Vol. XXVI · No. 04 • Workshop Almanac
— The Everyday Handyman —
Est. MMXIX
Vol. XXVI · No. 04 • Workshop Almanac
Est. MMXIX
Tool wisdom, hard-earned tips, and a directory of trades you can trust — gathered, weighed, and set in type for the everyday handyman.
§ I — Index
No. 01
No. 01
No. 01
No. 01
§ III — Field Investigation
§ II — Specimen Pages
Every home eventually asks for one. A loose hinge. A picture that won’t hang straight. A drip under the kitchen sink at eleven o’clock on a Sunday night. The question isn’t whether you’ll need tools — it’s whether the ones you have will actually do the job when the moment comes.
Most starter tool kits sold in big-box stores are a polite lie. Twenty-eight pieces in a plastic case, half of them too soft to drive a single screw without stripping the head. We’ve spent years assembling and dismantling these kits, and the truth is simple: you need fewer tools than the marketing suggests, but each one needs to be honest.
Below is the kit we’d give a friend moving into their first house. Not an exhaustive list. Not a sponsored one. Just the dozen pieces that quietly handle ninety percent of what a home will ever ask of you.
No. 01
A 16-ounce hammer with a smooth face and a curved claw. Steel head, hickory or fiberglass handle, well-balanced in the hand. One hammer, one lifetime
No. 01
A 16-ounce hammer with a smooth face and a curved claw. Steel head, hickory or fiberglass handle, well-balanced in the hand. One hammer, one lifetime
No. 01
A 16-ounce hammer with a smooth face and a curved claw. Steel head, hickory or fiberglass handle, well-balanced in the hand. One hammer, one lifetime
No. 01
A 16-ounce hammer with a smooth face and a curved claw. Steel head, hickory or fiberglass handle, well-balanced in the hand. One hammer, one lifetime
No. 01
A 16-ounce hammer with a smooth face and a curved claw. Steel head, hickory or fiberglass handle, well-balanced in the hand. One hammer, one lifetime
No. 01
A 16-ounce hammer with a smooth face and a curved claw. Steel head, hickory or fiberglass handle, well-balanced in the hand. One hammer, one lifetime
No. 01
A 16-ounce hammer with a smooth face and a curved claw. Steel head, hickory or fiberglass handle, well-balanced in the hand. One hammer, one lifetime
No. 01
A 16-ounce hammer with a smooth face and a curved claw. Steel head, hickory or fiberglass handle, well-balanced in the hand. One hammer, one lifetime
No. 01
A 16-ounce hammer with a smooth face and a curved claw. Steel head, hickory or fiberglass handle, well-balanced in the hand. One hammer, one lifetime
No. 01
A 16-ounce hammer with a smooth face and a curved claw. Steel head, hickory or fiberglass handle, well-balanced in the hand. One hammer, one lifetime
That is the entire starter kit. Twelve pieces. Maybe two hundred dollars at the lower end, six hundred at the upper. You can keep adding — a circular saw, a multimeter, a nail gun, an oscillating multi-tool — but you do not need to start there. Start with twelve honest tools. Add the next one when a job demands it. The kit grows the way a craftsman does: one need at a time.
§ IV — Directory
No. 01
Find one near you →
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Find one near you →
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Find one near you →
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Find one near you →
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Find one near you →
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Find one near you →
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Find one near you →
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Find one near you →
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Find one near you →
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Find one near you →
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Find one near you →
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Find one near you →
§ II — Specimen Pages
he internet is full of confident strangers telling you that you can do anything. You cannot. Some jobs are a Saturday afternoon and a careful YouTube tutorial. Others are a permit, a license, and a tradesperson with insurance. Knowing which is which is the most underrated skill in homeownership.We are not gatekeeping. Half of what handymen and contractors do is genuinely teachable, and a determined homeowner with patience and the right tools can pull it off. But the other half involves load-bearing walls, gas lines, and the kind of mistake you cannot undo with a second coat of paint. The question is never “can I do this?” It is always “should I do this?” Below is how we decide.
Is it permitted?
If your municipality requires a building permit, an electrical permit, or a plumbing permit for the work, the answer is almost always: hire a licensed pro. Permitted work creates a paper trail that protects your home’s resale value. Unpermitted work haunts a sale.
Is it permitted?
If your municipality requires a building permit, an electrical permit, or a plumbing permit for the work, the answer is almost always: hire a licensed pro. Permitted work creates a paper trail that protects your home’s resale value. Unpermitted work haunts a sale.
Is it permitted?
If your municipality requires a building permit, an electrical permit, or a plumbing permit for the work, the answer is almost always: hire a licensed pro. Permitted work creates a paper trail that protects your home’s resale value. Unpermitted work haunts a sale.
Is it permitted?
If your municipality requires a building permit, an electrical permit, or a plumbing permit for the work, the answer is almost always: hire a licensed pro. Permitted work creates a paper trail that protects your home’s resale value. Unpermitted work haunts a sale.
