Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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We’re One Trimester Away From…

… birthing this book baby of ours! Seriously, somebody get us to Lamaze class. Yup, it’s coming in early November (our official “due date” is the 6th, although it varies slightly depending on where you look). Excuse me while I practice my deep breathing (hee, hee, hoooooo, hee, hee, hoooooo).

Book Signage

Perhaps the craziest part about it is that this might be the longest baby gestation ever recorded – over three whole years! Seriously. Labor of love could not apply more. So for everyone who has been asking about pre-order details, you can click on any of the logos below to pre-order from any of these affiliates. And of course don’t forget the local guys – the book will be available at your favorite bookstore, and if you stop by, many local bookstores can pre-order it for ya too. Fun fact – pre-orders don’t just score you a discounted price, they’re also good for us authors too. And we hear they can show up before the actual release date, so that’s another added bonus.

Book Splash AmazonBook Splash Barnes NobleBook Splash BAMBook Splash IndieBound

Powells2Amazon CanadaIndigoAmazon UKWaterstones

Speaking of a nice long gestation, this was John’s Facebook status almost exactly a year ago (and yes, that’s the Jamie you know from this post).

Book Facebook Status2

But today somehow we’re holding a 336 page mocked-up book full of hundreds of house-sprucing ideas that are about to go off to the printer this week to be made into a real life book. Like one you can hold in your hands and read and put on the coffee table. Actually lots of them since it would be weird just to print one. As for what it’s about, it’s definitely not a formal decorating bible with designer terms and upscale rooms. Please, we’re not that fancy. It’s more of an idea book for folks like us. A heaping portion of doable and affordable suggestions to pick and choose from – and adapt to fit your home. Some are more involved, some are super easy. Some are free, some might be something that you’d save up for. Basically it’s the blog. Only a book. And instead of getting a post or two a day, you get 243 ideas with photos, checklists, tutorials, and illustrations galore (along with bonus tips, sidebars, and added commentary). And a little dorky humor a la us.

Wait, and did we mention that we packed it with over 200 photos and 100 illustrations that have never been seen before on the blog? I guess we just did. In fact, none of the tips in this book are just regurgitated from our blog posts (zero cutting and pasting here!). Some of the general ideas and basic tutorials may be familiar (how could we not include must-have how-tos like painting furniture or upholstering a headboard?) but we wanted to present them in a fresh way. So instead of seeing the same table that I painted three years ago for the blog, you might see a brand new dresser makeover that we secretly completed back in January. Sure it was extra work, but we really wanted the book to look fresh and be full of different “takes” on a ton of decorating ideas – both classic and unexpected (and pretty much everything in between).

Editing

It’s so funny because we distinctly remember every single phase: signing on with an agent well before Clara was born, writing a 100 page proposal in 2010, pitching it to publishers and picking the right one for the job right after moving in 2011, turning our proposal into a complete book outline and then a complete manuscript right around New Year’s, shooting for three straight weeks in our house back in February of this year, and then refining and proofing and proofing some more, and finally – finally! – sending this baby off to be printed. Whew.

Whirlwind? Yes. Lots of fun? Yes. Lots of work? Yes. Still feels like it’s all a dream? Yes. One big, flipping-the-house-upside-down dream…

ShootDay1 Messy Living Room

So needless to say, when we look down at the final layouts and triple check that we didn’t write something like “hang your fart” instead of “hang your art” (don’t worry, we have proofreaders) it really is sort of a chest-swelly moment. Not in that “we’re a big deal” way, but in that “we didn’t know we had it in us” way. I mean, of course when we signed on to write a book we thought we could do it, but as we went we kept saying “ooh, wouldn’t it be cool if we added this too?”  – and every time we did we’d worry if we had just bitten off more than we could chew. But oh happy day we didn’t! We survived. We lived to tell the tale. We wrote the book we were dying to write. And I think it’s going to feel even more unreal when we’re actually holding it in our hot little hands. There might be tears the ugly cry.

