Sherry Petersik

Hooray! The Petersiks are back. After leaving their blog Young House Love to focus on family and other opportunities, the husband-and-wife team are back at work, breaking down rooms into ideas and strategies that anyone can adopt, even those on a budget. This volume expand beyond their own homes (the primary focus of YHL) and gives the reader sneak peeks into other residences. This is an advantage of the book, as it widens the net of design ideas for readers. Beautifully photographed, with a show more neat-yet-spunky graphic design (incorporating their chihuahua Burger, of course), this book won't disappoint new or old YHL fans. Highly recommended. (189) show less

I feel mean giving this just three stars, as the book achieves what it sets out to do ~ that is, offering tonnes of ideas for small(ish) projects to beautify your home at low cost. So if stand-alone ideas are what you're seeking, be sure to check out this book. John and Sherry are clearly talented, creative and hard-working, and they deserve every success.

But... from their blog and the before/after pics of their own home, I believe their unique talent is in complete space transformations, show more or at the very least, taking whole rooms from 'OK' to 'Wow'. Other bloggers can (and do) provide information on how to paint a single chair or make paint chips into art: I would have liked to have seen this pair given a bigger 'canvas' with which to work. Since the Petersiks already had such a huge following before the book came out - causing queues round the block at their book signings - I was disappointed the publisher didn't offer them the budget to makeover entire rooms. Perhaps we can hope to see that in book number two? If so, I'll be happy to get in line. show less

Pluses: the same readable tone of the Young House Love blog abounds in this book, there are lots of pretty pictures, and there are good inspirational ideas in spades. Negatives: no real DIY instructions - mostly just general instructions, and I found myself wanting different angle pictures of many of the rooms that were featured. Still, overall, it was a fun read.

home renovation diy. Sherry and John present loads of ideas to inspire you to tackle on your own. I borrowed this from the public library but there are several pages I want to bookmark and save for later... may need to borrow again when I have more time (and when there are fewer people on the library's waitlist). Well worth a look if you get a chance.