Gathering Hand Tools

After amassing a good first aid kit, and putting away some emergency cash, it is a very good idea to assemble a tool kit. Even those who live in apartments need some emergency tools. In addition, should you ever move from a place where most repairs are done for you, you will need to begin acquiring some skills and this is best done gradually and slowly rather than as a crash course. Many US hardware stores sell an inexpensive kit which is probably designed as a "home warming" kit. A hammer, tape measure, ordinary and phillips head screwdrivers, and other items are enclosed. These are not professional tools, but they are a good start. Once you have a more permanent home, you might want to buy a tool once a month and learn something about how to use it. Fortunately the DIY (Do it yourself) movement which is so pervasive in the United States, caught on in Europe some time ago as well. There are classes in many places where you can learn to do some of the things necessary in terms of home maintenance and improvement.
The internet has also aided here. Many people have purchased the tools for much of their own car maintenance, and they do most of it on a regular basis. Certainly, it is not realistic for all of us to take on all of our repairs for our homes and for our cars, but if we can begin to learn something about some of it, and we can teach our children as they grow, the benefits of doing so are great.   Men are not the only individuals who need tools. Women, and even those with limited upper body strength can use tools.  My daughter has made her own wooden picture frames using a mitre, and a saw, and simple fasteners.  Many tasks in repairs do not depend upon a lot of body strength, but simply knowing how something is done, and peforming the task carefully.

This is Lowe's 204 piece mechanic's tool set which contains both standard and metric tools.  It is for sale for about US $100.00 and is a decent set for the do-it-yourselfer.

This is the 205 piece home tool kit which sells at Home Depot for about US $47.00   It also has both standard sized tools and metric and is designed to be a multi-purpose home kit.

           Apartment dwellers likely cannot disassemble their cars and change the oil, but in many villages, towns and rural areas, you could.  Many homeowners are taking on more and more in terms of automobile routine maintenance.   Professional mechanics and professional builders often buy superior tools one at a time, and depending upon your tasks and your desires, this may also be the best course to pursue for you as well. Really quality tools really can be much easier to use, and can allow the user the opportunity to develop much better stills than a cheap tool used rarely would allow.  Here on the farm we started with inexpensive assembled sets, and then moved on to one really good tool per month.   When our hand tool set was complete, we moved on to power tools, which should be the purview of another post.