Some people are surprised to hear that we illuminate our entire pool area using nothing but solar LED landscape lights. As in: the sun provides free evening ambiance with zero effort on our part. Nothing has to be plugged in. Our electric bill feels zero impact from softly illuminating this entire area of our house. So today I wanted to share the 3 solar products we use in case you want to give your own outdoor space a literal glow-up.

 hooks / wall scuppers / chair / drum stool / sconce / doorknob / white pot / lounge chairs / solar path lights

Technically we have a porch light and in-pool lights too, all of which use traditional electricity, but we almost never turn them on. Honestly, they’re a little blinding and we like a soft glow that doesn’t block out our view of the stars. Instead, day-to-day (or night-to-night?) we just rely on our solar-powered LED lighting for that oh so charming come-hither glow.

Continue reading Using *Only* Solar Lights To Add Backyard Ambiance at Young House Love.

It’s time once again to throw open every cabinet, drawer, and door to show you how we organized our kitchen, which we slowly renovated over the last two years (more on that slow but steady reno here). This post should be an especially fun one because you’ll see just how much we’ve improved upon the original organization of this kitchen, which we shared in this post almost two years ago. And, as usual, we made a video walk-through of the whole thing too, which also explains a few future plans involving two outdoor cabinets that we plan to add to the nearby kitchen porch. So yeah… lots to cover.

chairs | table | woven pendant | bookshelf | knife block | fruit bowl | toaster | similar plant pot

We’ll start with the video, because it’s truly the most comprehensive way to understand exactly what goes where in our new kitchen.

Continue reading How We Organized Our Small Kitchen (Hooray For Hidden Storage) at Young House Love.

Last week we vacationed in the Yucatán Peninsula region of Mexico with our two kids (ages 8 and 12) and yes, even our dog Penny came! This was our second time traveling internationally as a family, so we definitely don’t qualify as experienced world travelers or aspiring travel bloggers. But just like the last time we went abroad, we wanted to share the details for anyone who is considering something similar – especially if it’s your first time going to Mexico. So here are a bunch of answers to the most common questions we got. We’ll also cover where we went, what we ate, and how we navigated the logistics of bringing a pet with us.

Oh, and as usual, no part of this trip was sponsored. We paid for all of the flights, lodging, food, and activities ourselves (thanks in part to a lot of saved credit card points, which is our favorite way to book big trips).

Continue reading Our Trip To Mexico With Kids… And A Dog! at Young House Love.

Rugs are hard. We get it. How do you know the right size and placement? Will it look good in your room? What if looks nothing like the photos online? If you have any of those thoughts, this post is for you. We’re going to dive into an especially magical rug that goes with basically any colored sofa/wall/room, but also talk generally about rug size and placement. Plus, we’ve listed a bunch of other favorite rugs, vetted by us (we bought them all with our own money & love them – no affiliation with any of ’em).

The Magic Rug

Let’s start with the magic rug. We bought this rug many years ago for one of the duplex living rooms in Cape Charles.

I’m not sure who first dubbed (in the rust color) the “magic rug,” but it all began when we realized it looked good with essentially any room, no matter the color scheme.

Continue reading Rug Sizing Tips & The “Magic Rug” That Looks Good With Everything at Young House Love.

It may go down as our most gradual kitchen renovation ever, but almost exactly two years into living here (we hit that milestone last Saturday!), our kitchen is officially DONE! New cabinets? Check. Tiled backsplash to the ceiling? Yup. Quartz countertops and a sink that’s 3X deeper than the overmount sink of yore? Affirmative.

similar pink plant pot | wavy white fruit bowl | toaster | hardware | backsplash tile

New hidden range hood? You betcha. More functional storage in the form of additional drawers, new upper cabinets, and a generously sized pantry cabinet? Yessir. Tons of before & after photos? That’s what this post is for! Plus we’ve got a full budget breakdown for you. So in the illustrious words of Tiesto, let’s get down to business.

table | chairs | wall shelf | hardware | woven pendant | bookshelf | fruit bowl | toaster | similar plant pot | coffee table

To us (and maybe to you as well) this has felt like a very gradual transformation because we just sort of tweaked and adjusted things over the last two years in many small phases, rather than going through one mega-gut-renovation like our last house’s kitchen.

Continue reading Our Small But Mighty Kitchen Is Done! at Young House Love.

We’ve mentioned how we use our pressure washer to revive various things around the house – like outdoor furniture and even an indoor rug – but we still hear from people who fear that it’s complicated to set up or expensive to buy or hard to control… and the good news is that it’s none of those things. So this post is a comprehensive start-to-finish guide for anyone who’s finally ready to get their pressure washing feet wet (maybe even literally).

Pressure washing is an easy, affordable, and TOTALLY AWESOME way to keep your outdoor spaces looking fresh. So I’m walking you through everything from setting it up and turning it on, to where and how we use ours. It makes such an insane difference every spring, I’d even call it a DIY VIP.

We were a bit intimidated the first time we tried pressure washing nearly 10 years ago.

Continue reading A Beginner’s Guide To Pressure Washing (It’s Affordable, Simple, & So So Satisfying) at Young House Love.

You know I love writing a spare-no-details product review (like this one and this one), so when enough people pointed out that when they search the blog for info about our beloved air purifier, nothing really comes up, I thought… I shall remedy that today.

I know. I’m a hero.

I feel like I should also point out that we bought these ourselves with our own money and nobody at their company knows us from Adam.

Sherry has always suffered from bad seasonal allergies, so we were thrilled to find a home air purifier that finally gave her the allergy relief that so many companies promise. The allergy difference that it makes for Sherry is night and day. So much so that when they were packed in the pod while we were moving she was like “WHY ARE MY ALLERGIES KILLING ME?!?!” and then we were like….

Continue reading Our Favorite Allergy-Busting Home Air Purifier at Young House Love.

We’ve painted kitchen cabinets before. We’ve done Ikea kitchen cabinets before. But painting Ikea kitchen cabinets was a new combo move for us. And despite a nagging voice in our heads that asked if it was a bad idea (paint laminate? or slick factory finished cabinets?! can that even be durable?! ), we’re extremely happy with the final result. Plus, it was pretty easy to do – no paint sprayer or fancy equipment necessary!

We’re about a month into using them every day and so far they’re holding up wonderfully. They’ve been scratched, scrubbed, kicked, and real-life tested by two kids and so far no scrapes, dings, or dents to report. They look as good as the day we freshly painted them, and as smooth as factory-made Ikea cabinets – so we’ll share how we got such even coverage.

Continue reading How We Painted Our Ikea Kitchen Cabinets at Young House Love.