If you live in an apartment, perhaps you can get by with a screwdriver and a hammer. If you live in the country, miles from the nearest hardware store, you'd better have a well-equipped toolbox.
I'm hardly the one to talk, since just about all my tools were purchased the day after I needed them most, but a complete set of the most essential tools is particularly important to a rural lifestyle. A lack of tools separates the dependent from the independent.
Every cowhand's saddlebag holds a pair of fencing pliers and a good set of ratchets makes the mechanic, but you never know what you'll find in a carpenter's toolbox.
"What's most important?" I asked the best carpenter I know, Tom "Rusty Rooster" Henscheid, who does custom work on homes out in western Washington. He's a native Idahoan and grows a bushy beard, so I naturally trust his judgment.
Start with a 16-ounce claw hammer, a 24-ounce framing hammer, and an 8-pound sledgehammer, he advised. Include an 8-point crosscut saw, a 4-point ripsaw, and a long-handled shovel.
The Rusty Rooster praised his planes for shaving and his chisels for finishing work, and he thanked God for allowing circular saws to be invented. "I would never want to be without one," he said.
A small electric hand drill is essential, you can never have enough clamps, and a $5 plumb bob will save time. "Rather than running back to the truck and looking for a level to make sure something is straight, you pull the plumb bob out of the pouch that you're carrying with you and drop it down. That will give you an absolutely perfect vertical line," he explained.
I might have guessed I'd need a good square with staircase fixtures for making repeated angles and I probably would have included a tape measure, but I doubt I would have thought of a spokeshave.
"Old wagon wheel makers used them for cutting spokes," Rusty Rooster told me. They're handy for fitting handles and carving chair legs or posts.
There's plenty more worth including, like duct tape for repairs, a flashlight for dark corners, and a quality pair of pliers. But no tool is worth as the commitment of its owner to use it properly and care for it tenderly. "You've got to love your tools; that's all there is to it," said the master carpenter.