What are the most important tools to own when I am an apartment renter?

As a renter, you’ll often find yourself hanging pictures, assembling furniture, installing floating shelves, opening and cutting up boxes, storing things on high shelves, tightening screws or bolts that come loose over time, cleaning cobwebs, measuring furniture or a room where you’d like to put furniture, unclogging a toilet, or any number of other activities centered around daily apartment life. 

To do these things, you’ll need a small number of tools, including:
- A standard toilet plunger, because toilets get clogged. Get this most important tool first.
- A 1” wide tape measure. Get one that’s 25ft long. The wide width makes it easier for one person to measure long runs or furniture by themselves. A 25ft length will be long enough to measure the longest wall of most rooms and any piece of furniture.
- A small level to evenly hang pictures and anything else you can think of. It should be about 10” to 12” long.
- A pair of #2 Phillips head and #2 flat tip screwdrivers. Or, a ratcheting screwdriver with a set of replaceable screwdriver tips. To tighten loose screws or assemble furniture.
- A folding step-stool that has two or three steps, and can support two to three hundred pounds. To quickly and safely reach those high shelves, hang pictures, and get close to things that are too high off the ground for you to reach standing in your flat shoes.
- A comfortable-in-hand hammer, to drive nails for hanging pictures, gently tap things together, or break things apart. A wooden handled, curved-claw hammer that weighs between 12oz-16oz will serve most users well. When pulling nails, place a thin piece of wood between the hammerhead and delicate surfaces such as sheetrock to avoid damaged. Good hardware stores carry both.
- A pair of adjustable wrenches for tightening just about anything. You’ll often need a pair of
wrenches to both hold and tighten the same fastener. A smaller 8” and larger 10” adjustable
wrenches make a good combination for most tasks.
- A utility knife and a package of quality blades. To safely cut open boxes and other packaging, as well as trim paper, fabrics, textiles, wood…etc. The knife should feel secure in your hand and have a large, easy to turn knob to open the knife to change blades. Buy a package of high-quality name brand replacement blades to keep on hand.
- An extra power receptacle for an emergency or unplanned usage. Always have an extra on
hand…you will need it.
- Hex wrenches. Also called Allen keys. You’ll need these mainly for assembling things like
furniture. These come in both metric and imperial standard sizes. Both are useful to have, but if you only buy one set, make it metric, as it’s the most common type of fastener used to assemble furniture.
- A stud finder. Stud finders help you locate the wall studs hidden behind the sheetrock. You’ll need to know where the wall studs are in order to know which fasteners you can use.
- A tool box or bag. The only rule here is that the bag needs to hold all of your tools. So, you should probably buy this after you’ve owned and used a few of the tools listed previously, and have a better idea how you’d like to store them, carry them and access them.
- A cordless drill and impact driver set, if you can afford it. All the other tools are more important, but these two tools are incredibly useful and make many jobs go faster and more pleasantly. The drill is for drilling. The impact driver is for driving or removing screws and other common fasteners. They look similar, but they are 2 different tools, each giving the user the right kinds of power and feedback required for the job each is designed for. It pays to buy quality here, so buy the best you can afford.