And since the final cover has officially been pinned down, we thought it would be fun to chat about that process, since it was completely different than we thought it would be (as was almost every aspect of writing a book – did you know you edit the entire thing with a pencil on printed layouts over about five to six rounds of revisions – there’s no computer involved at all?!). I’d say the two overall most surprising things about writing this book were:

  1. how little the publishers changed the inside of the book (aka, the meat)
  2. how much the publishers have to do with the outside (aka, the bread)

Isn’t that funny? Every time we submitted outlines and even the final manuscript we expected tons of crossed out stuff and rearranged stuff and suggestions about what to move/do/change. But other than typos and grammar fixes, it was really all us. Which is kind of awesome. I mean, in the book we’re the same pun-loving weirdos as we are on this blog. I guess we somehow thought they’d try to “polish us” but they totally let us be us. Our freak flag is waving, baby. And we’re so grateful.

ShootDay1 Manuscript Ready

Then when it came to the cover, we learned that most authors actually only get to give “feedback” but the publisher always has the final say. Thank goodness we love our editors and they seem to like us back, so it was a pretty collaborative process in the end. First we shot some of their initial concepts amidst our three-week photography extravaganza back in Feburary, and out of all three cover concepts there was one that we did our darndest to wiggle out of: putting our mugs on the cover.

We just didn’t want to be sitting there (or standing there) posing in some styled room because… I don’t know… it just felt so… serious. We really wanted the cover to feel playful and happy and fun (it’s not a lofty book about box pleats, it’s a happy-go-lucky home idea book). So after we shot all three concepts, including some terribly awkward photos of us sitting on the sofa like this…

Book Us On Couch

… we heard they officially weren’t going with the pose-on-the-sofa idea for the cover (they agreed that it was looking really forced). Wahoooooo! We celebrated. There might have been an entire box of Oreos that were sacrificed to the We’re-Not-On-The-Cover Book Gods (by way of our bellies). Then about a month later we heard they were going with a fourth concept that a new designer came up with (with us on the cover, but not as big, and not us posing in a room). Whaaaaa? Here was the very first draft they sent over just with initial ideas from their team:

Front First

We opened the PDF while holding our breath… and then we stared at it for a while. And then we realized that we kind of liked it. Not because we’re on the cover of course, but just because of the vibe. The playful look and feel of the different typefaces, the wood letters, the blue stitched spine detail, the paint can in the O – they were all fun and cheeky and definitely not stodgy or serious. Of course the designers asked us for feedback, so we gave it lots of thought, still kind of cringed at the idea of seeing our faces on the cover, and offered up a few general suggestions like:

  1. what if we made the spine more of a teal tone and less of a baby blue?
  2. what if we added some house keys hanging at the bottom from the “e” in the word love?
  3. what if we used wood letters in a chunkier, more modern font?
  4. what if we took ourselves off the darn cover? (this became a joke, how many times we tried to weasel our way out of it)

And they came back with:

  1. Sure! Color picks are just preliminary, so you can definitely weigh in on those!
  2. Sure! We love that idea!
  3. Sure! We’ll get them hand-carved by an artisan in the typeface that you pick and then shoot them in a studio so they look real and have real shadows (how cool is that?! they were made just for the book, and yes we have totally begged them to send them to us so we can keep them forever!)
  4. Nope, you’re staying right there. Everyone here loves that it makes it personal and it’s not a giant stiff looking photo so hopefully you’ll learn to love it too.

Oh and some other changes happened over those months of development. Some tips got changed to bonus tips instead of numbered tips (to help keep the page count – and therefore the price – from getting too high). So we ended up with 243 tips, which is our lucky number (it’s old pager code for We Love You, which we thought was fitting). The subtitle also got more specific thanks to some focus-group feedback. So here’s the final design – mocked up to look 3D:

Book Cover Only

Clean and still fun. Not too kid-ish, but still playful and cheeky with that awesome zing of color down the spine and a few more pops on the front and back. We also love how there’s a mixture of masculine  (the wood letters) and feminine (the scripty ones). And everything from the stitched spine to the paint can and the house keys feels – I don’t know – homey?

