Friday Five: Young House Love

Every Friday I’ll indulge my order-crazed brain in a list of randomness. Welcome to my Friday Fives.

Time for me to get emotional about imaginary friends. Hold on to your hat.

Yesterday, my favorite DIY/design bloggers announced they were hanging up their bloggin’ hats and moving on to new adventures. It’s hard to explain how empty it made me feel without sounding totally ridiculous. I’ve been checking in with John and Sherry every single day for the better part of six years—almost the entire life of their blog, Young House Love. I have laughed at their jokes and wit; I have cried with them over their struggles and triumphs, but most importantly I’ve been inspired. Inspired to create, to take risks, to be bold. There’s a void and I feel as though I’ve been sucker-punched by the abrupt news. Like a break-up you didn’t see coming.

For those not acquainted with YHL, John and Sherry are a young couple made famous by their Do-It-Yourself gumption and enthusiasm. Over the last seven years, they have lived in (and, in most cases, completely rehauled and revamped) three houses and one show house. They have walked their readers through every step of every project—some big, some small—with self-deprecating humor and invaluable tips.

Each of their three houses continued to get bigger and their projects became more elaborate, but I have to say that their first house was my favorite. I loved how cozy it was and though the second house was definitely more colorful, their posts from that first house make me the happiest. I wanted an old ranch house for myself to call home.

Their announcement yesterday came after J&S took a month-long break to clear their heads, but I figured they’d jump back into the blog after charging their power tool batteries. Readers had recently criticized them over losing their spark after they started pursuing larger projects and after the birth of their second child in April, even though J&S were upfront with their desire to scale back and make their family a priority.

I got to meet them once in DC. I asked them to do the Home Alone Face with me and it was awesome.

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I have since emailed Sherry back and forth a few times after they had Teddy, mostly because I sent them a Custom Alphabet Print for his room. She said they were putting it up, but I never got to see it. I hope they do and enjoy it.

YOUNGHOUSELOVE

It seems silly, but I’m so going to miss them and I wonder how long it takes for my fingers not to automatically type younghouselove.com after checking my email first thing in the morning.

In honor of DIY-geniuses John and Sherry, this Friday Five is dedicated to some of my favorite projects of theirs over the years.

5. Clothespin Chandelier

YHL Clothespin Off

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Sherry and a few of her blogger friends started Pinterest Challenges a few years ago and this was by far my favorite result. How amazing is this?! So creative and such a great focal point to what could otherwise be a very boring space.

4. Happy Holidays

YHL Christmas

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From gift-giving to decorating to tablescapes, they had the holidays down. I loved to see what their Christmas tree theme would be each year and their fun DIY ornament ideas. For someone who loves decorating for Christmas as much as I do, their money-saving ideas always made me giddy.

3. Charming Closets

YHL Bedroom Built-Ins

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I always felt like J&S had this innate ability to look at a room and see its potential. I struggle with this for sure. Take their first master bedroom, which needed closet space. They created IKEA-hack built-ins that provided both function and wow-factor. Totally blown away by this transformation. It looks like a completely different room! (link has before and afters)

2. Gallery Wall

YHL Gallery Wall

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This YHL project (found in their second house) inspired my own office gallery walls. Man, I love their hallway so much. I need something like this in my house someday to showcase all of the photos and prints I have collected. Am I’m usually a black frame kind of girl, but these white frames make the closed space look ethereal instead of heavy. Love that.

1. Show House

YHL Show House

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One of their most recent projects was designing a show house for Richmond’s Homearama. I will never get over this house. It’s dreamy. It’s perfect. It’s everything I would want in a house and so perfectly decorated. Take the house tour. Warning! It will make you absolutely swoon. When can I move in?

If you’re not familiar with YHL, please take their four different house tours and prepare to be amazed, awestruck, inspired….and, most of all, sad.

All photos borrowed from Young House Love. All feelings of grief and shock are my own.

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2 thoughts on “Friday Five: Young House Love

  1. Pingback: Friday Five: Cookbook Invasion | hashtag marci

  2. Pingback: Friday Five: Second Blogiversary | hashtag marci

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