Tools You Will Need for DIY Home Projects

Being handy around the house can save you a lot of money on hiring contractors whenever relatively simple repairs or modifications are needed. You will need some basic tools to bridge the gap between wanting to complete that project that’s been gnawing at you for weeks and actually getting it done.

If you will be doing any work involving wood, then you will also be working with screws and/or nails. The beginning of any tool set is a couple different sized hammers and an array of sizes of regular flat head and phillips head screwdrivers. You can also opt for the power tool equivalent of screw drivers. These will either come with or you can separately purchase separate pieces for the style and size of screw driver head you need. Even if you like having a power screw driver on hand, it is still a good idea to have a variety of the old fashioned “elbow-grease” style around in case the power tool breaks.

You will run into situations in just about any DIY project where you will need to grab onto, twist or otherwise hold onto and manipulate something. This is where pliers come in handy. You will want both needle-nose and regular pliers in your toolbox. Each situation will be different and you never know which type you’ll need at a moments notice.

If you are going to be cutting wood, you will need a saw. You will probably find a good circular saw to be worth the investment over a hand saw. It cuts wood much faster and easier and they are fairly inexpensive nowadays. It will certainly speed up the completion time on what you are hoping is just a ‘weekend project’.

When working with wood, another indispensable tool is a power sander. As with circular saws, they are fairly inexpensive and if you have a sizable wood surface area to sand, they will speed up the work and reduce the effort required to an incredible degree. Sometimes you want to get a little more off that wood than a sander can do in a reasonable time, but not enough to go back to the circular saw. This is when a plane tool becomes incredibly useful.

Most projects require some precision to come together successfully. To fit pieces together, you have to know exactly how long each one needs to be. This requires rulers and for longer measurements, a tape measure. If your project requires a smooth, level surface, you can run your hand across the top to determine smoothness, but you’ll need a level tool to determine if it’s truly level.