Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

Posts by Sherry Petersik

Sherry Petersik is one half of the duo behind the award-winning home improvement and do-it-yourself design blog, Young House Love. Together, she and her husband John 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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A Fast Bedroom Makeover

Well, it’s late on Sunday night as I sit down to write this post. We just got back from a whirlwind weekend in Northern Virginia, where we did everything from helping John’s sister with a bedroom update to buying some stuff for the nursery. So today we’ll be chronicling ten things that we helped Carrie shop for, hang, and install into her bedroom for a nice little “adult upgrade.” And here’s Carrie now… She recently asked us to help her to create a “grown up bedroom” after saving up some cash over the last few years since our painting sesh in her apartment back in 2011 (remember that?). She told us that she was ready

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How To Paint A Chevron Pattern On Wood

It’s no secret that I love giving various paint treatments a try – like stenciling a pillow, two toning a chair, painting patterns on baskets, or even tracing raindrops right onto the wall – and I’ve been excited to share this one. Some of you eagle-eyes even noticed it in the background of Friday’s post and asked for details. Now that Clara’s thrift store cradle is in heavy rotation (Captain Barnacle is often found being rocked, fed, or changed in there) and Clara has clearly established her love of red, blue, and pink, I used it to test drive a deceptively simple free-handed pattern. It’s probably the most “intricate” pattern I’ve ever freehanded, but it’s

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Cottage Crashing: Rustic Rassawek

Ack, sorry for the late post – technical difficulties. We’re excited to share the cottage that we mentioned on Friday, especially since a bunch of you seemed anxious for us to spill all the beans (and a lot more photos). So here’s the deal: it’s about 45 minutes west of Richmond in Columbia, Virginia, it’s called Rassawek, and it’s a bonafide log cabin from 1910. It was actually moved to this location by the family who owns Rassawek (which is also a vineyard) and there were all sorts of other fun out-buildings nearby (many of which were moved as well) along with the coolest treehouse we’ve ever seen. So let’s get this tour started… John’s

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Planning Our Little Boy’s Nursery

Yeaaaaaah, baby – it’s nursery time! Pun most definitely intended. The last time we shared a shot of this room (in this post) it was looking like this. Totally newborn ready, right? We started on Clara’s nursery in February and she was born in May, so it felt right to get moving in there now that it’s January (since the barnacle is due in April). We’ve had so many ideas swirling around in our brains for the last month after finding out we were having a boy, that waiting a hot second before running in there and going to town has been nice because the projects and ideas that we truly love have had a

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How To Make A Wood Cubby For A Kids Room

More years than not we are working right down to the wire on Clara’s homemade Christmas gift (as in, things are drying in the garage on Christmas Eve)  – and this year was no exception! But the fun part about sharing them the week after we give them to her is that we get to include cute photos of her enjoying them… which is definitely our favorite part to witness. Introducing Clara’s new figurine cubby: Girl loves it. After racking our brain about what we could make her this year (a tool workshop? a fruit stand? a cardboard playhouse?) we decided that Clara still gets a lot of use from the larger things that we’ve

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Hanging Ikea Floating Shelves In Our Kitchen

Let’s take some shelfies. You know, as opposed to selfies. If only we had Beyonce around to photobomb them, they’d be the best shelfies ever… The no-Beyonce consolation prize is that we finally got the Ikea floating shelves up in the kitchen, and it suddenly feels like we’re turning a corner. We still have a few major things on the list (like painting those cabinets) but the shelves make such a gigantic difference as opposed to the dark cabinetry that used to hang on either side of that window. Here’s how it looked a few weeks ago after we removed the wallpaper. And here it is from the same POV now, after removing the cabinets,

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Adding A Play Kitchen And Bookshelf To A Kids Room

Step right up to the wall ‘o fun! Sounds like a carnival ride, right? Don’t worry, there will be no clowns or motion sickness. It all started when we moved Clara’s crib out of her room, and shifted the dresser that used to be on this wall to the former crib wall (more on that here). Which left the wall to the right of the bed completely bare. So we decided to bring in a lot more fun to that blank space, now that there was room for it. Clara already has some baskets of toys and books along with a play-table where she loves to build castles and draw, but things like her play

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Making A Big Girl Room (No Crib!)

Well, Clara has officially made the full transition from crib to bed. We never expected her to sleep in her crib for so long (we’ve been “at the ready” with a big girl bed for over a year now, since many of her friends started making the switch back then), but this girl just loves to surprise us and truly adored her crib. And we adored that she was sleeping soundly all night long (even after being potty trained, she was able to hold it ’til the morning). So we didn’t want to rock the boat for all of our sakes, and decided to trust our doc when he said “let sleeping kids lie –

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Holiday Gift Guides For Guys, Gals & Kids

Big news, guys! We finished our makeover at the Children’s Hospital, and we can’t wait to share all the photos – hopefully on Monday! So today we thought we’d Friday things up with one giant gift guide for everyone who has been asking for it (last year we shared our picks for lads, ladies, and kiddos across three different posts, but this time we thought we’d just smash them all into one big gifty rundown). And in the interest of thriftiness, there are lots of under-$15 things along with a ton of $30-or-less finds. Here are a bunch of things that we’re digging for kiddos – along with a few baby items now that we

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Holiday Decorating Ideas

Nothing makes a house (especially one that we’ve lived in for 6 months) feel like a home like a little holiday coziness. So along with decorating the front of the house, and setting up our tree, each year we love to document how we festive-ify the rest of the house (here’s that post from last year, two of them from 2011, one from 2010, one from 2009, and one from 2008). This year was an especially exciting year because it’s our first Christmas of living in this house… which means I have new spaces to play with – like a different fireplace mantel, and stairs for the first time in seven years of home-ownership! For

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House Crashing: Textured & Southwestern

To everyone who has asked where our House Crashing posts have been lately, we’re sorry for the hold up and we’re excited to share this one! It’s a well overdue tour full of inspiration, affordable finds, and a really unique style perspective. Plus it’s full of transformation photos because Lindsay and her husband started with such a rough “before” of a house (they totally saw a diamond in the rough). So let’s poke around and see what they’ve done, shall we? Here’s Lindsay now. She lives in Greenville, South Carolina with her husband and her Great Dane, Gracie – and was so gracious to virtually invite us all over. This is what the living room

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Making Wood Slice Christmas Ornaments

Ok, we have a fun little craft for you guys, complete with an easy how-to, and some festive photos. But first of all, we finally got our tree decorated this weekend… We’ve shared a bunch of different trees with you guys over the years, and each year it has been fun to switch a few things up with a new “theme” like classic silver and white, citrus inspired lemons and real dried oranges, pastel pink and soft green with silver bows, crafty paint strip ornaments and ribbons, and a fun white to pink to to red gradient tree from last year. But this year there was a new theme in town: family. We just wanted

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