Welcome to House and Tool!
Who Am I?
Hi there, my name is Donovan Gow and I’m your average family guy with a job, family, and home who has learned a thing or two about tools and home care over the years, mostly through trial and error, lots of error! I grew up in Wisconsin farm country around friends and neighbors that were always working on cars or tractors, baling hay, or fixing fences and leaky roofs but I wouldn’t say I was all that handy myself.
It wasn’t until we got our first home, a real cheap fixer upper, that I was forced to learn how to fix things myself. I learned basic plumbing, electrical, carpentry, landscaping, and even some pretty ugly masonry and drywall work. And guess what? It was really satisfying to take care of these things myself and even to start building a few things for fun.
I made lots of mistakes along the way, from buying cruddy tools to not understanding what I needed or not taking care of my equipment or safety. In fact, the first time I used a chainsaw I put on the chain backwards. Believe me, that was an embarrassing conversation with the guy at the hardware store. I started this site to share what I’ve learned with you so you can avoid my mistakes and enjoy working on your home just like I do.
My mission on this site is to help you pick the quality home tools that are right for you.
How I create content
All the content on this site has been personally planned and edited by me to ensure it’s truthful, accurate, and high quality. I do on occasion plan the content and use freelance writers to help research and put it together. But I always edit and approve everything that goes on the site so you can trust our recommendations.
As much as possible, we try to get our hands on everything we review so we have first-hand, real-life experience. But some of these tools are pretty pricey so we can’t buy all the top brands to test them (this is a small operation, not some large corporation). In these cases, we do research with local stores, contractors, and handymen we know as well as extensive online research from real customers. Sometimes, if something’s not clear, we’ll even contact the manufacturers directly to get answers.
That said, I want to be clear that there are absolutely NO paid endorsements on this site, and we don’t accept any “free” items for review. Come on, how can a review be unbiased if they give you the item for free? We do get affiliate commissions for items bought by clicking on the recommendation links, but these are no cost to you and do not in any way impact what we recommend. I want you to rest assured that the recommendations we provide are real and unbiased.
Donovan Gow