Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

Posts By John Petersik

John Petersik is one half of the duo behind the award-winning home improvement and do-it-yourself design blog, Young House Love. Together, he and his wife Sherry have renovated seven homes, published two New York Times Bestselling books, and designed products sold in Target and Home Depot. They are currently enjoying their downsized home on Florida's Gulf Coast with their two kids and their dog, Penny.

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Changing A Door Knocker And A Doorbell

How about a post about hunting for knockers? Nope, not those knockers. This is just the follow-up we promised yesterday about updating our door knocker and doorbell. Here was the situation before: a nice but quite aged door knocker whose main flaw was that the previous owner’s last name that was etched into it (it’s a little hard to see because I slightly blurred it for their sake). We took the engraving as a sign that it needed to be replaced, rather than salvaged, so we figured we’d use the opportunity to buy something unique and statement piece-y. First we hit up our favorite local hardware store (Pleasant’s Hardware) which had some animal kingdom inspired

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Fab Freebie: Seventy Sixers

Yesterday was our sixth wedding anniversary. So in memory of our 7/7/07 wedding, we’re hosting a giveaway that combines the traditional gifts from your 1st anniversary (paper) and 6th (sugar) because, well, 1 + 6 = 7 and you know we try to squeeze in a seven whenever we can. First up is Rifle Paper Company. We hung some of their city art in our old hallway, so we were pumped when they offered up a $500 gift card for one of you. You can grab anything from their art prints, stationery, and wrapping paper to their iPhone cases, recipe boxes, or anything else that suits your fancy. We especially love the personalized heart print

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A Nautical Bathroom Renovation

Last year Lilly and her husband Markus spent her Independence Day making over her half bath, so we thought we’d celebrate her sweet makeover on their one year bathroom anniversary. Here’s her (hilarious) letter: After living in our 1952 house for three years, I was so excited to finally be able to remodel our tiny but crazy powder bathroom that connects to our bedroom. We did all of the demolishing, painting, tiling, plumbing, painting, beadboard and trim ourselves and it was a Fourth of July weekend blast! I let out my aggression on some wallpaper one day after work. It was stuck on well, much like our previous bathroom makeover, but after borrowing our neighbor’s

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How To Repair A Hole In Your Deck

Again? Already?!? If you had told me 10 months ago that I’d be doing deck construction again less than a year later, I would’ve punched you in the face. Okay, not literally. I’m not the punching type. But I would’ve thrown you a look that said “I would be punching you in the face right now if I were the punching type.” It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the process of building a deck in the heat of summer… I just wasn’t really looking forward to doing it again so soon. But at least it wasn’t an entire deck this time. It was more of a patch job. Remember this puppy? That’s the hole leftover

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Fab Freebie: Infrared, White, And Blue

Tis the season for watermelon slices, corn on the cob, and good stuff on the grill. Which is why Char-Broil is hooking someone up with one of their top commercial-grade gas grills this week. This 4-burner baby sells for nearly $500 at Lowe’s and is built with their exclusive Tru-Infrared cooking system, which comes with a bevy of benefits: more even heat, juicer foods, and faster cooking times. It’s putting me in the mood for kebobs already… Please enter using the Rafflecopter widget right here (it might take a second to load, but it should pop up right below this paragraph). This prize ships anywhere in the United States and Canada (so Happy Canada Day

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HGTV’d

As some of you guys have already discovered, we had the great pleasure of having our house photographed for the latest issue of HGTV Magazine. Well, our last house (we’d probably bat someone away with a stick if they tried to snap pictures of our new place just yet). And since a bunch of you have been asking for the behind the scenes scoop, here it is. That day was such a blur that we weren’t even sure that we had any behind the scenes photos to share, but when we looked back in iPhoto, it turns out we remembered to snap a few photos. This is Clara the editor. She’s telling us what we

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Installing White Faux Wood Window Blinds

Our house gets really nice sunlight – especially upstairs and especially in the afternoon when the sun hits the front of the house directly. We love it for everything from hanging out to taking photos. And Burger, well, he loves it for just about anything: napping, grooming, sniffing things, more napping. But the beams of sunlight streaming in also highlighted a shortcoming of this house: no window blinds. I think we took it for granted that the bedrooms in our last house came with nice white faux wood blinds, so it was kind of a shock the first night when we realized we had nothing for privacy or to keep the light from creeping in

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A Shared Nursery With A Crib & A Bed

Cindy had fun making a room for her daughter Sarah, but then plans changed and she had to make a quick adjustment. We loved that she made a mood board to keep herself on track, and hunted things that she loved until she found some great deals. Here’s her letter: Hello John & Sherry! I want to share the latest update in our home. In the beginning of the year we decided to let our kids have their own room. Around March of last year this room became our little girl’s bedroom… A couple months after finishing this room we found out we were expecting #3 and since our home is a three bedroom home

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Digging Up And Moving A Japanese Maple

If you guys have read this old post, you already know half of this story. For the rest of you, here we go. Way back in 2007, right before we got married – and before we even started this blog – my parents gave us a tiny Japanese maple. It was a little 24″ offshoot that had started growing near the large maple in their backyard. We planted the tiny little thing in our backyard, said a few plant prayers for it, and it grew a smidge in the 3+ years it lived there… though we don’t really have any photographic evidence of it. Since it was meaningful to us – having some wedding significance

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Fab Freebie: Uncommon Areas

What fun is a house without a little weird in it? For those homes lacking some quirk, uniqueness, or “points of interest” then this week’s $250 gift card to UncommonGoods may do the trick. Their site is well stocked with home decor, servingware, organizing accessories and even kids stuff that has a hint of fun injected into it. Personalized family pillow? Check. Cardboard side table? Check. Terrarium-slash-table-lamp? Yeah buddy. Once again, we’re using Rafflecopter, so you should see a box load under this paragraph (might take a second) and that’s where you can leave your entry. This week the prize ships to the United States. a Rafflecopter giveaway  

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You Can’t Take It With You… Or Can You?

As exciting as it has been to move into this new house, it was certainly sad to say goodbye to our old house and leave behind all of the parts (and projects!) that we couldn’t take with us. The penny tile backsplash. The deck. The fireplace. Wait, scratch that last one. Let’s zoom in a bit closer on that little item sitting on the mantel. Well, what do we have here? That, my friends, is an amazing miniature replica of our fireplace. Miniature as in completely portable and yes-it-totally-came-with-us-to-the-new-house. It’s the creation of Lisa Harrold, a recent fine arts graduate in the UK who specializes in miniatures. She emailed us to say that as a

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How To Paint Patterns Onto Rugs

They say inspiration can come from anywhere and Sheena’s story definitely had us smiling. Here’s her letter: Hey John and Sherry (and Clara and Burger too!) I just wanted to write to thank you for some unintended inspiration you gave me recently. After reading about Clara’s dollhouse, I fell in love with the pattern on the fabric-sample-turned-rug in the tiny room and I just had to replicate it. So I did – with a plain rug, some foam insulation, paint, and a sponge brush. Think “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” in reverse and decor style!  :) I used a 3/4 inch thick piece of insulation styrofoam to make a stamp and stamped the design over

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