Nothing like an infestation to drive you from your home for a few days, am I right? We’re sharing the whole itch-inducing story, including why we had to leave, and what we did to resolve the issue (for significantly less trouble than we originally thought). Plus, we vent some strong feelings about front doors and share an idea that we stole fro ...…

When you put a lot of time or money into a project, you’ll go to great, weird, and sometimes gross lengths to protect it. We’ve got all the details in this week’s episode, along with a story that shows why renovating a house that's over two hours away isn't always a smooth process. Plus, we gathered some great advice on building a new home from ...…

A few years ago we embarked on a design project with a local company that we were very excited about… but it fell apart for reasons we could’ve never expected. We’re sharing that story this week, along with the surprising way Sherry scored an incredible secondhand find for the beach house. We also dive into your feedback about houses that are t ...…

Our month-long shopping hiatus came to a close last week, so today we’re sharing our results! What was the most difficult part? How did it change our habits? What were we dying to buy first after it ended? And - most importantly - how did it impact our bank account? We’re sharing all those details, along with some ideas for you to try if you’re ...…

Right in the middle of our own month-long shopping ban, we jumped at the chance to have a deep conversation with the author who started it all: Cait Flanders. She shared fascinating insights, regrets, and explained how her “Year of Less” had a lasting change on her relationship with “stuff." She also cleared up some common misconceptions about ...…

We’ve recently had a realization that we just don’t need as much space as we have. So how'd we end up buying a too-big house? What has made this so clear to us now? And what square footage do we think would be just right? We’re sharing all of that in this episode, including the exact moment we now realize we went off the rails during our house ...…

Just when we thought the duplex renovation was finally rolling along smoothly, we found ourselves in the midst of an ordeal that required an emergency trip to Cape Charles, and another hot-seat meeting with the Historic Review Board. We're sharing all the details, along with an update on our month-long shopping ban (oh the temptations!). Plus w ...…

Can we go a whole month without buying anything we don’t need? That’s the challenge we’ve handed ourselves as part of a self-imposed month-long shopping ban. So this week we’re sharing how we were inspired by Cait Flanders’ “Year of Less” and how we’re adapting her rules for our own lives. Plus, the duplex renovation is (finally!) racing along ...…

Do you reject certain “household staples?” We do! And it turns out a lot of other people do too - to the point that experts are saying they might someday disappear. So this week we’re breaking down how and why the typical home (and its contents) might be changing, along with revealing what modern comforts we’ve deemed unnecessary in our house ( ...…

This week we're talking about when you should undo a personal or customized change that you made to your house that might turn off potential buyers (and when we'd recommend leaving it the heck alone). We're also getting into store returns and how they're changing, because the ability to return decor items that don’t turn out the way you hoped i ...…

We all know that deflated feeling when you’ve lost your mojo for a major project or renovation. So how do you reignite that excitement or energy you had for it in the first place? We’ve struggled with this at the beach house lately, so we’re sharing five tips for combating project fatigue. Plus spring is a big time for home maintenance, so we h ...…

Could you put your wallet on lockdown for 365 days? Sherry shared the story of a woman who did, including why she took on the challenge, the few exceptions she allowed to make it possible, and how it’s inspiring us to adjust our spending... and maybe even try out a ban of our own. Plus, how much should you involve your kids in the design of the ...…

Doorless bathrooms? Toilets behind glass walls? Showers and tubs just sitting in the corner of the bedroom? These “open concept” bathroom trends seem to be showing up more often, and they’re alarming to some and exciting to others. So this week we attempt to understand what sparked this growing trend, and we explain where we land on the bathroo ...…

It’s never fun to get a call saying that you have to tear down something that you just SPENT AN ENTIRE WEEKEND CONSTRUCTING, but that’s exactly what happened with our beach house bunk beds. So this week we’re sharing what went down behind the scenes, and what we did to get around it. Plus, we’re talking to Matt Paxton who's one of the extreme c ...…

We’re getting personal this week, and sharing some early setbacks and hard choices that almost steered our lives in a totally different direction - no houses, no blog, even no marriage! We also dive into how some failed attempts at making over a certain area of our home led to us giving up and calling in the pros. Plus, an easy way to up your d ...…

This week John's fessing up to a design choice that he insisted we make in our beach house kitchen, but we now realize was - shall we say - misguided? Thankfully it's not too hard to undo, so we're explaining our change of heart, and what we're doing to fix it. There’s also a polarizing design “trend” that we’ve been asked to weigh in on, so th ...…

We don’t always see eye-to-eye on our projects and decorating decisions. In fact, we’re stuck in the midst of some pretty "active" home arguments right now. So in honor of Valentine's Day, we're sharing everything we love about each other. Just kidding, that would be boring. We’re walking you through three of our home-related disagreements and ...…

