What Tools Do You Really Need?

I was reading the The New York Times last weekend, and I came across an article (the first in a series) about home improvement/D.I.Y. that piqued my interest. It was all about the tools that you really need to maintain your home. Part of the reason I was so intrigued is that I'd spent the past two weekends in heavy D.I.Y./nesting mode—doing projects around my apartment and spending a considerable amount of time at Home Depot, Lowe's, and my local hardware store. (I will hopefully be able to show you some of those projects next week.)

 

 

The good news from this article is that you really don't need a lot in order to be able to complete most projects around your house. Here's the boiled down list (see the article for explanations and buying tips):

 

quality hammer
multi-head screwdriver (a racheting one if you so choose)
cordless drill
1-inch tape measure with a lock
pliers (one pair needle nose and one pair slip-joint)
vise-grips
one adjustable wrench
one set of socket wrenches
level
electronic stud finder
footlong wrecking bar (a.k.a. crowbar I've never heard it called a wrecking bar.)
small handsaw
nails, screws, etc.
spray paint (It's worth reading the article just to figure out why.)

 

 

I'm curious, how many of these things do you have in your home? And what else do you have? I apparently have quite a few things that I still need.

 

(top photo by usefulguy, bottom photo by See-ming Lee both on flickr)