My Favorite and Most Used Tools

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First and foremost, I’ve been doing projects around my home for about 3+ years now and I am by no means an expert. But I have some experience and I’ve gotten through a lot of mistakes and have learned quite a bit since I first started. Now lets get into it, my suggestion for battery operated tools is to make sure they are all the same brand so you only have 1 type of battery to keep up with and keep charged and they are all interchangeable. For me, my favorite brand for my battery tools is Milwaukee, it’s a quality brand and Tyler already has a bunch of Milwaukee tools, batteries and chargers.

My most used tool is probably my Milwaukee drill, you need a good drill to do most projects! A drill is helpful to just put together premade furniture you order online instead of using an Allen Wrench that comes with a lot of furniture. A nice drill bit set like this one and this one is good to have as well!

The other handheld tool I use most often is my 18 gauge Milwaukee battery operated brad nailer. Before I had this cordless one, I was using a Rigid brad nailer that required an air compressor to use. If you already have an air compressor this brad nailer is inexpensive, but if you don’t it would cost just as much to purchase the corded brad nailer and the air compressor together as it would the battery operated brad nailer. Plus when I upgraded, it was amazing not having to lug that HEAVY air compressor around for every project! All I needed was my nailer and a battery! It was so freeing! I use this all the time! For wall treatments mostly, but also putting a faceframe onto a built-in or cabinet, or holding two pieces of wood together while the wood glue dries, putting up crown moulding or any other trim, I use it for building furniture and lots of other projects!

Up next is my miter saw. Tyler got me a Kobalt compound miter saw when I first started DIYing. I use this thing ALL OF THE TIME! It’s a great beginner miter saw, I use it to cut trim, wall treatments, crown moulding, wood for furniture, framing artwork, making decor and countless other things! I use this in almost every projects. I did upgrade to a 12in DeWalt sliding compound miter saw that is amazing! But I still use the smaller one a lot of the time because it’s light weight and easy to carry around when I DIY away from home. I built a miter saw table for my DeWalt that’s awesome, but we have a small 2 car garage and that table is heavy to move around and gets things stacked on it and just isn’t convenient to use with the set up we have. If I had a better set up as far as a workshop goes and I could get to my DeWalt miter saw easily I’d probably use that exclusively and sell my small miter saw, or keep it for projects at friends houses since it’s half the size and weight of the DeWalt.

Edit: We organized our garage better and now I use my DeWalt miter saw 99% of the time unless I travel to a friends house to build something.

I also use my table saw quite a bit, but not for every project. I currently have a Ryobi table saw that Tyler got me, it’s another one that’s an inexpensive one for beginners. I haven’t had a chance to upgrade it just yet, but eventually I’ll upgrade to a DeWalt table saw, maybe I’ll ask for it for my birthday this year! It is WAY superior to my Ryobi, I’ve used a friends and it’s simply amazing! The Ryobi has got me through plenty of projects, but the DeWalt is just a lot easier to use and the fence is way more accurate from front to back.

Update: Since writing this blog post I have upgraded to the DeWalt table saw and it’s been everything I hoped and dreamed for! It’s amazing and totally worth the cost!

If you don’t want to buy a whole table saw, a handheld circular saw is a great alternative! I have a craftsman one that’s great! Tyler uses a battery operated Milwaukee fuel, which is nice because you don’t have to deal with the cord getting wrapped around whatever you’re cutting. I use this quite often to make long cuts, especially if what I’m cutting is really big and hard to push through the table saw by myself. I usually just clamp a straight edge down to whatever I’m cutting to use as a guide to cut a straight line with the circular saw. You can also buy a guide made for the circular saw instead of clamping a straight edge to your project, I’ll eventually get one of those.

I use my DeWalt orbital sander for almost every project as well! I love this thing a lot! I also have a mouse sander that is triangle shaped and comes with different attachments so it can get into corners easily.

I really love my pocket hole Kreg jig for building furniture, mostly. But also for putting 2 pieces of material together without the screws showing in whatever project you’re doing. I started out with this smaller Kreg jig, then I upgraded to this one that was a lot better! Then I upgraded to their new Kreg Foreman which is just amazing! It’s expensive but if you are doing a whole lot of pocket holes, it’s worth it!

I also really love my Milwaukee router, jigsaw and multitool. I don’t use them for every project, but they all come in really handy for certain things. The router will take your project to the next level!

If you have any tiling projects coming up, this is the wet saw I have. You can get one for cheaper but typically the bottom part doesn’t move when you go cheap and you have to slide the tile through yourself hoping to keep it straight. But when the bottom moves you just put the tile against the back and slide the whole thing through, it’s easier to get straight lines this way and I feel like it’s safer. Plus tile is usually somewhat expensive and you want to make sure you have a good product to cut it with. I did replace the blade it came with for the correct one for the type of tile I was using.