Why I have two drills

One of my fears of becoming a homeowner is accumulating a lot of stuff. Houses just require stuff if you do your own maintenance and upgrades. I had one broom when I lived in an apartment. Now I have 3, and regularly use them all for different purposes. I have an assortment of yard tools I never had before, but use them all regularly. I buy things only as I need them, and try to only buy when I can't find another way to do the job.

Back when we were doing our concrete counter tops, we had to do some woodworking to build the molds for the concrete on top of the cabinets. I had a drill that I bought for light jobs when I lived in an apartment. One of our contractors strongly suggested that I buy a much more powerful drill for this job, and even though he fouled up many things he was right on this one. Having a powerful drill that could be used for long periods of time made the job ever so much easier.

In my mind, when I bought the new drill this meant the old one was to go away. But we found that we used the second, less powerful drill on the job to drive screws after pre-drilling the holes. It saved so much time and energy to not change bits and we could both work at the same time. I gave that lightweight drill another look and decided to keep it for a while and see if I continued to use it, and lo and behold we have. I've used it more times than I can count. Most recently I used it to countersink holes I was drilling to install my kitchen cabinet handles.

The obvious idea here is to think twice about getting rid of you old drill when you upgrade. But it has also led me to think where else I could apply this idea without going overboard. In my desire to be minimalist, I may create more work for myself. For example, I have duplicates of small cutting boards, scissors, measuring cups and measuring spoons, all of which are used on a regular basis. The question is where to draw the line.



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