There's a lot that has changed for us in the year that we've been homeowners. One that that hasn't changed, tho, is that we've always been pretty self-sufficient and handy when it comes to taking care of our home - own or rent. While we weren't tackling whole renovations and such things, we did our best to limit how often we needed to reach out to our landlord - if there was a problem that we could fix at no cost to us, we fixed it ourselves. I can count maybe on both hands how many times in the past decade we've had to contact a landlord and/or maintenance to repair something. That said, by the time we moved into our new home, we'd already had a pretty modest assortment of home improvement tools... granted we've definitely had to step up our game, especially as we tackled our fair share of home improvement projects.

As we've built our repertoire of tools, I've learned that we actually have two different kinds of tools - project tools & lifestyle tools.

Home Project tools are the tools we use to accomplish major home improvement & renovation projects. Home Lifestyletools are the tools we use day to day for small (and sometimes everyday) tasks. Think of it this way... the different between a project tool & a lifestyle tool is the difference between RYOBI's cordless drill (and impact) driver kit and RYOBI's cordless screwdriver kit. We'd often turned to RYOBI for their power tools but discovering that they also carried items like stick vacuums and scrubbing brushes was a welcome surprise. I mean... how many of you knew RYOBI carried things you could use in your daily lives?

While working on the flex lounge for the one room challenge I was able to work with RYOBI; and because the project was more styling than renovating, I leaned more on their lifestyle tools than their project tools - the multi surface laser level came in handy for hanging decor along the walls, the whole stud detector was an essential too when pointing the ledge shelves, the cordless compact glue gun helped in reassembling items that I didn't want to replace, and the cordless stick vacuum cleaner (and its multi surface capacity) made clean up when I was done easy & effortless.

The convenience of being able to use my RYOBI ONE+ 18V battery interchangeably with my tools... well that's a very welcome bonus.

What this experience taught me - well confirmed actually - is that as a home owner, not every home improvement project requires drilling and cutting and nailing... oh my! Home improvement - key word: improvement - can also include small upgrades & cleaning tasks because they all contribute to actually improving the home (and lifestyle) I'm creating.