Best home maintenance book

[Anonymous]

A friend is going through a divorce and about to move into a new home. She mentioned that she is starting to make lists of maintenance tasks. She's pretty handy compared to most women, in my opinion, however, the list looked pretty slim. Am thinking of getting her a home maintenance book as a gift. Any good maintenance books that you all recommend for a woman in this situation?

[Anonymous]

I’d gently suggest you adjust your stereotype that women aren’t typically skilled in home maintenance. If she’s handy already, she’s probably used to finding home maintenance how-tos online, which is a more current and comprehensive source than a book would be. In her shoes, I’d be offended by a maintenance book “for women in this situation”—when the situation is just home ownership. Maybe a different housewarming gift would be better, like a tool you know she doesn’t already have.

[Anonymous]

I think a home maintenance book for a new homeowner is a great idea and has nothing to do with being a woman (although I think we can all acknowledge women tend to have less knowledge than men about this, but generalities are not relevant in this case.

My husband and I could use a good book. We are very unhandy homeowners.

[Anonymous]

This just came out on a blog I read:

https://thediyplaybook.com/home-maintenance-checklist/

[Anonymous]

[Anonymous]

I have a bunch of books but YouTube is so much more useful!

[Anonymous]

Get her a Home Depot gift card instead!

[Anonymous]

+1 YouTube is way better.

A gift card to Home Depot or Ace? I wouldn’t buy tools either, because you don’t know what she already has and because everything runs on batteries now, picking which battery she’s going to go with is the important first step.

That said, here is a list of book price range tools you could get (with a gift receipt):

A ratcheting screwdriver with interchangeable heads. Always useful.

A set of Allen wrenches. Get one with standard and metric because it’s always the one you don’t have.

A headlamp.

Safety glasses.

A can of wd-40, a roll of duct tape and a bottle of whiskey.

Locking pliers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d gently suggest you adjust your stereotype that women aren’t typically skilled in home maintenance. If she’s handy already, she’s probably used to finding home maintenance how-tos online, which is a more current and comprehensive source than a book would be. In her shoes, I’d be offended by a maintenance book “for women in this situation”—when the situation is just home ownership. Maybe a different housewarming gift would be better, like a tool you know she doesn’t already have.

For example I have a husband and I do literally all of the home maintenance. He absolutely sucks at doing anything involving manual dexterity.

Yes, even that.

He has other virtues.

[Anonymous]

If she's very petite, get her the 4 step version of this, if she's average to tall, get her the 3 step version! We have this in our mudroom off the kitchen and one upstairs and we use them all the time.

https://www.frontgate.com/ultralight-slimline-4-step-stool/749342?brReference=BRWidget

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d gently suggest you adjust your stereotype that women aren’t typically skilled in home maintenance. If she’s handy already, she’s probably used to finding home maintenance how-tos online, which is a more current and comprehensive source than a book would be. In her shoes, I’d be offended by a maintenance book “for women in this situation”—when the situation is just home ownership. Maybe a different housewarming gift would be better, like a tool you know she doesn’t already have.

She told me she was looking for something like this. We both got married out of college so have never had to do all this on our own. She's an engineer so I think she's actually looking forward to it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If she's very petite, get her the 4 step version of this, if she's average to tall, get her the 3 step version! We have this in our mudroom off the kitchen and one upstairs and we use them all the time.

https://www.frontgate.com/ultralight-slimline-4-step-stool/749342?brReference=BRWidget

Great idea! Thank you