What Is Hunker? A Guide to the Home Design and DIY Site
Updated
Hunker is a home improvement and lifestyle website that publishes interior design trends, gardening tips, DIY instructions, and practical hacks for the home and garden. It suits renters and homeowners who want to tackle projects themselves — from concealing a modem in the living room to building a potting bench from concrete blocks and wood planks — rather than hiring out every job.
What Hunker covers
The site organizes its content around the rooms, tools, and tasks of everyday home life. Based on its published stories, the main categories include:
| Category | What it covers | Example topics |
|---|---|---|
| Design | Interior trends and styling choices | Hiding a modem, alternatives to subway tile, garage door styles |
| DIY | Step-by-step project instructions | Vintage fall decor from a dollar-store pumpkin and doilies, upcycling a tennis ball tube into a bird feeder |
| Garden | Planting, tools, and outdoor projects | Building a potting bench, choosing fill to level a bumpy lawn |
| Lawn Mowers & Tools | Equipment care and maintenance | How long lawn mower blades typically last |
| Pests, Weeds & Problems | Low-cost, low-toxicity fixes | A bottle-cap trap for ants using sugar and borax or baking soda |
| Organization & Storage | Space-saving and display solutions | A wall-mounted paper towel organizer that holds multiple rolls |
| Cleaning | Cleaning methods and product reviews | Reusing flat beer to refresh wooden furniture; a steam floor cleaner review |
How the content is structured
Most Hunker stories follow a recognizable pattern that makes them easy to act on:
- A specific problem or goal in the headline — for example, a bumpy lawn, ants in the kitchen, or a modem that sticks out in the living room.
- A concrete method or material list — the potting bench story, for instance, frames the project around concrete blocks and wood planks as a cheap alternative to a store-bought bench that "can cost hundreds of dollars."
- A comparison or judgment where relevant — the lawn-leveling piece weighs sand against topsoil and notes which works better for severe bumps.
- Attribution to a source or expert — some stories reference a social media user's idea or an expert's comparison, which tells you whether you're reading a tested method or a roundup of ideas.
Who it's for
Hunker is aimed at people who want to improve their living space without a large budget or a contractor. The recurring angle is substitution and reuse: a dollar-store item standing in for expensive decor, a tennis ball tube becoming a bird feeder, flat beer reviving wood furniture, bottle caps replacing commercial pesticides. If you enjoy that kind of problem-solving, the site's archive is a practical starting point.
It is less suited to readers looking for detailed building plans, code compliance guidance, or professional-grade specifications. The stories are short, idea-driven pieces rather than technical manuals.
How to get the most from the site
- Start from your actual problem rather than browsing by category — search for the specific issue, such as "ants," "bumpy lawn," or "hide modem."
- Check what the project assumes you already own. Many ideas depend on having a drill, concrete blocks, or scrap wood on hand.
- Read comparisons before buying materials. Where a story weighs two options, the recommendation usually depends on the severity of the problem or the look you want.
- Treat product reviews as one data point. Reviews on the site, such as the steam floor cleaner piece, reflect a single reviewer's experience in a specific setting — here, city living — so weigh that against your own space.
Hunker's value is breadth with a DIY bias: design inspiration, garden projects, cleaning methods, and small repairs in one place, written for people who intend to do the work themselves.