To Build A Deck

Before we get to our weekly deck update, we just have to say HOLY COW you guys have awesome homes! So many folks submitted house crashing photos for our upcoming trip to Atlanta for the Haven conference – and we wish we had time to see every last one of you! We’ve worked out a plan to crash as many as we can fit in and are crying a little inside that we can’t get to all of you –  but we might be back out that way for book tour stuff in the fall so there’s always next time! So this is just a huge thanks to everyone for offering to allow a toddler, a

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Our Anniversary Photo Tradition

Deck progress drags on, so we’ll be back with more details for you on Monday (wish we had more full days to devote to it, but it’ll probably be a weekly update situation like our first house’s bathroom reno and our kitchen redo since it’s such a big undertaking). But I just couldn’t resist sharing this in-progress picture of John and his dad telling the auger who’s boss: Oh but the time it’s taking us to build this deck isn’t what I meant by the title of “half a decade” (at least we hope it won’t take us five years to get ‘er done). That has to do with our five year wedding anniversary, which

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House Crashing Update: Kelly’s Outdoor Escape

We had tons of fun House Crashing Kelly Moore last May (you can see the whole shebang here)… … so when she told us she had made some outdoor updates, we couldn’t wait to check out this little haven that she created out on her deck. Complete with outdoor drapes, a hanging egg chair (from Ikea), some colorful seating (from CB2) , and lots and lots of potted plants  – it definitely has serious come-hither charm. We especially loved the leaning pallet planter that she DIYed with hose clamps from the home improvement store. Some pallets have chemicals in them while others are more naturally sealed (with heat) so they’re less questionable for outdoor crafts

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How We Use Photoshop For Blog Photos

Since Photoshop is our go-to tool around here for blog picture editing (and we get asked for a post with tips, tricks, or pointers pretty regularly) here it goes. But first, you should know a few things… 1. We’re not Photoshop experts: I took a digital photography course in college (in 2003) that taught me some basics and a few tricks, but it was by no means exhaustive. Sherry has a similar background, having used it a bit in art classes in high school and college. But both of us consider most of our skills to be self-taught. Basically just playing around and seeing what button created what effect on our photos. Sherry was a

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How To Replace Shower Tiles

First a little Facebook diatribe: we’ve been hearing from folks who no longer see our posts or Instagram pics hitting their Facebook feed and have learned that FB made a few changes, so if you’d still like to see our posts in your feed again, just take a second to do this: Click over to our Facebook page Hover over the button that says “Liked” Make sure the box next to “show in news feed” is checked. If it isn’t, just check it. Then everything should permanently show up in your feed again. Sorry for the trouble! And now back to our regularly scheduled blogging… In case you missed the post where the tale of

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Window Shopping At World Market

We’re doing our best to keep our word to those who have requested more window shopping posts, so we decided to keep the fun going by hitting up World Market (and taking you with us). For those who remember these things, we just stroll around a store (we’ve done big chains, small local shops, and even random little stores that we find while road-tripping) and take photos of all of the things we love. Not for compensation or anything – these sprees are just for fun. So let’s all go skipping through World Market together, shall we? First there were the pretty drinking glasses that were the reason for our visit (we got a few

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How To Remove An Old Shower Tile Border

We no strangers to removing unsightly trees. In fact, taking care of the dead/dying/dangerous trees that we were warned might fall on our first house during our home inspection was a big part of the transformation of the front yard. But taking out these particular trees was a new challenge… because they were in the form of tile in our bathroom: We’ve never been crazy about the beige-on-beige color scheme going on when it comes to the tile in that bathroom, but at least most of it is neutral enough to not call that much attention to itself. Except for that tree-tacular border. Every time we walk in the opening chant from The Lion King

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Fab Freebie: Home Depot Gift Card & Tools

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Thanks to random.org’s trusty randomness, we’ve got our winner and it is… Gretchen B (whose husband is “a mastermind with wood. He can make almost anything, at times he has surprised himself at what he canters up.”). That sounds familiar. Congrats Gretchen! Sorry this post is a few minutes late (380 pages of book proofing = crazytown). But Happy Almost Father’s Day everyone! To help us celebrate, Home Depot is giving away an $100 man card, er, gift card so one lucky reader gets a fast and easy way to show their handy hubby/dad/uncle/brother/grandpa/neighbor how much they care… or how much they really

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