Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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How We Sold Our Second House By Owner

Holy cow, did we just sell our house? (I’ll pause while Sherry flails around since that sentence is a trigger). Now that we’re through the inspection & the appraisal (and the closing date is officially on the calendar), we’re finally at the point that we feel safe enough to shout it to the interwebs (we waited until this point to share the “we sold our house” news last time too). Of course nothing’s guaranteed until we’re all signing on the dotted line in early June, but so far, so good… First, some background: Sherry was set on selling our house FSBO (For Sale By Owner) again. She argued that we stood to save nearly ten grand –

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How To Paint Exterior Siding

Remember back when we debated painting the siding on the front porch way back here in fall 2011? Hence the creepy Halloween wreath on the door. We had picked a color and everything (Flagstone by Martha Stewart – the one on the right in the photo above) but before we got around to doing it, the temperatures dropped too much to paint. Then the test swatches – which lived on our porch for several months (sorry neighbors) got painted over when it was time to shoot book photos out there. The project literally became out of sight, and out of mind. Then we redid the columns. And when we did a few of you guys

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A Kitchen With Dark Gray Lower Cabinets & White Uppers

As much as we love a white kitchen, there are so many other fun options out there, like my sister’s wood cabinets + white appliances combo and “tuxedo” kitchens (a combo of dark and light cabinets). So when Rita’s makeover landed in our inbox, we couldn’t believe how much she changed her space for the better, and especially liked her two-tone cabinets. Here’s her letter: Hi Sherry and John, We recently finished renovating our kitchen. The challenge was creating a kosher kitchen (two sinks and separate spaces for meat and dairy) while keeping it looking clean and uncluttered and keeping the cost down. The original kitchen was beige-on-beige laminate with very little counter space. The

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How To Hang Window Boxes

Word up my fellow Pinterest playas. Hope you got down with some baking, crafting, painting, organizing, sewing, building, or knitting fun because it’s time to share this season’s (completely unofficial) Pinterest Challenge (not sponsored by Pinterest or anyone else, just dreamed up by Katie to make us stop pinning and start doing). The only rule is to pin something you’ve wanted to get done (big or small) and do it. You know, instead of sitting on your duff pinning other things… which I’ll admit happens a whole lot in my world. Our mission this season? Window boxes! I actually pinned two window-box related pics, this picture just for the eye candy of it (at $90+

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Planning A Dragon Birthday Party

In keeping with our annual tradition, we thought we’d give you a peek at Clara’s invitation and a few of our party supplies like we did last year and the year before. And since a lot of you are trying to guess the theme that she picked this year (after choosing worms last year)… well… say hello to our little dragon. The dragon theme came about a bit more gradually than last year’s theme, which was born from her worm-laden dreams. Somewhere between declaring that the book Dragons Love Tacos is her favorite (we even read it to her preschool class last month) and frequently requesting to wear her dragon cape around the house – it

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Fab Freebie: Come To My Windows

***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** And this week’s lucky winner is Amy (who says she has an “unhealthy addiction to my iPhone, between email, Facebook, Pinterest etc. but I put it away for family time.”) Congrats! Whether it’s googling around for a tutorial, answering comments on the go, or making a list of project materials on our phone, gadgets have definitely wormed their way into our DIY routine. So we thought one of you might enjoy being hooked up with over $700 worth of Microsoft’s newest Windows devices – a Surface RT and a Windows Phone. The Surface is like a tablet, laptop, and e-reader in one –

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A Video Tour Of Our New House

Now that we’re wrapping things up at our current house and we’ve spilled the new house beans it’s like we’ve finally given ourselves permission to LOSE. OUR. MINDS. So yeah, this new house video tour is full of chirpy excitement that only a home in your dream neighborhood can produce. Forgive me. It’s not a good look. And watching it produces the same embarrassment that my way-too-enthusiastic mom elicited back in high school. Which confirms that I’m turning into her. Uh oh… Woop, there it is. The first set of stairs we ever owned, and the house that’s attached to them. A few notes: I’m not awkward at all in the beginning. We used John’s

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How To Stain & Seal The Deck

With our power washing done we could finally stain and seal our deck, which we completed and re-furnished on Tuesday (literally hours before our first showing!). But let’s rewind to where we left off yesterday. We mentioned that after finishing it in late August we were told to give the pressure treated wood 2-3 months to dry out before sealing any of the moisture from the treatment in (apparently sealing or staining PT wood too soon can lead to terrible results). So by the time staining was advised, it was too cold out to apply the stain. But even after spring rolled around and we power washed, it still wasn’t quite ready. What was standing

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Using A Pressure Washer To Clean Wood, Brick, And Cement

Note: This post features a heavy-duty, gas-powered pressure washer we rented from the store. To see how we now use a $99 electric version we own, please see this Getting Started With Pressure Washing post. Guys. I have a new favorite thing. And no, it’s not a pint-sized plastic vehicle. Yup, we took our spring cleaning to the proverbial next level and rented ourselves a 2000 PSI pressure washer (just got it at the Home Depot in their tool rental department). For 80 bucks and thanks to borrowing my dad’s Kia to haul it, this puppy was all ours for a day. I was happier than a hip hop hamster. I had never used a

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New House Q & A

Holy cow did you guys have questions about the whole selling/moving/buying process since yesterday’s little announcement! So we decided an FAQ post would answer as many as we could. We originally planned to share it tomorrow but you guys are still sending questions our way so furiously that we decided to share this guy today and our regularly scheduled DIY post will go up in the morning. So heeeeeeeere we go! #warningitslong Q: Will you sell your current house by owner like you did with your first house? Since it worked out so well for us last time, we’d love to! So other than possibly paying a few hundred dollars to have it listed on

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Let’s Get A Little Spring Mojo Up In Here

First of all, I’m sending a huge wet internet kiss (yup, you’ll need to wipe your mouth afterwards) to everyone for their awesome excitement and kind words about yesterday’s announcement. We’re freakishly giddy to share this new chapter of our lives with you guys. There may have been misty eyes going on… Speaking of sniffling, can you smell that smell? It’s spring Pinterest Challenge time (not sponsored by Pinterest or anyone else, just dreamed up by Katie Bower to make us stop pinning and start doing). The whole thing started nearly two years ago when Katie called me to say that she thought we should challenge ourselves to make one thing each season that’s inspired

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Aquatoberpril (A Water-Drinking Challenge)

Don’t worry, I don’t know how to pronounce that blog post title either. It’s just a nod to the fact that my  “Aquatober” challenge – where I try to spend the entire month of October drinking water instead of soda and other sugary drinks – has extended itself all the way through April. Hence, Aquatoberpril. In my original post about Aquatober I noted that I have varying success every year I try to detox myself (and my wallet) on all of the soda I consume (it’s my liquid vice of choice). Some years I don’t make it the full month. Some years I make it a bit further. Well, this time I’m still going strong

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