Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

| By | | 432 Comments

Wendy’s Dilemma: Ideas Anyone?

We’re not sure how many of you are knee deep in a turkey somewhere (wait, that sounds terrible) but there’s nothing we like more than a group brainstorming session, so if you’re around, Wendy would love your suggestions. She has an exterior issue and she’s ready to dive right in (you know what that means… after pics! Hopefully really soon!) so here’s her letter: I’ve been a YHL reader since house #1 and I’m so excited that you’ve started this group advice feature!  I have a problem I hope you and your readers can help with. We’ve lived in our home for about four years, and the front needs a major paint job. It’s a

[ Read More ]

| By | | 327 Comments

Painting The Ceiling A Little Darker (And Glossier)

We’re doing Children’s Hospital stuff today, but a bunch of you noticed a foyer ceiling update in the background of yesterday’s post, so we owe you those details. We actually knocked it out before the big kitchen paint-fest, but that post cut the line because it was too exciting to save for later and we have the patience of toddlers (not to be confused with having the body of a baby). We usually hate painting ceilings (big rooms = sore backs) but the foyer’s a relatively small swatch of space, so I ended up just rolling the whole thing while Sherry knocked out some simple cutting in around the edges. If you wanna see some

[ Read More ]

| By | | 452 Comments

Painting Dark Trim & Paneling In The Kitchen

Remember when the kitchen looked like this back when we first laid eyes on our house? Whelp, now it looks like this… It’s crazy how different certain angles look in person. It’s like walking into the room and wondering who added five extra lights. It’s just so much brighter. Yes, we dove headfirst into priming and painting the kitchen baseboards, crown molding, and window trim (52. freaking. panes.) and ended up just going all out and tackling the paneling and the doors to the pantry and the garage while we were at it. We have nothing against dark paneling, we just prefer the painted look for our house, especially after drooling over a few awesomely

[ Read More ]

| By | | 382 Comments

So Many Holiday Projects

Heads up: this post might be a bit of a smorgasbord. I think it’s because life has been feeling kinda smorgasbordy lately (in a good way) and sometimes it’s hard to organize life into tidy, tightly-themed blog posts when it’s really all over the place behind the scenes… I say it’s “in a good way” because we feel like we’re really starting to gain momentum around a goal that we mentioned in this post of taking on more “off-campus” projects. In other words, projects that aren’t centered solely around improving our own spaces and, in more than one case, are for a good cause. The Homearama Showhouse that we’re doing for Habitat For Humanity, being

[ Read More ]

| By | | 314 Comments

How To Make A Clock

This week I was actually inspired by a request from Clara, which came by way of John’s mom. She was laughing as she told me that she overheard Clara telling her cousin that she didn’t have a clock in her room. Random, right? So I thought: I’ve never made a clock… but I bet I can make her something fun – maybe even something that she can interact with somehow. They sell those clock kits, so it can’t be too hard, right? So here’s where I ended up… And here it is living it up on the wall in Clara’s room. I originally thought it could be fun to use a birdhouse and add the

[ Read More ]

| By | | 461 Comments

Using Hot Water To Remove Wallpaper

The wallpaper in our dining room is gone. Phew! Hooray! Ahh, fresh ready-to-paint walls, you make my heart sing. (And seemingly endless blue trim, you make my eyes twitch). You might remember that each time I tackle wallpaper removal I’ve tried out a different method so I can report back to you guys on who’s the fairest of them all what’s the most effective of them all. Yes, I’m the Anderson Cooper of wallpaper. Except less handsome and more pregnant. Up until this point, I had tried boiling water sprayed on with a spray bottle for method #1, a steamer for method #2 (the one that’s in the lead so far for the easiest), and warm

[ Read More ]

| By | | 332 Comments

Listy McListerface: Updated

So sorry to everyone who requested an update on this sooner! We first shared our new house to-do list back in May and later updated it at the end of July, so this check-in is well overdue. But one fun thing about going longer than you meant to before updating a list is getting to cross things off like crazy. Picture me grinning maniacally for a far too extended period like the people in this video who think they’re getting their photos taken while the camera’s really on video mode. These posts came about when people asked us how we organize all the stuff that we have on our to-do list and we explained that we

[ Read More ]

| By | | 51 Comments

Fab Freebie: It’s A Little Bit Bunny

Virginia-raised Bunny Williams has made quite a name for herself in the interior designer world thanks to years of designing some pretty amazing rooms (which you can see in magazines, her books, and even on her Facebook page). So when she offered an upscale mirror from her line of furniture and decor items at Bunny Williams Home to one of you guys, we said “done deal.” So this week someone’s gonna win one of these three statement mirrors: the textured Ruffled Mirror, the sleek Garbo Mirror, or the curvacious My Pretty Mirror – which range from $900 to over $1600 in value! Please use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter (it might take a second to

[ Read More ]

| By | | 569 Comments

How To Seal Stenciled Plywood Floors

It has been nearly a month since we talked about stenciling the floor in our sink nook (we’re all over the place lately – Clara’s room, outdoor tiling, installing our stair runner, landscaping adventures, starting in on the kitchen, etc) but that doesn’t mean we were done in there. We had a few more bullets to check off: sealing those stenciled floors loading in the closet after the floors dried (hopefully with more function/storage instead of the stuff we thoughtlessly shoved in there when we moved) updating the vanity with more function as well as a fresh finish (up close it was in pretty rough shape, and we thought we could gain more function from

[ Read More ]

| By | | 610 Comments

How To Pick An Outdoor Light

Our exterior light situation is a little ho-hum, as evidenced by this tiny fixture outside the back door on our garage (don’t mind the grimy green brick that’s screaming out for some scrubbing). And yes, I realize the door itself is looking a little rough. It originally sported a rusty, loudly-banging storm door (not just a medium bang, this was SCARE-YOUR-NEIGHBORS LOUD) that we removed. So we’re getting ready to repair some of the trim and prime/paint it white to match the door in the sunroom veranda that we already updated. But let’s turn our attention back to the light. It was too small and very weather-worn, so we decided it was time to make

[ Read More ]

| By | | 498 Comments

What Kind Of Accent Do You Have: The Quiz

A post on Facebook the other night led me to this random quiz: What American Accent Do You Have? Since we’ve always been fans of completely non-scientific online quizzes, why not take it for a spin, right? It was especially interesting for us to take since we get the occasional video comments like “John sounds soooo Southern” or “Sherry talks like Mila Kunis.” Not that Mila Kunis is an accent… We both think we have pretty neutral American accents – although I’m quick to point out that the Jersey in Sherry likes to call the top of your face the “far-head.” And she gives me a hard time for not distinguishing between the pronunciation of

[ Read More ]

| By | | 383 Comments

How To Paint A House Portrait

This week’s craft project has me skeered, I’m not going to lie. For the past month and a half I’ve had fun doing a simple and quick crafty thing each week, like making a fall wreath, stenciling a pillow, painting baskets, decorating pumpkins & gourds, making vacation keepsake globes, and taking ceramic paint for a spin on a bowl full of colorful cacti. Each of those projects took under an hour, and they were pretty easy and straightforward (paint this, wrap this around that, caulk this) – so I don’t know what got into me this week and whispered “how about painting a little portrait of your first house?” It easily took me five times

[ Read More ]