Authors
Preface
Hey there. We’re Sherry and John, and welcome to our book! Actually, welcome to our second book. I know. That sounds fancy. But fancy
is probably the least accurate word to describe us (well, that and maybe marsupial
). Not sure we’ve ever felt fancy in our lives. Okay, maybe that time we got cable in our bedroom. That felt pretty crème de la crème.
But in all seriousness, we’re pretty much your average couple, raising two kids the best we can while trying to create a beautiful home where we all feel comfortable. The key difference between us and most typical families is that we spent seven years documenting those efforts for the world to see on our blog, Young House Love.
It started in 2007 as a do-it-yourself diary to share our first home’s kitchen renovation with a few close family members and friends. Despite the fact that we had zero training in DIY, decorating, or even blogging, both our readership and our home projects grew and our little online home diary turned into one big, crazy ride. More than a million people were visiting our site every month. We wrote a best-selling book. We toured the country meeting fans. We designed products sold at places like Target and Home Depot. And we ended up in magazines and newspapers and on TV. Heck, Oprah even mentioned our names at one point (but sadly, they weren’t followed by the words You get a car!
).
It was nothing short of insane to two regular Joes like us who simply fell in love with a house and the adventure of making it our own.
And love it we did. For more than four and a half years, we relished turning that fateful first home into a place we adored—a sweet 1,300-square-foot haven that worked awesomely well for the way we lived. It wasn’t always easy (there was definitely a fair amount of sweat, tears, and whispered curse words), but that home renovation will go down in history as one of our favorite life adventures. It’s what gave us the home renovation bug and led us to tackle two more home makeovers as our family grew. And it’s what planted the idea for this book deep in our brains: to show that it’s 100 percent possible to create a beautiful and meaningful home that’s meant to be lived in and not just looked at.
Yes, after owning three homes with kids and a dog and more crumbs than seems legal (seriously, where do they come from?), we can confidently say that you don’t have to sacrifice function for beauty or cover everything in plastic wrap to make it jelly-proof. So if you’re ready to let your hair down a little, we’re right there with you. There just might be a little paint in ours.
Introduction
Lovable and livable is just about the sweetest sweet spot your home can hit. Sure, there might be other adjectives you’re hoping to check off too, like colorful, modern, luxe, or bootylicious. But at the end of the day, what’s the point of a gorgeous backdrop if you can’t settle in and really live there? Conversely, giving up on the idea of adding any semblance of beauty or charm and just defaulting purely to utility can lead to all-time-low levels of house satisfaction. Being able to love your surroundings and live well within them is the goal, and this book can help you make that happen.
We’ve filled the following pages with ideas, projects, and makeovers about getting more organized, adding beauty, staying within your budget, and squeezing more function, meaning, and personality out of your home. You’ll get to see how we accomplished some of those things in our own house (as well as in a few others), including everything from full-room before and afters, detailed step-by-step tutorials, and quick-and-easy projects you can try in your space.
And since we know there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to creating a home, you’ll also find tips and pictures from dozens of other families with interesting and inspiring rooms. We have highlighted their home hurdles and how they solved them to make their space work for their family, which, in turn, might work for your home too.
Actually, one of our favorite things about a home’s livability and, well, lovability is that everyone’s definition is different. Your mailman or your work friends don’t have to find your house lovely or livable (in fact, aiming for mass appeal is usually a surefire way to ensure that your home isn’t nearly as charming or functional for you as it could be). And because tastes and style preferences vary wildly and it’s pretty much impossible to find a household that has exactly the same needs and design challenges as yours, we’ve embraced that by featuring a wide variety of homes and families in these pages.
From big spaces to small ones, from homes with lots of kids, no kids, and furry kids to unique situations like frequent moves with the military, adapting a home for a wheelchair, altering a rental home without fear of losing the security deposit, and downsizing after divorce—it’s all here. Seeing these amazing homes and talking to these fascinating families gave us a fresh appreciation for how diverse the definitions of lovable and livable are. We hope it emboldens you to make your home reflect your family even more and to make it work harder for everyone under your roof.
No book can promise to solve all of your decorating dilemmas or remedy every last one of your family’s messes, but we do hope this one helps you check a few big ones off the list, while giving you permission to stop beating yourself up over the rest.
Form + Function + Meaning
There’s lots of talk of form and function
in the design world, but we tend to think that focusing only on how something looks or how it works leaves out a key part of what makes your house feel like home. Meaning. That’s what’s missing. What does something mean to you? How does it make you feel?
