There are few things worse than a home that’s falling apart at the seams. No one should have to dread going home, especially after a long day of hard work. Unfortunately, professional home repairs can be expensive and doing it yourself can be dangerous.
Is there a middle line that can be walked here?
Yes! While home renovation requires a lot of knowledge and experience — so much so that you’ll likely find it overwhelming — the truth is that anyone can learn how to do it. Given enough time and patience, even you can turn an unremarkable home into a polished masterpiece.
Live in an apartment? Don’t turn away yet! While renters usually don’t have the same amount of freedom as homeowners when it comes to home improvement, there are plenty of things you can still learn to make your dwelling place live up to its potential.
HomeTips
HomeTips is a massive repository of 2,000+ articles that explore every facet of home maintenance and renovation. The man behind the website, Don Vandervort, has authored over 30 home improvement books since the 1970s and has been featured on several TV expert segments.
This website covers everything from interior design to yard work, from plumbing fixes to electrical system upgrades, as well as a handful of guides for buying the right kind of materials and appliances for getting the results you want in your home.
For newbies, the How Your House Works guide is a wonderful place to start. Once you know the basics, your confidence will grow and everything else will fall into place much easier.
Family Handyman
Family Handyman is one of the best DIY home renovation resources on the web. There are several books under the Family Handyman name, but you can get the same tips and more for free just by visiting the site.
The knowledge areas are broken down by categories: rooms of the house (e.g. attic, kitchen, bedroom), parts of the house (e.g. walls, ceilings, doors), home maintenance skills (e.g. electrical, carpentry, plumbing), and outdoor skills (e.g. garden, decks, patio).
What I like best is that each article is dedicated to solving a singular problem, like “How to Prevent Bathroom Mold”. It makes it easy to search through the site for the exact projects and improvements that you need for your own home.
Remodelaholic
Remodelaholic is the place to go if you want to do DIY home renovation on a budget. The author’s motto is “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Repurpose, Remodel” and you can really see it come to life in every single project they undertake.
The best part? Their tight budget is an annual $5,000 for their entire home. If you’ve ever done any home remodeling, you’d know that that isn’t much of a budget at all — yet they make it work. Who says that fixing up a home has to cost an arm and a leg?
New posts are made at a rapid pace (sometimes multiple times a day) so you’ll never run out of content to consume or find ideas for your next project.
DIY Network
Let’s say you’re new to the whole idea of home improvement, but you aren’t working under any money constraints. All you want is expert advice from expert renovators. For that, you should really check out DIY Network.
DIY Network comes from the same people behind the Food Network and HGTV, so you know that they have the pull and power to bring in advice and wisdom from the best of the best. To be clear, it’s primarily a television channel (available worldwide) but the website is full of great information.
IKEA Hackers
IKEA gets a lot of hate — I’m never sure if it’s genuine hatred or just one big inside joke that spans the world — but I love it. Sure, you get what you pay for when you buy the cheapest of IKEA’s offerings, but their mid and upper-tier products aren’t bad at all.
But if you don’t share my sentiment, maybe this will change your mind: IKEA Hackers is a website dedicated to IKEA product modifications (such as this IKEA-based standing desk) and improvements that don’t require much money. With a bit of elbow grease, you can have amazing furniture for dirt cheap.
To get an idea of what it’s about, visit the Start Here page, check out the collection of “easy peasy done-in-an-afternoon” projects, and try a few of them. Don’t be surprised if you become an IKEA fan by the end!
/r/HomeImprovement
As they say, “there’s a subreddit for everything” and the subject of home improvement is no exception. New to Reddit? Don’t worry. Learning all about Reddit is easy, but once you do you’ll wonder how you got by without it.
The community of /r/HomeImprovement is a fantastic resource for newbies. It’s more of a place to ask questions and request advice than it is a place to discuss the intricacies of home improvement, though the latter does happen sometimes.
And if you hate product advertisements and endorsements, you’ll love it here since the moderators ban all product links (except for ones that were specifically requested).
Get Started on Your Home
Whether it’s as simple as painting a door or as involved as splitting a room into two, home improvement projects exist for every level of the skill spectrum. Even if you have absolutely no experience, there’s still something you can do right now. Seriously, right now!
Would you rather put up with an unsatisfying home? Or spend a bit time and energy making it into a place that makes you smile when you walk through the entrance? It’s an easy answer, if you ask me.