by Catalogs.com Info Guru Terri Wallace

Some home improvement blogs offer insight and tips and useful videos.

Other blogs invite you to witness their humiliation and share in their victories as they undertake home make-overs and do-it-yourself projects with the hopes that you might feel a little less alone on your rocky road to a better home. This list of home improvement blogs shares some of both.

10. House in Progress

House in Progress allows you to follow a diary of the home improvement process, search for ideas and inspiration, and shop their recommended products. Not only do you find yourself becoming emotionally invested in their progress, but your find yourself rooting for them along the way. Because if they can do it, then you can, too.

9. Ugly Duckling House

Ugly Duckling House is a charming blog that follows the adventures of a 1980 style home restoration. There are plenty of “experiments” and the results are lovingly documented, as well as follow-ups to show how projects fared under normal use. Perhaps the most useful section is entitled “Lessons Learned” and gives no-holds-barred personal insight into the projects and their missteps, allowing you to learn something without wasting your own time, money, and energy.

8. Cottage Magpie

Cottage Magpie is a well-organized blog that addressed both interior and exterior projects, decorating and garden projects, and even craft and sewing projects. This is truly a “whole home” blog that invites readers to peruse the projects and follow the journey.

7. Young House Love

Young House Love is rich with information for the thrifty renovator. It has an abundant Projects section that has crafts, renovations, and make-overs for a wide range of skill levels. From simply craft projects to fill an afternoon to in-depth tiling adventures, this blog has something for everyone. It even boasts an Organization section that is so inspiring that you might even be tempted to tackle that drawer in your kitchen where all your odds and ends go to hide.

6. Remodelaholic

Remodelaholic is a truly breath-taking decorating and landscape blog with plenty of ideas, inspiration, and imagination. The blog also shares the best ideas from other like-minded blogs and includes links to additional projects. This blog should be on the “favorites” list of every homeowner who knows their house needs something but can’t quite figure out what that something is.

5. 7th House on the Left

Seventh House on the Left is fun, quirky, and offbeat, with a sense of style and DIY adventurousness that is lacking in many blogs. Fair warning: you will find yourself so engaged in the lovely ideas, the amazing images, and the too-cute-for words couple who brings it all together that you are likely to lose several hours of your life as your work your way through all the projects and find your To-Do List becoming longer and longer.

4. Remodelista

Remodelista allows you to search for project ideas by room/space or product categories. As soon as you visit the site you will discover a lifetime of projects that you simply have to do, and which you had no idea was necessary until just now. It will seduce you with colorful and inspirational photographs and motivate you to transform even the dingiest of spaces into something amazing.

3. DIY Showoff

DIY Showoff regales you with hundreds of budget-friendly DIY projects and features tutorials to help you accomplish the tasks. The before and after photos will remind you of the possibilities that await you, but the tutorials help you take the projects from dream to reality. The site boasts a seasonal section to spark up your holidays and take your home from dull to dramatic.

2. Retro Renovation

Retro Renovation will appeal to homeowners who appreciate historic homes and the culture they represent, the quirkiness of older homes, and all things retro. The site also provides valuable information on historic preservation and “time-capsule homes.” Besides the basics of restoration, the blog also advice and information about “thrifting” to help you keep your renovation budget in check.

1. Three Acres

Three Acres is a very visual blog that offers multiple photographs of each renovation project, rather than the standard “before and after” photos. The progression of each project is well documented and serves as a valuable reference for inspired renovators who decide to follow the detailed and easy-to-follow descriptions provided for each project. This is how all instruction manuals should read!