Do it yourselfers have been a growing segment of the US population for many years, as reflected in the lines at your local home improvement stores every weekend. With the return of warm weather to much of the United States, home improvement and repair project lists are also growing for many homeowners. Not that you may not have had plenty to keep you busy inside, but once the spring and summer weather kicks I know that my own list tends to grow significantly, with outdoor projects.
Many homeowners already have a garage or shed filled with a variety of tools and equipment to help with their DIY projects. As someone who has been handling a wide (and constantly growing) variety of home improvement projects myself, I’ve found a handful of not quite as common tools that come in very handy upon occasion. Not all of these are everyday tools, but when the need arises, they make your life much easier.
Multi-Position Ladder
I’m going to start with maybe my favorite one of these tools, the multi-position ladder. These come in various shapes and sizes, but the fundamental function is that they can work as an A-frame ladder where each side can be extended, taking a standard A-frame ladder and giving it the ability to extend many feet higher than its beginning height. A standard version starts at 6-feet and runs to 12-feet. Various versions can also turn into an extension ladder or even used as scaffolding. If you have taller than normal ceilings or need to get on your roof now and again, these ladders are worth their weight in gold. This is saying something since they are often fairly heavy. So, while you may like to have a light fiberglass A-frame ladder for changing a light in your office, this heavy-duty version gives you a lot more flexibility. They aren’t inexpensive, but if you have the need, you’ll appreciate the investment of $200 or more for the time and headaches it saves you.
Fish Tape
Have you ever tried to run a wire up through an interior wall in your house or even simply tried to get a power cord to run behind a heavy entertainment center from the TV to the outlet? If so, you know it is often a real challenge and sometimes it just doesn’t work. But, that’s because you didn't have any fish tape. Fish tape is a thin roll of slightly flexible fiberglass or metal that can be used to poke push through a space where something more flexible (like eclectic cable, ethernet cable, or something similar) simply gets hung up. You can easily attach the wiring you want to thread through a hard-to-reach space to the end of the fish tape and either push it through or push the fish tape through first and pull the other cord or wiring back through to the other side. You won’t use fish tape often unless you're an electrician, but when the time comes, this makes certain tasks possible that might not be workable otherwise. Fish tape can be pricey if you want long rolls (over 100 feet), but for simple around-the-house usage, you may find a shorter 25 or 50-foot option meets your needs for around $20.
Wheelbarrow
If you have a yard and end up doing much planting (flowers, bushes, etc.) one part of the project is going to involve moving larger amounts of dirt or potting soil around the yard. You can certainly buy a few buckets to handle these projects, but buckets of dirt get pretty heavy. A wheelbarrow can make all the difference when it comes to moving around larger quantities of these types of materials. If you make the call to get a wheelbarrow, don’t cheap out on your purchase. You can buy a cheap option for under $50. However, if you’re really using the wheelbarrow extensively or have heavy materials to move around, you may find the inexpensive options deliver exactly what you paid for - not much. You still don’t need to break the bank, but if you’re willing to spend more like $100-$150, you’ll get a product that should stand up to serious use and last for years.
Stud Finder
Who hasn’t had the challenge of trying to find a wall stud through drywall to hang something heavy? Or maybe you’re trying to miss the stud because you want to install something in between the studs. Either way, your goal is to identify where each stud exists inside your wall. Enter the electronic stud finder. A wonderful little gadget that does it’s best to alert you to the location of studs inside walls, without opening up the drywall. To be clear, these products aren’t foolproof and they aren’t always 100% accurate in my experience. However, they tend to be pretty much on the money most of the time, saving you from drilling pilot holes into your walls to find an actual stud. Pricing ranges from $10 to over $100, but you can likely live with something in that $10-$25 range and be very happy with your purchase.
Retrieval Tool
Personally, I don’t much enjoy when I drop a needed screw (or screwdriver) behind some heavy furniture or even inside a wall cavity. Many times, you just accept the loss and move one, since there isn’t a good way to reach in there and grab what you dropped - even if you can literally see it sitting there, just out of reach. Enter the retrieval tool. Some of these are just extendable poles with a powerful magnet on the end or they may have a little grabber claw on the end. In either case, they often provide the only viable way to retrieve that lost item. I picked up a combo pack of a magnetic extendable pole and a flexible grabber claw as an impulse buy at a home improvement store years ago. I had no idea how useful the things would be, but I am thankful every time I pull them out of the tool box, typically to retrieve something I need for the project and would otherwise have to make a trip to the home improvement store to replace.
