by Marsha Rakestraw
The DIY (do it yourself) movement has awakened from its decades-long hibernation and, thanks to economics, more concern about the environment and materialism, and a resurrection of interest in acquiring more skills and celebrating creativity and resilience, it is growing in schools and communities almost everywhere, including the online community.
There are plenty of more traditional DIY sites that focus on typical home repair and renovation, but here are 6 that can help you become more handy with repairs, increase your how-to know-how, and stretch your creativity:
1. iFixit is the “global community of people helping each other repair stuff,” aiming to be a one-stop shop for helping you diagnose what’s wrong with your item, get expert tips if you need them, and repair it yourself. You can even buy parts for certain items from the site (which is how they’re funding their work). The site encourages contributions from those who are handy at answering techy repair questions or who want to submit their own repair guide (or edit someone else’s).
2. Instructables is a DIY site that allows people to submit, rate, comment on, and use others’ instructions for building, making, crafting, creating, repairing, and hacking all sorts of projects and products. From making your own rain barrel to crocheting a squid hat (yes, you read that right), to finding ways to upcycle your junk, the site has good and bad suggestions and directions. Categories include technology, food, home, craft, workshop, outside, costumes, and play. The site also offers contests and a forum and has numerous “awesome projects for your classroom” for K-12 teachers.
3. eHow has more all-over-the-map in coverage, but it can still be a useful site for finding need-to-know tips and how-tos. Under numerous categories, you’ll find help with everything from car repair to personal finance to home maintenance. Articles are as general as “tips for saving on holiday travel” and as specific as “cleaning your fish tank with sand.”
4. Lifehacker bills itself as “tips, tricks, and downloads for getting things done.” If you don’t mind lots of browsing the site and some quirky categories, you can find helpful tips and other info.
5. Make offers “DIY projects and ideas for makers.” Both the magazine and website offer the helpful and the eyebrow-raising in DIY projects, news, and other tidbits. From the truly useful to the truly bizarre, you’ll find ideas for repurposing stuff and flexing your creativity.
6. Being a wiki tool, wikiHow is a collaborative “how-to manual” on a variety of topics. Currently it has more than 191,000 articles and is browsable by more than 20 categories. Since anyone can upload and/or edit an article on any topic, you’ll find that the quality varies.
7. Lifewire has a lot of useful info to help us get the most out of our tech, including a section to help us fix the most common problems we might encounter on our devices, digital cameras, the internet, and more.
If you’re hungry for even more sites to help you learn new skills, check out articles like this one and this one that offer additional suggestions.
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