Where can I go for DIY inspiration and detailed tutorials?

December 9, 2010 11:27 AM

I just built my workbench, and now I want to take on some fun DIY projects. Where can I find a good collection of fun projects for inspiration?

The obvious answers here are Instructables, Lifehacker, and Make. Unfortunately, browsing through Instructubles is super annoying, with auto-playing ads/videos and other bullshit garbage. Perhaps the Pro account does away with this, but I'm not interested in paying to find out. (If you can convince me that Instructables is awesome, go for it!) Make and Lifehacker are decent resources, but I'm looking for more.

I'm very much a novice in most things DIY, but am interesting in taking on projects that will help me learn, while providing a practical end result. I'm especially interested in electronics and home hacks.

Where can I go for inspiration and detailed tutorials?

posted by nitsuj to home & garden (4 answers total)

Ana White has some great projects. Most are for furniture, but there are some fun gift ideas too. All the plans are free, and they are very easy to follow.
posted by TooFewShoes at 11:32 AM on December 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

hackaday and toolmonger might be helpful. particularly hackaday for the electronic stuff.
posted by rmd1023 at 11:50 AM on December 9, 2010

adafruit has a bunch of great electronics kits that you can build; many are microcontrollers and add ons, so you can use them as the base for interesting things; an arduino and a motor control sheild == good times.
posted by jenkinsEar at 2:29 PM on December 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

I am unfamiliar with the Instructables issues of which you speak, perhaps because I use Flashblock and Adblock. I do have a paid account, but I didn't always, and I end up logged out of it fairly frequently, so I'm often not getting the benefit of it. I do think their search function is not great. But I can often eventually find whatever I'm looking for, unless it's weird (in which case, possibly no one has done it before). I have found a lot of inspiration and a lot of good instructions that helped with other projects.

Here's another few sites:
http://www.evenfallstudios.com/woodworks_library/woodworks_library.html
http://www.motherearthnews.com/article-categories.aspx?taxonomyid=6&page=4&sorting=oldest
http://www.craftsmanspace.com/free-projects/
http://www.dansworkshop.com/projects/index.htm
posted by galadriel at 7:05 PM on December 9, 2010