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.

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.

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.

So last month I wrote a post about the smart tech we added, ditched, and love most in our house. And in it I mentioned that I’d share a detailed smart blind post for you “in a few days” because they’re hands down one of my favorite smart home features that we’ve added. Apparently I overshot that deadline just a smidge, but better late than never. So let’s dive into where we got them, why we chose them, how they’re powered, the upsides & downsides, and – of course – how much they cost (please note that I cannot explain why I insist on calling them “blinds” when they’re technically roller shades).

Let’s start with the question I heard most from Sherry (as I mentioned in my last post, she was very reluctant but has completely come over to the smart-blind-dark-side – er, bright side?

Continue reading Our Smart Blinds: Your Questions Answered at Young House Love.

It has been almost 4 years since we last detailed the ways we use smart home technology to make our household more efficient. Since then we’ve changed homes, states, and even our smart home systems. So today I thought I’d break down what we’ve added, what we’ve gotten rid of, and what still has a stranglehold on my nerdy tech-loving heart (and even one that was Sherry’s idea!).

As usual, none of the products mentioned in this post are sponsored or gifted. It’s just stuff that we have bought and loved – or (in some cases) don’t love so much anymore. So let’s get into it.

STILL LOVE: Alexa Voice Assistant

Call us basic, but our Alexa voice-assistant devices are basically the couldn’t-live-without matriarch of our little smart home family. The Abuela to our Encanto. And, despite having downsized to a smaller home, we actually upsized the number of devices: going from 1 Amazon Echo and 2 Echo Dots in our last house to 2 Echos (for the upstairs and downstairs common areas) and 3 Dots (one for each bedroom).

Continue reading The Smart Home Tech We’ve Added, Ditched, And Still Love Most at Young House Love.

When we thought about all the functions that would be helpful to have in our son’s bedroom, which can definitely be described as “cozy” when it comes to the size (real talk: this room is small), he needed:

• a bed to sleep in
• clothing storage
• book and toy storage out in the open
• some concealed storage for papers and other toys/games
• added bonus: a hangout-y lounge spot for reading or playing with his sister or a friend who comes over
• he also requested his own desk for drawing/homework/playing with magnets (yes, we have a current magnet obsession going strong right now)

light | striped wall tutorial | closet baskets | toy baskets | brass shelf | piggy banks | quilt

We definitely could have pulled the “your room is really small for a desk, not sure we can do that” card – but we thought it was worth a try thanks to the idea of customizing a built-in desk right next to the bed that could double as a nightstand.

Continue reading A Small Kids Bedroom With Lots Of Functional Storage That’s Built Right In at Young House Love.