Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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Fab Freebie: One, Two, Three, Flor

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Random.org sifted through the 9000+ entries and came up with our winner. She is… Jenn (whose favorite number is 13 because of The Offspring song “Pretty Fly for a White Guy” and the lyric “He went for a tattoo yeah, he’s getting it done. He asked for a 13 but they drew a 31″). Congrats Jenn – looks like 13 ended up being pretty lucky for you this week! Happy Memorial Day! We’re spending the holiday with our family, but wanted to drop in with today’s giveaway. And let’s keep the counting that we did in the title going all the way to

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Front Yard Landscaping Progress

Okay, y’all ready for another what-we’ve-been-doing-outside post? This particular rundown, as you may have guessed from my title (why yes I can pun in Spanish), is about some hosta business that we pulled off, thanks to a bunch of extra hostas growing randomly in our backyard (this backyard garden bed is a hot mess but we’ll get to it someday!). Since they weren’t doing much for us back there, we dug ’em up – about five in total – and decided to put them to better use. For starters, they certainly could help our bedraggled mailbox (which became quite weedy this spring). The mums that were there turned into dead sticks in the winter and,

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Adding A Board & Batten Wall With Hooks To The Entryway

We never get tired of seeing a solution like the one that Sada and her husband Reagan sent our way. They took an otherwise useless wall in their entryway and turned it into both a functional space for coats and a pretty spot for displaying art and personal mementos (we think they did an especially awesome job picking meaningful, happy art and arranging it in a really charming way). Here’s their letter: My hubby and I recently redid our entryway! With the way that our house is laid out, I knew we were never going to be able to have a beautiful “mudroom”, however, we have this huge blank wall right by our front door.

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Switching Out Bedroom Rugs & Accessories

We did a little more bedroom noodling. Noodling, not canoodling. *Blush* Anyway, we last left off after moving our Alaskan prints together over the bed and surprising ourselves by getting a new rug: And there were a few commonly asked bedroom questions in the 800+ comments on Monday’s post, which were: have you considered getting larger bedside tables? can the bed go on another wall? will you repaint? maybe in a darker color? what are your plans for the nook to the left of the bed? what about changing out the pillows/painting the bed & tables/getting a longer bench/switching the lamps, etc? The short answers to those are: yes but it’s complicated, no, we’re open

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Sourcing And Buying Materials To Build A Deck

Our deck project kind of got back-burnered amidst all of the party/dollhouse/bedroom stuff, but we have made one decision in that time: much like both of our parents chose for our houses growing up, we’re going the pressure-treated wood route. But making that call was no easy decision. We actually weighed a bunch of options, got a few quotes from a few different sources, and endured the all important “sleep on it” step. Then we second-guessed ourselves a few times because the right choice isn’t very obvious. Haha. There are so many ways to go, so it really is one of those it’s-different-for-everyone things. In the end it just came down to personal factors about

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Window Shopping At Target

“Would love to see another post about your favourite finds at Target. They’re coming to Canada and I’m so giddy I could piddle! Love your blog!” – Jaye It’s been way too long since our last window shopping adventure (10 months?!?!), so to everyone who has been requesting them (especially if you used the word piddle), we’re psyched to share the goods. 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

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Planting Boxwoods, Petunias, and Hydrangeas

It feels like forever since we posted about any gardening we’ve done (over a month, actually), but that doesn’t mean nothing’s happened. We’re just a little behind on writing about it (I like to think that we were waiting for things to fill in a bit so we could snap some pics for ya). So let’s play catch up. Remember when we transplanted some bushes to perk up the area behind our patio? Well, that was all fine and good for that side of the patio. But it left this big empty, ugly spot in its wake. So a couple of weeks ago we got our hydrangea on again (thanks to a pair we picked

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Fab Freebie: Wrapped In Comfort

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Someone’s about to get more comfortable because random.org just helped us pick them as the winner. That lucky person is… Kristen B (who says a walk on the beach seems to help everything for her). Congrats Kristen! I realize the title of the giveaway sounds like a cheesy line from a fabric softener commercial, but this prize isn’t about wrapping you in comfort – it’s about wrapping your furniture. Your Ikea furniture to be exact. See, the Australian company Comfort Works had the smart idea of offering slipcovers custom fitted some of Ikea’s popular couch and chair styles. You can get your Ektorp

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How To Get A Wool Rug For Cheap

As we mentioned here, the bedroom is “still looking rough and we’re not sure about a lot of things – just waiting for inspiration to strike – which might involve repainting and rearranging furniture along with refinishing the floors”). We even elaborated a bit in the comments when folks started asking what we meant by that or if we hated the current color by saying: “We love the paint color but something is off about the bedroom and we’re not sure we can rule anything out – including the paint color. Everything is a suspect until proven innocent. Haha. Something is limiting us, so we’re not opposed to changing that thing once we pin it

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How To Hang Pictures Over The Bed

Do you remember these puppies that we picked up at a yard sale last year for $10 a pop? They’re old professionally framed prints of the berries and wildflowers of Alaska, which we thought were sweet since we honeymooned there. So we spray-painted the frames (and mats!) and hung them on either side of our bed. If that doesn’t jog your memory, perhaps this old pic from that post shall will. Well, recently they’ve – say it with me now – come together. Here’s how it all went down. Actually, speaking of going down – it kinda started when a certain ram went down during our book shoots. Since neither all the king’s horses nor

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An Eclectic Glam Tween Bedroom

Clara may be another year older, but she’s still a long ways off from her tweenage years. Which is why it was fun to live vicariously through Courtney’s makeover of her 11-year-old niece Emily’s room. Having virtually crashed Courtney’s own home last May, we knew there’d be some great eye candy, and we often hear from folks who’d love to see a tween room or two, so here ya go. Hi guys! I hope all is well in the Petersik house. I wanted to show you my 11 year old niece’s room that we helped her makeover. She would be so excited for her room to be featured! This was an accumulation of four very

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Decorating A Dollhouse

Hold onto your miniature hats, it’s time for the fun part of painting and personalizing the dollhouse! Our last post was full of the building process, which you can see by (clicking here) – so let’s move on to how we finished everything off. After it was all assembled, it was time to schlep our 31″ x 31″ creation up into the sunroom for some priming and painting. Just like our office cabinets, kitchen cabinets, and the play kitchen we made for Clara, I used a coat of Zinsser Smart Prime (it’s no-VOC but amazingly good for blocking bleed through when you’re painting raw or stained wood) followed by two coats of Bejamin Moore’s low-VOC Advance paint (really

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