Father’s Day and Mother’s Day are both right around the corner. Here are some cool ideas for the DIYer and home improvement aficionado in your life.
We’re part of The Home Depot’s ProSpective Program and worked with Big Orange on this blog. The ideas, opinions and observations are 100% MyFixitUpLife’s. See links below to research or purchase the featured tools.
One of my favorite scenes in movie history is when Jim Carrey’s Grinch is building his Santa sleigh and he yells at his dog because Max brought the Grinch a 5/8-inch wrench instead of the 3/4-inch wrench he needed. There’s no bigger lesson here. I just think it’s hilarious.
What’s not hilarious are these Husky Long-Pattern Universal Combination Wrench Sets. They’re awesome. If you’ve got Father’s Day jobs or Mother’s Day fixes to do around the house and don’t want to go all-in for a much more expensive socket set, these are rugged, versatile and well-designed. The imperial (inches) and metric (divisible by 10 or something) will cover lots of DIY bases. And, at about 20-bucks for ten wrenches, they’re a fantastic deal.
I teamed the Husky wrenches up with the DeWalt 20-Volt Max Lithium-Ion Cordless Drill/Driver and Impact Combo Kit in the video above. While DeWalt prides themselves on being exactly what they are—an all-pro brand—I’d slot this kit in the Father’s Day Mother’s Day context I’ve hatched here as a perfect beginner’s set. If you’re just getting started in home improvement, amping up your game, if you really have an appetite for construction, this is a great set to get in your workshop. The impact driver is awesome for driving screws—my favorites are Spax, see video. It has a one-step bit holder, it’s compact and after having run a nautical mile of screws with DeWalt impacts over the years, it’ll last.
The drill picks up where the impact driver leaves off. I used it to mix thinset, for example and it had plenty of go-juice for turning water and powder into tile-setting mud bucket after bucket. Also, it’s a go-to for drilling bigger holes and whipping up batches of joint compound. 
It’s hard to have enough ways to organize small parts.
DIYers are hard to buy tools for. Professional contractors like me, near impossible. We know what we like, want and need. There’s nowhere near enough runway for the people in the world who are not inside our heads to know what to get.
However, few of us often have enough ways to organize and transport things like screws or small parts for, say, plumbing. DeWalt’s 20-Compartment Pro Small Parts Organizer looks great for solving just this problem. I’ve had boxes like this before and they were a mainstay. Notably, removable dividers inside the box make the storage space customizable so you can store large items like lag screws or drill bits—in fact, this is my new drill bit organizer box—and small items like driver tips or electrical tape.
A clear lid is nice, and it even has latches to integrate with other DeWalt storage solutions. This would give me a Father’s Day smile for sure.
The Dremel Stylo is a tool that I absolutely wish I had more time to work with. As a contractor, the balance of my time is often spent working on other people’s homes and projects more than going Zen in my own shop and making things for friends and family. Drawing on leather, making wood-art designs and even widening the strike plate for a storm door that just won’t close are all things I’d love to spend more time doing. The Stylo + comes with the accessories you need to do just that, if you have the time.
Pro tip: If the standard Phillips tip you’re using for driving screws is slipping all the time, take a look at it. They wear out. If the tip where the bit contacts the screw is shiny, it’s kaput. The steel has gotten slippery there and cam-outs are inevitable. Makita says their Impact Gold Power Bits are a better solution, lasting 60—sixty!—times longer than the typical blanks we all use. What I really like is that Makita says they’re not super hard, which is something I’ve had trouble with with other bits—rather the steel flexes to decrease tip pressure, making them ideal for my go-to screw driving tool: An impact driver.
Here’s a sentence I never thought I’d write: Home Depot’s HDX batteries are feature rich. Huh?
Yes. While they’re made to use, of course, but what I think I like most about them is they’re made to store. Having cut it as close as I ever want to cut it ever again in the bomb cyclone snow storm that left millions stranded—including me, almost—on our roads and shut down power everywhere, I’ll say to anyone who will listen that you’re crazy to not have a generator and a storm preparedness kit ready to go. The HDX Alkaline Batteries hold power up to 10-years in storage (5- for 9-volt), are comparable to national brands in power output, and even have a stainless steel cover to prevent leakage.
Come on weather! Father’s Day is gonna be fun!
Loved the article!!