We’ve encountered a few frustrating setbacks with our beach duplex renovation, but thanks to a small technicality we were finally able to charge ahead and start demolition. Gotta love a loophole! So we're sharing our work-around, and the surprising thing that was discovered during demo. Plus, when it comes to buying things online without touchi ...…

If you’ve ever had dreams (or maybe nightmares?) of living in a tiny house, you’re not alone. Lots of people have lots of different feelings about them. So we called up a couple who have lived in an 188 square foot space for over two years, and we asked them all of your burning questions to find out the rosy (and not so rosy) parts of tiny hous ...…

The beach house has thrown us plenty of curveballs, but frozen pipes was not something we ever saw coming. This nailbiter had a (mostly) happy ending, except for one stupid move we made in the final moments. Plus, is expensive high-end paint really worth it, or are you better off sticking with the stuff at your local hardware store? The answer ...…

Making the decision to move is one of those big life-changing choices, and we learned the hard way that doing it under the wrong circumstances might not work out as well as it could for you in the long run. So this week we’re sharing our own personal test for knowing when the time is right to move (hint: it has nothing to do with "when the mark ...…

When a neighbor shared some historic documents about our 100 year old beach house, we were stunned to find a story from 1936 of jealousy and even murder. So this week we’re sharing what we learned along with some other surprising facts about our old home’s past. We're also helping a listener find some creative ways to maximize the storage she h ...…

Christmas often flies in the face of our efforts to cut down on clutter and simplify the stuff in our house, so this year we employed 4 tactics to minimize all the excess without sacrificing the merriment of Christmas morning. And it worked! Well mostly (there was one memorable fail). We also both take wildly different approaches to New Year’s ...…

The beach house feels like it’s coming together in fast motion these days. After over a year of working on it, we can’t believe it finally has working appliances, a kitchen island, even a functioning kitchen sink! But taking the freshly plumbed clawfoot tub for a spin didn’t exactly work out the way Sherry thought it would. We also dive into ad ...…

You haven’t heard a lot about the duplex that we bought three months ago. It might seem like not much is happening, but we’re actually working on three things behind the scenes that are inching us closer to demo day! We also learn what really goes into creating a home magazine (the good, the bad, and the sweaty) from HGTV Magazine’s Editor-in-C ...…

As much as we love the holidays, all the “stuff” that goes along with it (gifts, decor, things piling up on every surface) can get overwhelming. So this week we’re sharing how we’re approaching things differently in an effort to maintain the joy of the season. And one of the most common questions we get is “who do I figure out my style?” so we’ ...…

People always ask if we ever argue, especially with all the house projects we tackle together. Well, the short answer is yes. And the speed bumps we hit while installing our beach house kitchen are a perfect example of what can spark a spat. So we’re sharing what we fought about, how we solved it, and who was right all along. We’re also dispell ...…

Young House Love turned 10 years old this fall (!!!) so we're looking back at our last decade of renovating houses, building a business, and making plenty of mistakes along the way - all while on a public stage called the world wide web. You’ll hear how both in decorating and in business there were some pivotal moments that led us to where we a ...…

What we thought would be an easy swap of an old sectional for a new sofa has turned our living room on its head. So this week we’re sharing how we’re rethinking the layout and reinventing the space to work a little harder. We're also sharing countertop pros & cons, since we've lived with 3 different kitchens with 3 different counter choices. So ...…

Keeping your kids safe at home is hugely important and creating a house that looks nice but is also livable (and not too precious) is basically the holy grail. So this week we’re sharing specific tricks and tips for how we childproofed our house without running down the safety aisle and buying every last foam pad and cabinet lock. We also final ...…

Our week was sent into a tailspin when we got a last-minute invitation to appear on The Rachael Ray Show, and within 24 hours we were on a plane to New York so we could DIY in front of a live studio audience the very next morning. As you can imagine, we have some pretty hilarious stories from behind the scenes (it turns out Rachael Ray was NOT ...…

This week John is laying out why he thinks the end of HGTV’s Fixer Upper might actually bring some good things, and Sherry’s revealing the secret screw-up that almost ruined our beach house floors. Plus If you’ve ever dreamed about buying a second property or wading into the real estate investing waters, we’re getting pro tips from real estate ...…

This week we’re giving a listener whose house flooded after Hurricane Harvey some advice on finding the right people to help get her kitchen back together again after the storm. We also share why we’re loving a new “smart” platform for buying and selling secondhand stuff. And we’re sharing a series of recent faux plant scores that make us proud ...…

