Young House Love: a bushel of DIY ideas | How About Orange

November 14, 2012

Young House Love: a bushel of DIY ideas

A review copy of Young House Love just arrived. It's John and Sherry Petersik's labor of love, stuffed with 243 marvelously doable project ideas for the home. You might be a reader of their blog by the same name. Those two are funny, warm, and completely endearing. So is the book.

Each project gives you a heads-up on the cost, time involved, and how much sweat you'll work up while attempting it.

I loved this idea: take apart a couple of inexpensive Lack tables from IKEA and assemble them into a shiny headboard.

Turn plain canisters into periodic table glassware with a fun etching project.

Get ideas for things you can use to make an interesting backsplash in your kitchen (removable for renters, if needed). I should do this. Our wee kitchen has only painted walls where stuff gets splashed Jackson Pollock-style.

Some projects from guest contributors are sprinkled throughout the book, too. Hey, there's our door.

You can buy the book here at Amazon. And to see what happens to your house when you make a book, check out Sherry and John's awesome behind-the-scenes post!

12 comments:

Grandma G said...

That was my thought as I was reading your post - "Hey, that's your door!" Neat!

Looks like a very cool book. And I skimmed their blog post about it. I guess just a "little" work goes into making a book, huh? WOW!! Congrats to them - awesome job!!

Mum

Nina said...

How removable are the removable splashbacks? Because we have the Jackson Pollock walls also. The builders really wasted their time putting a single row of tiles around the whole kitchen! And I'm still tempted by your fabric-covered door. Can you re-use the fabric afterwards, do you know, or is it too starched up to ever get it back to normal?

Paula said...

I actually found about Young House Love from your blog roll. And I found your blog by googling ideas to add to my Academy Awards bingo cards that I do every year. And strangely I noticed you mentioned a lot of places I had heard of -- which was because I lived in Evanston at the time (but have since moved). Ah the strange power of the internet =)

katelyn said...

I'm not going to lie, I was pretty excited when I saw that you were a guest blogger in the book! :)

Jessica Jones said...

Nina, the book suggests using 3M Command removable adhesive strips to hang the various backsplash options. Haven't tried them myself on anything yet.

The fabric should be reusable. It's just cornstarch and water so it should wash out easily. Though I haven't tried it yet with the door stuff, since the fabric is still on it! :)

Paula, that's kinda crazy! Greetings from Evanston. Supposedly we're getting a Trader Joe's where the old Blockbuster used to be. It's taking a million years, so you don't have to be jealous just yet.

Katelyn, THANKS!! You made me smile.

Petchara said...

Wow the book looks really good! Do you know whether it is sold in Singapore?

Jessica Jones said...

Nope, don't know!

BreakingFree said...

Haha, Jackson-Pollock-Style in our kitchen, too. I've been thinking about creating some kind of map around the splotches... "this is the land where Pumpkin landed in 10/2012" or "great emperor pomegranate discovered this patch in 2011" or something like that... :p

Unknown said...

ADORABLE! Also, off topic, but foind this and thought of you
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/11/the-energy-generated-from-a-single-orange/

Jessica Jones said...

Interesting! I also found this over there: a gummy bearskin rug. Ha.
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2011/05/gummy-bear-skin-rug/

Anonymous said...

Hi, is this the next book with something from you?
It was on danas blog today and the fabric looks familiar...
http://www.amazon.com/Stitch-Savvy-Skill-Building-Projects-Technique/dp/1440229473/ref=la_B003VN3WUS_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1351173164&sr=1-2
Letitia the Netherlands

Jessica Jones said...

Oh! That's my fabric on the cover! I didn't know about it. Fun, thanks for sharing that, Letitia!