Maybe it’s furniture that has been handed down from your grandparents, or a piece of art drawn by your child. You might even find meaning in a silly kinda-wonky-looking knickknack that you picked up on your honeymoon.
This is an important factor to remember, because putting meaningful things into our homes is what makes them uniquely lovable to us. It is what guarantees no home will look or feel the same.
This isn’t to say that every item in your home must combine all three attributes to land in the middle of that sweet Venn diagram. Some things in a room may be strictly for looks, others purely for function, while still others solely for the smile they bring to your face. It’s definitely extra credit if something checks off two boxes—or even three on occasion—but as long as your rooms are full of items that are beautiful, functional, and meaningful, well, that’s pretty much the feel-at-home holy grail.
These three elements are woven throughout the projects and ideas in the book, from hardworking solutions to pretty design ideas and personal touches that can help you put your family’s stamp on a home.
What’s in This Book
Lovable Livable Home is broken into seven chapters representing the spaces most typically found in a home—everything from big common areas (kitchens and living rooms) to small and private ones (like foyers, bathrooms, and bedrooms). Not every idea will apply to your situation or style preferences, especially since we included some pretty one-of-a-kind rooms, so don’t hesitate to skip, jump around, or flip through the book to zero in on whatever grabs you.
Fresh Updates at Our House
We’ve recently tackled a few major room overhauls (no more blue trim in the dining room!), as well as some weekend makeovers, smaller sentimental projects, and organizational updates. We couldn’t be more excited to share before and afters of how we’ve transformed our home—including our once dark living room—into a place that feels just like us and works wonderfully for our family of five (Chihuahua included).
Projects and How-Tos
We’re do-it-yourselfers at heart, so there are projects peppered throughout this book, many complete with step-by-step instructions. We know DIY can be intimidating, so we’ve included some easy updates (those sport a Quickie Project label at the top), along with more detailed tutorials that might take an afternoon or a weekend to complete. From a simple way to hang coffee mugs in the kitchen to a desk organizer made from bungee cords, these projects are a great way to dip your toe into the made-it-myself waters and make small changes that will have a big impact on your home.
Big Design Ideas
Sometimes solving our at-home challenges calls for major updates, so we’ve also packed the chapters with larger-scale design tricks, renovation ideas, and decorating tips, including examples of how we and other homeowners put them into practice. Many of these are things you can tackle on your own, but some may call for the help of a professional or two, depending on your skill set and comfort level. There’s no shame in asking for help when you need it, so don’t let the idea of hiring a professional hold you back.
Homeowner Profiles
One of the most fascinating parts of this process for us was talking to families from around the country (and the world!) and hearing what they struggle with and how they handle their home challenges. We’ve included photos and tips from dozens of homes and highlighted a bunch of families as a reminder that we all have different challenges and there are a variety of solutions out there waiting to be discovered.
Survey Stats
Since there’s no way to truly represent every type of home and family within our book’s pages, we cast an even wider net by conducting an online poll. More than 35,000 people (!!!) weighed in, and you’ll get to see some of the results of this survey in Survey Says
features throughout the book. It’s a fun way for you to see what situations, challenges, and preferences you might have in common with the masses—or what sets you and your home apart.
survey says: The homes of the 35,000 people we polled ranged from 250 square feet to over 10,000, with the average home being around 1,800 square feet.
Living Spaces
We’ve never really been two living rooms
kind of people. In fact, the formal living room in our first house basically became a glorified hallway with a couch and a fireplace in it—as in, most of the time we spent in there was when we were passing through.
Of course, that may change once our kids get older and we have a greater need for a space for the tweens to chillax (or whatever they’re calling it by then) while we grown-ups stay out of their hair, but for now, we’re much happier to convert a secondary formal living room
into something we’ll use a lot more, like a larger dining room (in the case of our second house) or a home office (like we have in our current house).
Besides generally being fans of using all of the rooms in our house (and changing their function if the ones we inherit don’t make sense for our family), we also like having one big family-friendly living space where everyone can hang out comfortably. Sure, it may mean a bit more chaos and mess than if we had a kid-free lounging space just for adults or evening entertaining, and we may not all enjoy the same TV shows all the time (this means you and your Real Housewives, Sherry), but for the most part we actually like sharing our living space with one another and carving out a few everyone-friendly updates to make the room work well for all of us.
For example, our dark sectional boasts enough space for everyone to sprawl out and stands up to our dog Burger’s little claws, and its slipcover can be removed and washed whenever it needs to be (blueberries and baby spit are no match for this guy). It’s not the fanciest sofa by any stretch, but it’s just right for us at this stage of our lives.
Hanging personal photos and art around our TV takes the focus off that big black