Just for kicks, here’s the front, spine, and the back (the back is so much fun up close since our website’s heart background is subtly worked into some of the colored boxes):

Front Back

Thanks to that teal spine, we think it’ll look so cute on a coffee table, or even stacked between our horse head bookends with the other decorating books that we love. Can’t you picture it squished in here?

Horse Bookends Done2

As for why the book cover doesn’t look like our blog header, we actually thought that wouldn’t be a good idea since:

  1. It’s kinda boring if it’s a direct lift from our blog
  2. The book isn’t just repackaged blog stuff, so we didn’t want the cover to look so much like our blog that people assumed it was just the same stuff (all of the projects that we photographed were secretly done just for this book, so they’re all never-before-seen images)
  3. We love to redesign the blog every few years, so we didn’t want the book to look dated (to us and our readers) once we outgrew the current design
  4. It’s actually a really fun process to see what a professional book designer can do with your “look.” They know what they’re doing and have so much interesting reasoning behind certain choices that we never would have even thought about. And it’s not everyday that you get to see yourself through a book designer’s eyes.

So that’s the story of being completely convinced that we had successfully weaseled our way out of being on the cover (we even said we had done it in this post) and then ended up there anyway. But at least we’re not sitting on the sofa smiling. Haha. And there are bunny ears. And I’m wearing red shoes. And we’re little. So if we put a cute little paper weight over that part of it when it’s on the coffee table we won’t even be visible. #crouchingtigerhidden$herdog

Another fun fact? That photo actually wasn’t shot for the cover. It was just a random portrait that we snapped back in February while shooting all of our projects (just in case they needed an author photo for the back or something).

Book Us In Door1

Oh, and what’s the funny thing you notice about John’s hand in the original pic? Yup, no drill. They cut his arm holding a drill from another process photo in the book and stuck it on there. We love that. I don’t know why. It’s like one of those behind-the-movie tidbits about the magic of book cover building. John’s Frankensteined Drill-Arm.

Oh and while Clara and Burger pop up inside, they didn’t make the cover because our editors rightfully pointed out that the Young House Love title was in danger of looking like it was some sort of relationship/family book, and not a decorating book (which is also why the designers chose to emphasize the word HOUSE with wood letters). But we made up for it inside the book. Seriously, Burger is without a doubt our favorite part of the book. He basically walks in and out of chapters and says hilarious Burger-esque things (yes, he talks to us when nobody’s around) and Clara got in there more than a few times too (she even got to do a project with us).

Ram Clara Watching Kip1

So in the end we feel like the book really represents us and our blog. There’s tons more that we’re itching to tell you about this, but we don’t want your head (ok, our heads) to explode. So we’ll occasionally be diving into more behind-the-scenes details about finishing this book of ours, sharing a video that we shot and edited with some sneak peeks, and finally dishing out the dates and cities for our book tour once that’s all set in stone. For now, all of this jabbering is just to say: holy cow this book baby is actually coming out and we love you all for the amazing support and encouragement that you’ve shown us during this intense and incredible journey. Couldn’t have done it without you. For reals, guys. Love, love, love.

Psst- You can check out a bunch of links to other book-related happenings, like when we announced that we were writing a book, how we picked a publisher, how we prepped for photo shoots, and how we shared a little photo-shoot sneak peek. Plus you can swing by our new book landing page with more info that we’ll update as soon as we know more about things like book tour details (along with other  fun behind the scenes stuff).

Comments

    • Christine says

      Ok. I’ve managed to calm myself down some now that it is officially ordered. (I am at work, you guys!!)

      Random question- will you guys let us know how well you do with the pre-orders? I’m just so curious. I used to work in publishing so I just know- Artisan must be abuzz today with your pre-orders! I’m sure you’re the talk of the company. And I can’t think of two people more deserving!

