Emily Winters

Emily's living room was very small and dark (below). She opened it up by exposing the original hardwood floors, painting the fireplace a lighter color, and installing a windowed door to the adjoining sunroom. She dropped the curtains, added blinds, switched the chandelier and changed the room's entire color palette.When she purchased her first house in 2009, Emily had a real fixer-upper on her hands. And she couldn't have been happier.

She caught the do-it-yourself bug early. Growing up in a farmhouse south of Buffalo in Derby, NY, Emily watched her parents steadily tackle home improvement projects on their home.

“I was exposed to gutted living rooms, kitchen tile, hardware and appliances from an early age,” she says. “I learned to embrace the benefits of an upcycled, do-it-yourself lifestyle.”

Shortly after she moved into her Rochester home, Emily started a modest blog to share her home improvement projects.

“My little blog was an easy way to keep my family across the country apprised of my home improvement projects,” she says.

The house, in Rochester's Charlotte neighborhood, has seen some serious action in the short time she's lived there. With a helping hand from her boyfriend, Pete Fazio, Emily has renovated huge sections of the house, inside and out. From the light-filled, vibrant living room to the open, modern kitchen to the pergola-crowned decks in the back—and many of the fixtures and accents in between.

In the beginning, her blog was mostly photos of her projects. Then in 2010, with some inspiration and encouragement, Emily expanded, started writing more, and Merrypad.com was born.

“I really just dove in, committed to doing a post every day during the week to establish some kind of frequency, and didn’t look back,” she says.

As her home began to take shape, so did the digital chronicle of her projects. The only problem? She wasn't loving her full-time job.

For Emily, do-it-yourself also means decorate-it-yourself. She fell in love with lighting fixtures she spotted at Anthropologie, and designed lighting of her own inspired by the ingenious use of “upcycled” cardboard.

“I always wanted to love what I do,” she says. “I took a big leap this past spring, leaving my steady job in advertising and opening myself up to new opportunities.”

The most recent one came just this week, as Emily landed a contract position with the popular online DIY Network, as their first featured blogger. (See her video announcement below.)

“I’ll be posting on their blog weekly in addition to maintaining Merrypad,” Emily says. “I don’t really know where I’ll go from here, but I’m enjoying where I am.”

Emily

And where is she? Everywhere. Merrypad already has an international following, with most readers in the U.S. and Canada. It's found a broad appeal to budget-conscious apartment dwellers and homeowners. They like what they see—and they write back.

“I love getting personal emails from my readers,” Emily says. “It’s fun to learn more about the people you’ve inspired, see their projects, hear about their experiences, and just know that you’re reaching someone.”

By cutting layers of cardboard rings and stacking them into a shade, Emily produced a lamp that emanates “mad-eco-recycled love."You'd think Emily might run out of material sooner or later. Especially when her house has already been transformed into an eye-popping showplace.