When we look back at how we updated our previous homes, there are more than a few design decisions we regret - so we're breaking down five things that we’d go back and do differently if we had a time machine. And ding-dong, the deck is gone! Yup, we ripped that monster off the house, and the yard’s already feeling awesomely open - but checking ...…

Some people have declared the stainless steel appliance trend over (cue the gasps!). We used stainless appliances in our kitchen, but have decided against them for our beach house, so we're weighing in on when you might want to pull the trigger on stainless - or avoid it completely. And speaking of the kitchen, we've been trying some new things ...…

We’ve probably all got dual purpose rooms like a mudroom-slash-laundry room, a breakfast-nook-slash-homework-spot, or the ol’ guest-room-slash-office. So today we’re sharing the key to making one space actually work in multiple ways - instead of feeling like it does one thing waaay better than the other. We also chat about a recent attic clutte ...…

We’ve got some big news this week that you probably didn’t see coming (also: we might be crazy). Plus we share how we were able to pay off our mortgage (!!) and how the groundwork we laid over a decade ago in our first house made it all possible. We also chat about stuff you should NOT pass down to your kids (there’s some surprising stuff that ...…

Who wouldn’t want more money in the ol’ bank account? So we picked a money expert’s brain for the most common places he finds his clients overspending, and for his best tips on making (and sticking to!) an easy household budget - which is definitely the key to saving more each month. Plus we share our not-scary techniques for negotiating with c ...…

Watching your former homes get altered by their new owners can be tough, and we witnessed some changes that bothered us more than we expected. This week we’re sharing how we got over those feelings and how to find the silver lining in seeing someone undo your designs. We also took a long overdue step in making our current home’s driveway more k ...…

When it comes to paper clutter around the house, the struggle is real. Where does it come from? Is it in the rabbit family, because HOW IS IT MULTIPLYING?! We get it. And this week we’re sharing exactly how we keep it at bay (and exactly where we put everything, from receipts and school papers to bills, party invitations, and coupons). Also, a ...…

We’ve been on an organizing bender lately, so we called up pro organizers to the stars (yes, they’ve done Gwyneth Paltrow’s pantry!) and Target’s new home organizing experts: The Home Edit. Clea and Joanna explain how people are sabotaging their own organizing efforts, the right way to shop for baskets and bins, and how to not drive yourself cr ...…

It’s been a busy few weeks on our beach house renovation and they’ve been... well... less than smooth, to say the least. So this week we’re taking you through the saga of three setbacks that happened pretty much back to back (including a missed deadline, having no water line to our house, and a surprise medical complication). And although we're ...…

When does sharing things about your kids online become oversharing? And how do older kids who have grown up on their parents' blogs and social media feeds feel about having their childhoods posted for public consumption? You’ve probably noticed we’re much more private about our own kids these days, and in this special episode, we’re diving into ...…

Decorating is incredibly subjective, and everyone has design choices they LOVE and other things that make them feel… I don’t know… twitchy? Sad? Hangry? So we’re sharing what we’re neurotic about avoiding in our own home: like a certain way of arranging furniture and a specific color combo. We’re also detailing a range of places to find origina ...…

With another wave of decluttering washing over our house, we’re looking back at our last yard sale and the strange trick we used to make it a fast-selling success (and the minor detail we overlooked that nearly turned it into a major disaster). We’re also talking about how we sold both of our homes without a realtor, and what five things you sh ...…

This week we talk about a fun new design assignment we’ve taken on (our first commercial space!) and we finally have some good news in the beach house department! We also get a crash course in Feng Shui by an expert, and learn the places in our home where we’re intuitively following their guidelines... and the spots where we’re not doing so hot ...…

Back in July of 2007, we couldn’t imagine getting married any other way than exactly how we did: a small sweet wedding held in our very own backyard. But fast forward ten years and there are a few things we’d do differently in hindsight. So we're diving into those details, along with sharing the special way we rang in our 10th anniversary (some ...…

Sherry has taken on a new side job that John's steering clear of, and - spoiler alert - it has already given her a good excuse to go shopping. Plus, we’ve missed our goal of being able to spend a night at the beach house by the start of summer, and it's all due to something we never could’ve anticipated (or prevented). We also find out which de ...…

We don’t always see eye-to-eye when it comes to purchases for our home, so this week we’re sharing some strategies we’ve developed for helping the other person see things our way - whether they’re the one who is itching to buy something, or the one trying to rein it in. We also picked up a surprising trick for online shopping that has saved us ...…

It may seem counterintuitive (don’t most people want to add a deck?!), but ous is GIANT and it’s just not pulling its weight anymore. So you can find out why we think tearing it down is the way to go - and what the heck we want to put in its place on this week’s episode. We also talk with Manhattan Nest’s Daniel Kanter about which design trends ...…