Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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Original Ideas? Pish Posh.

Q: How do you come up with your amazing home ideas? Is it all on your own? Do you have some secret inspiration method? Like the built in wardrobes in your master bedroom and the doorway widening trick that you pulled in your den/kitchen/dining area. I just wish you could teach me how to think like you so I could come up with some original ideas to make my house feel like it’s unique and cool instead of lame and boring! – Lisa A: First of all, we’ll say this: we’re 100% confident that nothing that we’ve ever done to our house or on this blog hasn’t been done before. We repeat: there’s probably not

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House Hunting: Upgraded & Priced To Sell

This next house we toured was pretty sweet. The owners had just dropped the price nearly $40,000 which suddenly put it within our range. The sellers had already moved out and after having the place on the market for 4 months were quite motivated to sell. And perhaps that fact would motivate us to buy? Let’s meet the house: THE STATS: Age: 1977 House size: 2,772 square feet Lot size: 0.4 acres of land Bedrooms: 4 Bathroom: 2.5 THE PROS: Great deal Beautiful exterior and landscaping Polished details like crown molding, custom window shutters, and exposed beams Tons of extras like a Wolf range, two outdoor deck heaters, a car lift in garage, and a

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Some More Window Shopping At Ikea

We finally got back over to Ikea to see all the new stuff this year (and to pick up a catalog in person since we waited and waited for one to come to our door with no avail). Let’s just say it didn’t disappoint! So we snapped a few photos of some of the things that inspired us most. Here’s an office that we really liked. Although having all that space in our current house to devote to an office is a pipe dream, maybe our next house will allow for it. And even if not it’s still fun to look at. Speaking of dreams for our future house, we’ve always adored the idea of

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House Hunting: Cute Cape Cod Near Shops

So with the Cottage In the Woods off our list, let’s turn our attention to another house that we toured: the cute cape cod near shops. We were a bit skeptical about this one because it was in a totally new area for us, but we though its hints of city feel might reawaken the part of us that once loved living in NYC and being able to walk to the store. So we decided to check it out. Here it is in its slightly-doctored-photo glory (see why we’re not sharing tons of pics out of respect to the sellers here): THE STATS: Age: 1945 House size: 2,001 square feet Lot size: 0.25 acres Bedrooms:

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This Pretty Much Made Our Year (Meeting Nate Berkus)

Picture me miming the act of getting out the ol’ Bucket List and crossing off one of the most major “pipe dream” things on there. As we quickly mentioned here, three Wednesdays ago The Nate Berkus Show contacted us and asked if we’d be interested in being on their show… which was taping just two short days later in NYC. If so they’d fly us out the very next day. Uh, yes please. See, I’ve been obsessed with Nate for years. And not just mildly obsessed, we’re talking can’t-mention-him-without-my-voice-going-up-an-octave status. The man just does something to me (check out a few I-love-Nate posts of yore here and here). But what the heck would we be

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House Hunting: The Cottage In The Woods

We’ve been passively house hunting for a few weeks now (driving around different neighborhoods, checking out pics on MLS, and popping into a few of them every now and then) and are finally getting around to writing about it. It’s amazing how frantically cleaning your own house and scheduling showings can distract you from actually blogging about the thrill of the hunt for a new place. Part of our delay has also been deciding the best way to share this house hunting journey with you guys. We’d love to show every nook and cranny of each place, but at the same time we want to respect the privacy of each home’s seller (after all, unlike

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How To Spackle Uneven Drywall

This morning, while Clara was doing this: I attempted to tackle this: A few days ago I slapped some spackle on the walls in the bathroom (we like Dap Crackshot), because as happy as we were with the big bathroom overhaul, you could tell it was definitely our first rodeo when it came to drywalling. And in our hurry to get paint on the walls we were a wee bit less careful with the mudding and taping than we could have been. But thanks to Operation Sell This House we’re making all those never-got-around-to-them tweaks to get things looking as close to perfect as possible. You know, tackling all of those projects that we’ll never

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Mood Board Making: Dark Teal, Wood, & White Bedroom

I can’t promise that we’ll execute this mood board to a T when it comes to our future bedroom – heck, the entire vision could easily shift by the time we move into a new home. But as of right now, this is what I’m loving (and John’s surprisingly right there with me): 1. I’m dreaming of a cozy and enveloping room painted in a rich and saturated teal like the stripe of color across the top of the mood board (Benjamin Moore’s Rendezvous Bay 726). I’d temper the bold color by adding some white furnishings/accessories and some rich dark woods to ground things. And then I’d add a pop of tangerine, just because I’m

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