Living in our Austin student apartments presents a lot of conveniences, especially when it comes to home maintenance. When something stops working in your apartment, you can just put in a work order and maintenance will take care of it. And that’s good news, because when you live in an apartment, you don’t have the space for a shed’s worth of tools for every single thing.
Still, there are a few tools we believe every apartment dweller should have. These are things that will help you hang pictures, make small repairs, assemble furniture, and perform other basic apartment tasks. Plus, these five must-have tools can all fit in a single drawer or slot neatly away in a closet at our Austin student apartments. So let’s talk tools, shall we?
Adjustable Wrench
The adjustable wrench is a versatile classic, helping with any task that requires some torque. This is the perfect tool for the job when any fastener or bolt needs a little tightening, so it may help with assembling furniture or fixing small leaks. It’s pretty handy when you need to open a stubborn jar lid, too.
Screwdriver With Multiple Bits
Screws are ubiquitous, featuring in everything from cabinet handles to towel rods to coffee tables to picture frames. We’ve all experienced a situation where we needed a screwdriver. While a power screwdriver can be handy, most of your apartment needs can be accomplished with a simple manual screwdriver, as long as you get one with interchangeable bits that can suit a variety of jobs.
Needle-Nose Pliers
Pliers come in handy more often than you might think. Repairing a link in your jewelry? You need pliers. Bending a staple, pin, or wire so that it doesn’t poke you? You need pliers for that. Pliers are useful for anything that requires additional grip strength and fine-tuned control. Needle-nose pliers are particularly useful for anyone dealing with small objects like jewelry links or electronics.
Chain-nose pliers will also work for most tasks that you would use needle-nose pliers for, so having either option is great. The only difference between these two pliers is that needle-nose pliers typically have a serrated surface along the inside of the jaws to assist in gripping objects.
Measuring Tape
Measuring tape is particularly useful when moving into a new apartment, but it can come in handy any time. Stiff metal measuring tape is perfect when you need to figure out exactly what size shelf will fit by your bed or how tall a houseplant will fit in your bedroom. Flexible cloth or plastic measuring tape, on the other hand, is great for DIY fabric projects or measuring around corners.
Allen Wrench Set
An Allen wrench or hex key can come in lots of different sizes, and is often needed for furniture assembly. Although our Austin student apartments come fully furnished, this tool may come in handy if you decide to make your own additions as well. If you buy any furniture online or at a store like IKEA, you’ll often find that your kit comes with an appropriately-sized Allen wrench, but if you ever need to adjust a hex screw in the future, or if your kit is missing an Allen wrench (or includes one of the wrong size), you may wish you had a set of your own to rely on. We recommend getting a folding hex key set, because these keep all your Allen keys organized in one simple tool, and the rubberized housing the keys fold into and out of doubles as a handle that offers a better grip.
That’s it for our tool recommendations for residents of our Austin student apartments! If you appreciated this post and would like to see more of our tips, recommendations, and features, be sure to bookmark our blog page for easy access to future posts! And make sure you’re following us on Instagram so you stay in the know about special offers and community updates for future residents of our new student apartments in Austin.