      And!!! I live in NY so I most definitely will be at one of the book signings! Cannot wait until November!!

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Aw thanks Christine! I’m not sure how we’ll find that out but if Artisan tells us anything we’d love to share it! I’m just excited that we’re not the only order. Yes, we pre-ordered our own book. Haha. Paid for it and everything. We just wanted to have that experience and see when it arrived and how it was packaged, etc. How weird are we?!?!

      xo,
      s

    • Christine says

      Only weird for only buying one! If I wrote a book and it got published by a major publisher I’d buy one for every room in the house!

  5. Renee says

    Congratulations!! I love the look of the book, and all the fun stories about how it came to be. Honestly, I live in an apartment, and plan to move again in the spring, so I’ve been trying not to purchase too much stuff (books=heavy) but I think I’m going to have to pre-order your book! I’m sure I’ll end up finding projects that inspire me, but the real reason I’m buying it is you guys. Just like I would buy a book one of my IRL friends wrote, I’ll proudly put yours on a shelf. ‘Oh Young House Love, I read their blog’

    Reply

  7. Carley says

    I’ve been reading your blog forever…not since the very beginning, but close to it. This is so exciting! I cannot wait to see the finished product. I’m so happy for you two and all you have accomplished! Are you going to be doing a book tour? I just told my husband that if you do, and come to the Pittsburgh area, I will take a day off of work to go! Seriously though, congratulations on all of your success! It’s so great to see nice, hardworking people accomplish so much!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Aw thanks Carley! We’ll definitely be touring but don’t know where we’re going yet (that’s in the hand of our publisher who is still working things out). We’ll share more details as we have them!

      xo,
      s

  8. Allyn says

    So proud of you guys! I’ve seriously been following for about 4 years now and it’s been incredible to see how much this has all grown. You’ve worked so hard and totally deserve this!
    Off to preorder now…

    Reply

  11. Tracy says

    I just pre-ordered mine! I can’t wait! I’d say I’ll be crossing my fingers for a book tour in Grand Rapids, MI, but I would imagine that’s a pretty long shot :) Congrats on the book, that’s really cool.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      That was really funny! We couldn’t figure it out and then heard that Emily post says that the man should be last so his first name isn’t separated from his last (ex: Sherry & John Petersik) so we went for it.

      xo,
      s

  14. Patricialynn says

    Hahaha you commented that your little website heart background made it onto the back cover. But what I noticed right off the bat is that the teal color on the binding is the same color as the little heart that is on the tab of your website, as well as the same shade in the header of your blog.

    Reply

  18. Karen says

    I actually saw this on Amazon yesterday when I was nosing around a bit. I may have squealed a little when I saw it!

    I have my pre-order in and can’t wait to get my copy.

    Congratulations on birthing this baby. You must be over the moon excited!

    Reply

  19. Heather says

    So excited for you guys! I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy of it and am off to preorder it now, but congrats on realizing a dream and making it happen! Your blog is a daily read for me, so I can’t wait to see what the book holds :)

    Reply

  20. Kathy says

    Cannot wait! Love your blog so I know I’ll love the book! Just sent the link to my hubby as a great Christmas gift idea for me. :)

    Reply

  24. Shelley says

    Just bought it! SO excited for you guys! I’ve been spreading the word about your blog in Portland OR for awhile now. Congrats! =)

    Reply

  25. Beth G says

    I know what I’m putting on my Christmas list!
    Also, about your book tour: You should come to Joplin, MO. Reason #1: Due to last year’s tornado, we have a TON of new/rebuilt homes with owners who I’m sure would love decorating tips and ideas of how to make their new digs look awesome without shelling out a fortune (most of the insurance money goes back to rebuilding the house, so it’s nice to have ways to make the leftovers STRE-E-E-TCH!) Reason #2: I’d love to meet you and get tips for the house that my husband and I eventually buy/build :-) Think about it!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We’d love that! We don’t make the tour schedule or decide where we go (that’s all our publisher) but we have our fingers crossed that we make it to every last crevice of the globe!

