EDITOR’S NOTE

THERE 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.

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