Considering how expensive home repairs can be — and how dang easy they make fix-it jobs look on TV — it can be incredibly tempting to save some money by doing it yourself. But DIY isn’t always the less-expensive option when you figure in the costs for all the things that could possibly go wrong. [More]
diy
5 Home Inspection Photos That Show Why DIY Is Not Always The Best Route
By 2.7.13
Every day, emboldened by endless home-improvement shows, and Ed Harris’ soothing, assuring voice in commercials for Home Depot, millions of Americans attempt to repair and upgrade their homes without the help of a professional. The results vary from great to… well, you’ll see in these photos. [More]
Fixing Your Own Electronics Is Fun And Almost Easy
By 4.27.12
Last year, I bought a used iPhone 3Gs that is now well out of warranty. Not a big deal. Only the battery didn’t stay charged all day anymore, and I wondered whether it was time for a new phone, even though mine is otherwise in great shape. Too bad I couldn’t just order a new battery online and snap it in like with previous phones. Except…I could. I just needed a tiny screwdriver, a few other tools, step-by-step instructions, and a lot of patience. [More]
Own GE Appliances? Get To Work On Your Upper Body Strength
By 4.13.12
With the approval of your physician, there’s no time like the present to start a rigorous exercise program. Doubly so if you own any General Electric appliances. See, Jack owns a stackable General Electric washer and dryer. GE was happy to sell him a 5-year extended service plan, but balked at actually sending a repair person to his house. Once he finally talked them into sending someone to fix his washer, he learned that he and his wife would have to move the dryer from on top of the washer themselves. What’s the problem? It only weighs 150 pounds. [More]
Make A Fog Machine For $5
By 10.28.11
Forget tossing down the sawbucks at Guitar Center, you can make your own fog machine at home for just $5 with stuff you get from the store. Nope, there’s no dry ice, smarty pants. This video shows you how to do it. [More]
Create An Array Of Sliding Storage Bins On Your Garage Ceiling
By 10.6.11
They say that the key to organizing, especially in a small space, is to go vertical. Well you can’t go much more vertical than on top of the ceiling! That’s the idea for this DIY storage system that takes advantage of all that unused space above your head in the garage. [More]
Reader Saves $400 Using YouTube To Fix Her Washer
By 10.4.11
The fable goes that the nice white-haired appliance guys are a dying breed and they’re way better than their outsourced, van-driving, retail store counterparts. But sometimes the local guy is just as bad as the guy in the store wearing the official colored shirt. When her Kenmore model 417 front-loading washer went bust-o, Jane discovered she was able to save $400 in repair costs by learning how to fix it herself from Youtube videos. [More]
To Keep A Sponge Clean, Snip A Hole In It, Hang It On The Faucet
By 9.30.11
To keep germs and grime from building up on your sponges, you can just snip a little hole in them and slip them on the faucet. Handy dandy! [More]
Turn A Milk Jug Into A Sandwich Box
By 9.26.11
With a few deft maneuvers of the scissor, you can transform an empty milk carton into a reusable sandwich or snack box. [More]
Water-Filled Plastic Bottles In Roof Can Replace Light Bulbs During Day
By 9.13.11
Here’s a cheap way to bring light into a dark shed during the day while cutting down on your electricity costs. Fill a plastic bottle with water and two cap-fulls of bleach and stick it through the roof. The bottle refracts the sunlight into the space and generates as many lumens as a 50 watt bulb. It’s free light! [More]
Man Uses 3D Printer To Make Repair Part For $25, Instead Of Paying $250
By 8.4.11
A man had a part break on his Bugaboo, a really nice and pricey stroller. The official repair center said it would cost $250 to replace the part. So the man said, forget that, and used a 3D printing service, which creates three-dimensional objects by laying down successive layers of material, to get it fabricated in stainless steel for $25 instead. Schweet! [More]
Organize Spray Bottles Under Sink With A Tension Rod
By 6.30.11
Sick of all those spray bottles under your sink getting cluttered? Hate having to basically knock over all the bottles just to get to one bottle? One quick and cheap fix blogger Jen Grant came up with is to simply toss a tension rod up under there. [More]
Build Your Own Seltzer Maker At Home
By 6.29.11
I am a seltzer fiend. Before I got a seltzer bottle with cartridges we could go through a liter every day or so if I was feeling parched. That’s a lot of bottles to lug from the store and a lot of plastic filling up the recycling. Even cartridges can be a pain because you have to keep popping them in all the time. Really what would be ideal is one of those spray nozzles like they have in bars. It turns out that installing one isn’t that hard, as the Etsy blog shows in this great how-to. You need to be cool with drilling, clamping and storing a big CO2 tank somewhere, but that’s a small price to pay for an endless river of tongue-dancing bubbles. [More]
Make Your Own Sweet CoCo Pomade At Home
By 6.20.11
Here’s a quick and cheap recipe for making your own pomade, a waxy material you can use to style your hair, at home. (Remember pomade? It’s that stuff George Clooney is obsessed with for greasing up his locks in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou.) [More]
Xanthan Gum Is The Secret To Making Your Own Frappuccino At Home For $.32
By 6.16.11
If you’ve ever tried to come up with your own version of the Starbucks Frappuccino at home, you may have run into this problem. It separates. That lovely smooth texture and consistency you enjoy at the Sbux emporium just seems unobtainable on your own. But it turns out the secret is a simple and cheap ingredient you can find next to the flour in the supermarket: xanthan gum! [More]
Find The Best Stuff On Etsy With A Site-Specific Google Search
By 5.11.11
With over 800,000 different sellers on Etsy, a major online shopping site for buying handcrafted items directly from the makers, it can sometimes be a chore to wade through the clutter to find what you’re looking for. But StylishHome points out that just by doing a Google search that only scans within Etsy itself, you can take advantage of Google’s ranking algorithm to find the best items. [More]
Hack $30 Headphones Into Sounding Like A $300 Pair
By 3.25.11
Does It Pew shows you how you can take a cheapo pair of $30 headphones and turn them in a set that gives you the same quality sound that you might normally pay $300 for. Basically you gut a standard pair of cans and swap in these SFI tweeters. Don’t be thrown off by some of the terminology on Stacy’s post, you’ll need to be handy with a Dremel but this is actually a pretty easy and fun DIY weekend project. [More]
Fix Your Own Broken PS3 Via Safe Mode
By 3.18.11
Sony inserted a safe mode into PS3s, allowing determined gamers to take a crack at fixing their broken consoles before making phone calls of shame to the customer service department to schedule repairs. [More]