Hanging shelves, mirrors, and curtain rods. Patching small drywall holes. Painting interior walls, trim, and doors. Caulking around tubs, sinks, and windows. Replacing a faucet aerator or showerhead. Swapping out a light fixture when you can shut the breaker safely. Tightening a wobbly toilet seat. Replacing cabinet hardware. Building flat-pack furniture. Weatherstripping a door. Re-grouting a small bathroom backsplash. Cleaning out gutters. Replacing furnace filters. Touching up scuffed paint. Hanging a TV mount on a wood-stud wall. Sanding and refinishing a single piece of furniture. Changing the smoke alarm batteries — and then the smoke alarms themselves, every ten years. These jobs reward care more than expertise. The first one will take twice as long as it should. The second will take half. By the fifth, you’ll wonder why you ever paid someone.
Hanging shelves, mirrors, and curtain rods. Patching small drywall holes. Painting interior walls, trim, and doors. Caulking around tubs, sinks, and windows. Replacing a faucet aerator or showerhead. Swapping out a light fixture when you can shut the breaker safely. Tightening a wobbly toilet seat. Replacing cabinet hardware. Building flat-pack furniture. Weatherstripping a door. Re-grouting a small bathroom backsplash. Cleaning out gutters. Replacing furnace filters. Touching up scuffed paint. Hanging a TV mount on a wood-stud wall. Sanding and refinishing a single piece of furniture. Changing the smoke alarm batteries — and then the smoke alarms themselves, every ten years. These jobs reward care more than expertise. The first one will take twice as long as it should. The second will take half. By the fifth, you’ll wonder why you ever paid someone.
Use our trades directory above to find a vetted professional in any of the twelve categories we cover. Read the reviews. Get three quotes, never one. Always ask for a license number. And remember the oldest rule in homeownership: the cheapest contractor is rarely the cheapest decision.
§ II — Specimen Pages
You don’t need a garage full of equipment to handle most household repairs — you need the right ten tools
Before the cold sets in, an afternoon of preventive maintenance can save you from frozen pipes, roof leaks, and heating
From doorknob dents to nail holes to fist-sized accidents, drywall damage is inevitable — and almost always repairable without replacing
A door that drags, sticks, or won’t latch is one of the most common — and most fixable — household
Swapping a light switch or replacing an outlet cover is well within reach for most homeowners. Rewiring a panel is
A dripping faucet or running toilet can waste hundreds of gallons of water a month and quietly inflate your bill.
§ II — Specimen Pages
Most tool reviews on the internet were written by someone who has never held the tool. We know because we have read them. They paraphrase the manufacturer’s spec sheet, lift a few customer reviews, sprinkle in some keywords, and publish before lunch.
We do not. Every tool we feature on Handyman Guides has been pulled out of its packaging and put through a real project. Every tip we publish has been tested, broken, and tested again. Every trade in our directory has been vetted against published licensing, real customer reviews, and where possible a phone call. This is not a content site that happens to be about tools. It is a workshop that happens to publish.
Below is exactly how we work. Read it once and you will know what every star, every rank, and every “Best Overall” tag on this site is built on.
The thing that decides whether a tool lasts five years or fifteen. We look at the material of the housing, the feel of the moving parts, the tolerances on the threads, the heft in the hand. Cheap is obvious within thirty seconds. Quality reveals itself over weeks of real use.
The thing that decides whether a tool lasts five years or fifteen. We look at the material of the housing, the feel of the moving parts, the tolerances on the threads, the heft in the hand. Cheap is obvious within thirty seconds. Quality reveals itself over weeks of real use.
The thing that decides whether a tool lasts five years or fifteen. We look at the material of the housing, the feel of the moving parts, the tolerances on the threads, the heft in the hand. Cheap is obvious within thirty seconds. Quality reveals itself over weeks of real use.
The thing that decides whether a tool lasts five years or fifteen. We look at the material of the housing, the feel of the moving parts, the tolerances on the threads, the heft in the hand. Cheap is obvious within thirty seconds. Quality reveals itself over weeks of real use.
The thing that decides whether a tool lasts five years or fifteen. We look at the material of the housing, the feel of the moving parts, the tolerances on the threads, the heft in the hand. Cheap is obvious within thirty seconds. Quality reveals itself over weeks of real use.
We earn money two ways. Affiliate commissions when you buy a tool we have recommended through our links. Display advertising on certain pages of the site. That is it. There is no third revenue stream we are quiet about.
We do not accept payment for reviews. We do not take “sponsored placements” in our buying guides. No manufacturer has ever paid us to bump a product up the rankings, and no manufacturer ever will. The day that changes is the day this site stops being worth reading, and we know it.
Some tools are sent to us by manufacturers for testing. We accept them. We test them on the same five axes as everything else. If they do not make the grade, we do not review them. If they do, the affiliate commission goes to the link the same way it would for any product on the site.
We update our buying guides at least twice a year. New models replace old ones. Tools we recommended five years ago may no longer be the best in their category, and when that happens, we say so. An old review with a “Last updated” date from three years ago is not a review you can trust. If you ever spot a recommendation on this site that no longer holds up, write to us — we read every email. The almanac is a living document. Set in type, but never set in stone.
§ VIII — The House Style
Handyman Guides exists to make the right tool, the right fix, and the right tradesperson easier to find — without the noise of the modern internet. Our reviews are written by people who’ve actually held the tool. Our tips are tested before they’re typed.
We don’t believe in listicles, SEO mush, or 10-things-you-need-now. We believe in honest tools, careful work, and the quiet satisfaction of a job done properly.
Handyman Guides · Vol. XXVI
One email, every Sunday. New tool reviews, the best tip of the week, and a single recommendation from the editors. No clutter.
