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HERE ARE ABOUT 70,000 ways
the Internet makes me feel bad about myself, and 69,750 of them involve DIY projects. (The other 250? Inaccurate or scary medical information I get whenever I have a weird pain.) I swear I could be extremely good at all sorts of DIY projects, if I didn’t have a job, a family, dogs, or the need to eat. Then I would have all the time in the world to make amazing things out of other things that someone put out on the curb or that cost no more than $5 at Home Depot. I’m creative, right? I’m sure I could dream up a way to hack that Ikea dresser and turn it into, I don’t know, a flying car. Clearly I have issues with time management, as I know that there are countless busy people who still find room in the day for DIY. Even so, I have always regarded most DIY bloggers with suspicion and fear. If you can accomplish genius DIY projects and then actually blog about them, you must be either really sleep-deprived, annoyingly energetic, or a member of another species. And if you are a DIY blogger who also has a beautiful, useful, easy-to-navigate website—well, it takes all of my strength not to turn off my computer and play dead. But now I have to change my whole worldview. Because it’s bad karma to feel suspicious and afraid of two women who DIY a timeworn house into something spectacular, then donate it to charity.
Elsie Larson and Emma Chapman are Missouri sisters whose DIY blog, A Beautiful Mess, has an understandably gargantuan following. They also have really good hair. And, as it turns out, very good hearts, as evidenced by their idea to buy a local house, renovate it top to bottom, then hand it over to Habitat for Humanity. They teamed up with Real Simple’s home department—passionate DIYers in their own right—who convinced a whopping 29 companies to donate furnishings to make the house complete. The result is beautiful and approachable (no flying cars here—instead, an easy pot pegboard). And it’s far from a mess. Just turn to page 142 to see what I mean. And so, as life often requires, it seems I must adjust my thinking. DIY projects are not to be feared but admired. Particularly if the do-it-yourself is really doable—and it benefits someone else.
AUGUST 2015
17
REALSIMPLE.COM
HAVE YOU LISTENED TO REAL SIMPLE’S PODCASTS? We have four of them— on everything from negotiating household conflicts (The Labor of Love) to navigating the confusion of your 20s (Adulthood Made Easy), handling irritating personalities (I Want to Like You), and boiling down kitchen basics (Things Cooks Know). There are new episodes every week. Go to realsimple. com/podcasts and listen for free.
