DIY (Do It Yourself) and self-conducted home improvements are very popular pass-times in Australia and around the world.

With the growth of online communities over the last few decades, it’s becoming easier and easier to find like-minded people online. Information is everywhere in this day and age!

Open Source Information

A basic search on any Internet search engine will find you pages upon pages of information. DIY sites, home improvement sites, tips and "hacks" for various brands (such as IKEA hacks) and even craft sites are in abundance in cyber space. Be careful though – the Internet is known as "open source", which essentially means that your search is not curated – your information can come from anyone and everyone and may not necessarily be accurate.

This is a good thing in many ways. It means that anyone who has discovered something cool can write about it, and you may chance upon it. They don’t have to be anyone famous or special, and no one has to spend any money in the information exchange. But it is also a bad thing in some ways. You can’t be sure that the information being given is sound. Sometimes it can also be difficult to wade through the mounds of information to find the home hardware tips you are looking for.

Edited Content

It can often be more productive to go after content that has been edited. This can be difficult to find on the Internet itself, but the Internet is useful in tracking down sources of information as well as actual information. You can search for a hardware store in your area, or somewhere that sells hardware supplies or plumbing supplies. It is possible that they sell DIY and home improvement leaflets and books in their stores in addition to home hardware. It is becoming more common, however, for major hardware retailers to post articles and information about these and other topics, on the own corporate and retail websites.

You can also strike up a conversation with the people who work at these stores. Typically these stores employ those passionate about hardware and who have no small amount of knowledge in the area. They could very well provide you with some tips of the trade you will find useful.

Bookstores will often have a DIY section as well. You can also browse online shopping stores such as Amazon to find books and DIY content that has been edited and published. Getting content that has been edited can be useful in that the information is guaranteed to be tried and tested. It can, however, make your project more expensive and time-consuming, as you will need to spend both in searching for the material.

Video Tutorials

One of the greatest advances of the Internet is the advent of video tutorials. This is especially useful if you already know what kind of project you want to do. If you search for the project on YouTube you can be almost guaranteed that someone will have done it before and filmed it. People often video themselves doing tasks, explaining each step as they do it, and upload these videos online. You can actually see how the task is done, and not just read about it. You can also search DVD stores to find DIY and home improvement videos. Be careful though – when you search for "home improvement" you might end up with the TV show starring Tim Allen! Videos can be a very efficient way of getting information, in that you can see how it works and you can copy it more accurately. They can also be extremely cheap (free) online, but also very expensive if you are buying DVDs.

There is plenty of information in today’s world if you simply know where to look. If you’re really stuck, try typing in words on the Internet, or locate your nearest hardware store and have a chat with the staff.