      xo,
      s

  28. Shannon says

    I am pre-ordering mine today along with a couple more for Christmas gifts! So excited for you guys! Congrats!! :)

    Reply

  31. Melissa says

    Got mine all pre-ordered! I’ve been following your blog for all these years so i’m so excited for you guys to finally see this book through and can’t wait to see all your hard work. :)

    xoxo,
    Melissa

    Reply

  32. Stacy says

    Amazing! Have it on pre-order and can’t wait. I’ve been reading your blog for years and am so, so happy for you guys. Also a little bit jealous. But mostly happy :)

    Reply

  33. Whitney says

    So excited for you all! When Baby Petersik #2 someday (hopefully) makes an appearance you will have to create book #2 so he/she can be in it too :)
    Pre-ordering now… can’t wait for the day it arrives!

    Reply

  36. Elisabeth says

    I’m pretty excited to pick this book up. Your due date is just before my anniversary so there will be major hint dropping :) We just inherited a table and chairs from my husband’s great grandfather and I have your furniture painting tutorial bookmarked to help me in the transformation. So thank you in advance!

    Reply

  38. cara says

    Just placed my order and eligible for prime too! Yipee! Can’t wait to get it. Where did you get the pillows behind the manuscript. I love them. my next project is to stencil a wall like you did in your office. i may even go with the same stencil. I was suprised my husband actually liked that one. Hope it turns out as well as yours. Congratulations on finishing the book!

    Reply

  39. Amanda C says

    Woohoo!!! The book looks great, and I can’t wait to get it!

    p.s. Hubs pre-ordered it on Amazon for me about 2 weeks ago – love him!

    Reply

  41. Courtney says

    Pre-ordered my copy on Amazon a while ago and CAN NOT wait until it arrives in my mailbox.

    Oh, and as for the tour, I’m pretty sure Canada (Calgary specifically) is calling your name. :)

    Congratulations on accomplishing this incredible milestone!!!

    Reply

  42. Robin E. says

    Congratulations! So excited for you guys and really looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of the book. What a great accomplishment!

    Reply

  44. Karen F says

    OMG you guys. You must be so relieved that all the “heavy lifting” is over! So exciting to see the light at the end of the tunnel! Is it weird to say I’m proud of you? Not to sound like a kook or anything. It’s been so fun to follow you throughout this process. You guys deserve every bit of success you’ve had, and so much more will come your way, because you’re awesome people.

    p.s. how cool is it that you got a quote from Gretchen Rubin for the cover! Another one of my favorite authors! I can’t wait for her new book, too.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Aw thanks Karen! I know, that quote blew us away! It was so nervewracking to send her a copy of our book because we worried if she’d even like it but she loved it! It was amazing. I can’t wait for her new book either! It’s coming sooner- maybe in Sept I think!

      xo,
      s

    • Karen F says

      That is so awesome. She seems like a really nice, down to earth person. Btw I just checked my Amazon account, and I pre-ordered your book on March 16! Crazy!

  46. LaMadre says

    Congratulations! I preordered mine weeks ago and get wait for all that inspiration and fun reading to arrive. I don’t know how you do so much – but I’m glad you do.

    Reply

  48. melissa hoffman says

    Can I just say, I love reading your blog. While I am no designer, I have learned so much from y’all and have gained a lot of courage to DIY lots of projects in our home. Really excited for your book to come out and genuinely happy for you guys!!! :) Congrats!!

    Reply

  49. Sarah says

    Just pre-ordered it! Hoping your tour takes you to my current city of Bogotá, Colombia. Hey, a girl can hope, right? :)

    Reply

  50. Lissa says

    I cannot wait to get the book! I have been reading your blog for years now and I am so excited!! Have to mention that I love the pic of you all on the sofa. The way John is looking at you with such love in his eyes reminds me of the way my grandfather would look at my grandmother (not that you all are even close to being old but the love in his eyes is exactly the same as my grandfathers.) You two are adorable!!

    Reply

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