This handbook is thorough, but not of much use to any novice just looking to do some nickel plating. It's not hard to do though, and certainly something you can do at home. I've done this for a set of custom steel brackets I needed for some project¹.
This Youtube video is useful if you want to start from scratch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-PtnwtOR24
1: I could have used stainless steel instead, but bending, drilling, and tapping stainless steel is a lot harder than doing this with regular steel.