Mending clothes. Cutting hair. Fixing a squeaky door or a dripping faucet. Baking bread.

A generation or two ago, household skills like these were common, learned at home and at school. Then it became easier to toss things out rather than fix them, quicker to call the professionals.

Now, in an unsettling era of staying at home and not knowing what will be available tomorrow, the old ways are being dusted off and relearned.

Since the coronavirus has shuttered many small businesses that do our work and supply our things, millions of people trying to stay home are driven by