Bazinga. These are the show notes for Episode #19 of Young House Love Has A Podcast. On this week’s episode we talk about when it makes sense to tackle a project yourself and when it’s smarter to hire a pro. We faced that decision often during our kitchen renovation, and we share the process we used to decide, including practical strategies for saving both time and money. We also reveal five simple routines that help keep household clutter under control (bonus: they’re easy to maintain). Plus, we share some unconventional ways we’ve found original artwork and demonstrate some delightfully strange projects—yes, like turning a bedroom into a vampire den. You read that right.
You can download this episode from iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and TuneIn Radio – or listen to it below. Use this page to find the links, notes, and images we referenced in the show.
What’s New
- Read more about our kitchen renovation for layout details, photos, and lessons learned—so many photos and more updates coming soon.
- Below are images of the still-life painting of the Paymaster we bought from an independent artist (pictured above) and the pink painting from the ski house where we stayed (pictured below).
What’s Not
- Here are some of the delightfully odd WikiHow articles we mentioned:
- How to Turn Your Room Into a Vampire Den
- How to Arrange Your House If Your Grandmother Is Visiting
- How to Change Sheets in an Occupied Bed
- How to Dampen the Enthusiasm of a Neighbor Who Wants to Add a New Fence
- We also referenced a CollegeHumor round-up that collects other weird WikiHow entries for a laugh.
Take Five
- Here’s an older post we referenced about resolving to make the bed every day—still a habit, and Burger still loves burrowing in it just for fun.
- Over the years we’ve published several posts about keeping a home tidy and organized, including:
- How we live with less and save money while doing it
- How we organize kid clutter
- How we streamlined our closet
- How we clean the house faster
- 30+ cleaning products you can make yourself
- For clothes storage, we shared the hamper we use in our closet and another favorite option Sherry likes.
- We also mentioned a few Tetris-style stair baskets that make pickup quick and neat—great for corralling everyday items and keeping stairs tidy.
We’re Digging
- One of the gold frames from Target that Sherry loved (and bought several of). We picked up larger and smaller sizes plus a desktop frame to mix and match on gallery walls and shelves.
- The tool bag we use for jobs around the house, and a couple of other solid-looking options for anyone building a basic toolkit.
Psst—looking for something we highlighted in a past episode but can’t remember which show notes to open? We keep a master list of everything we’ve been digging from past episodes to make it easy to find.
Visit westelm.com/yhl to learn more about their Design to Impact program, and enter YHL15 at checkout to get 15% off your next purchase.
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