Good Tools for Home Projects

 When I got married, I looked at my brides garage and found a small makeshift workbench.  On that bench she had a couple of tools such as a hammer, two screwdrivers, and a crescent wrench.  I had to chuckle to myself just a little big.  The hammer was a small miniture hammer that you would never use to hammer in a regular construction nail.  This collection may be fine if you only do an occasional fixit job in the house.  But our family is known for fixing our own things, not once did I ever see anyone hired out to fix something in our house growing up.

 I am a firm believer that every house really should have a good assortment of tools so that you can fix things that break in your house.  If you were to hire out small jobs, the cost would get ridiculeous or you would never get around to doing it.  Considering the way houses are built today, you really need a little bit of everything. 

Essentials:

• Hammers, both regular and rubber mallet
• Cordless drill
• Good size collection of drill bits
• Miter saw
• Oribital sander
• Small tablesaw
• Assorted hand tools

 Along with tools it is definetly handy to have a good assortment of hardware such as nuts, bolts, screws, nails, electrical tape, and wire nuts.

My favorite place to acquire this kind of stuff is at garage sales and flea markets.  If you buy an assortment of nails, screws and bolts at the hardware store, the price can add up quickly.  At a garage sale the seller is usually trying to get rid of clutter.  This can be a great way to establish a collection.  For some reason when neighbors find out you have a collection, they always seem to find you and ask you for something.  This is especially true if you live in an apartment or condo.

Another handy item to have is painting supplies.  In fact ours are now kept in a plastic bin since we keep going back to them over the years.  Painting is an easy do it yourself type of job that can have big benefits.  If you buy good quality brushes you can use them for years. 

 There are number of tools out today that do a good job with a lot of different types of task.  Dremel makes some pretty neat stuff that will help you cut out plug boxes or sanding molding or door trim.  As you can see in the video, these tools change over time as needs arise.  The new multi master tool is a great addition to my tool bench because I needed to pull out some grout in the kitchen.  The old technique was long and hard and involved chiseling out the old cracked grout.  This was taking hours and it seemed like someone had some sort of gizmo that would make my life easier.  Of course Dremel came up with just the power tool and the attachement for taking out grout.  This is a real time saver.  Considering the fact that I would have spent hours removing the grout, spending the $100 was worth the time and effort saved.

 With the economy struggling I have seen people keep vehicles longer and tackle fixit or home improvement projects themselves.  This seems to be logical and the home improvement type of stores seemed to be ok with the recession.  If you were considering remodeling your kitchen you know that replacing the kitchen cabinets would be super expensive.  In fact I really do not understand why cabinets are so expensive, they are really not that complicated when it comes to design.  The reason they are so expensive is that most homeowners do not have the tools or shop setup to make their own.  However if you were willing to make some purchases such as a router table and tablesaw, you could easily make your own and still spend less than if you bought the cabinets and had them installed. Plus you would get to keep the tools and use them for any other type of project that presents itself in the future.