I sometimes get teased writing about home improvement since I am much handier in the garden than in the home repair department.

“Have you fixed that leaky sink yet, Carol?” friends inquire. One time I wrote about building a simple three-shelf bookcase in a weekend. I requested help from my husband since he’s built many bookcases through the years. I knew he could provide me with instructions on how to do this.

But I didn’t expect he would insist that if I was going to write about building a bookcase that I actually had to go through the process — everything from buying the lumber to sawing it, to building it and then staining the finished project.

If you need extra help on home improvements, the Internet is filled with many helpful sites. Want to know how to fix a leaky faucet? How to paint over wallpaper? Visit the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) site from HGTV (www.hgtv.com/). Simple mouse clicks bring useful instructions to you — from building an Adirondack chair to roofing a home. The search feature allows quicker access to specific information. I found 221 site listings for the word “drywall.” I narrowed my search by typing in “drywall installation.” The response was a more manageable 95 site listings.

Just about anything a homeowner might need can be found in the www.doityourself.com site. Scroll down the home page to jump to different areas such as building/remodeling, repair/fix-it, decorating, outdoors and living/finance. I clicked into the skylight section of the build/remodel area. Fourteen links, each with advice from starting to completing the project, were at my fingertips. Helpful pictures clarified the instructions. Many pages offered margins of error and lists of common mistakes.

The site www.hometips.com offers quick tips by Don Vandervort of HGTV show “The Fix.” For example, I looked up how to stop a running toilet. The information was direct and to the point. The illustrations provided a visual guide to people like myself who are unfamiliar with toilet anatomy. Although, the basic information section was fine at providing information of things like electrical outlets, wall switches and drywall basics, the site had no way to search through it quickly. I stumbled on many helpful areas, but I may have been frustrated if I were actually looking for something specific.

Where would any person attempting an Internet search be without a search engine? I went to www.google.com and typed in “hot water tank.” I received more than 600,000 site listings. Far too many to explore.

So, I typed in the string “hot water heater” and received 399,000 listings, so I browsed through those sites — every last one of them. (Just kidding.)

To be sure, many sites offer products to sell. Don’t disregard these sites out of hand. They may be useful in providing product information prior to your shopping for the item. You can learn about the features available without the pressure of a salesperson.

If you want to increase your knowledge of the inner workings of things, visit www.howstuffworks.com.

Tabs across the top offer different jumping off points — to science, automotive, electronic, computer and other areas.

Try www.almanac.com/index-2.html because it was fun to browse around in. Naturally, the first link I jumped to was the one on gardening. Scroll down the page and click on frost dates or the 2003 Outdoor Planning table to find the optimum time for planting your vegetable garden. I was equally intrigued by the Seed Swap link. People post seeds they have to give away and seeds they are seeking. If you are looking for lady of the evening flower seed, a yellow flower that blooms at night with a lemon-flavor scent, someone has those seeds for you. In return, that person is looking for mole plant seed, Grandpa Whiskers and penny plant.

For home assessments to make your home safe, check out www.engext.ksu.edu/ppi/homeasyst from Kansas State University provides home assessments to making your home safe. Click to the “Help Yourself to a Healthy Home” link for a file about indoor air quality, drinking water, pesticides, lead and hazardous household products.

Happy surfing.

— Carol Boncella is education coordinator at Lawrence Memorial Hospital and home and garden writer for the Journal-World.