ABOVE: A sideboard from Article is repurposed as a dresser in the master
bedroom, where a white rug takes the curse out of wall-to-wall carpeting.
The pottery is vintage. BELOW: The guest bedroom chandelier is from
Anthropologie. FACING PAGE: A hand drum serves as a coffee table in the
living room. The couch is by Interior Define.
Woman’s Work
Blanchard learned the basics of home improvement while working
on her first home, a fixer-upper in Cumberland. So, after painting her
new apartment, she pulled out her pink toolbox and chipped away
at elements most renters learn to live with, however grudgingly.
“I was the girl who didn’t know how to do anything,” she says. “I
would wait around for [my ex-fiance] to hang up curtains and put
together furniture, but I was tired of waiting.”
At her new abode, Blanchard installed chandeliers, pendant lights
and sconces first. Then came the drawer pulls and fixtures in the
bathroom and kitchen and, eventually, some appliances.
Blanchard shares her best trial-and-error tips on her blog, Emily
Everyday, and her Instagram account of the same name. Her readers
offer feedback, too. When Blanchard struggled to install a new
dishwasher — a perk of having 40,000 followers on Instagram: paid
sponsorships with companies like GE and Kingston Brass — a reader
nudged her to check the fuse box. Problem solved.
“Even though [Instagram is] kind of a job now, it hasn’t lost its
luster,” says Blanchard, who daylights as an executive assistant at
What Cheer Flower Farm. “It feels like I have 40,000 friends.”
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