I have to buy cheap Fiskar pruners as I lose them constantly. I love my newish Corona pruning saw. All those nasty bow saws are gone! Between the two are the loppers. Only on the second pair in 30 years. Handles are bolted to the working bit rather than fitted and riveted. Used to think loppers essential but maybe pruners and a saw I can handle are enough! I use cheap knives for cutting ornamental grasses, would a Japanese knife work better? Pruners are a pain with grass. My trowel is a pretty decent one cost $15 20 years ago, cannot bend it. I use a garden fork with a long handle and a tiny shovel with a long handle equally. Both essential. A garden rake and a leaf rake are essential for building beds and cleaning lawns and beds of leaves. I prefer the collapsing metal leaf rakes. Have a couple of those 'stabbers'. It failed to get out a baby agave this morning, will have another go tomorrow. Surprisingly useful, should have it out and visible anytime I'm digging/weeding but not essential for me. My scuffle hoe is great when weeding vegetable beds with young plants but I generally pick weeds by hand. I wouldn't consider one to be essential. Here a number of hoses are crucial tools. I rotate them through from front to back to vegetable garden as they bite the dust. /So hose splitters are essential, really need a couple hoses per bib! Most recent hose is a super heavy black rubber one that stays flexible even after cold water is run through so is a pleasure to put away but it's only a couple years old, no idea how well it will last. Other hoses last for decades. Be sure to buy the proper length. If you need 50' then don't buy 100'. I tried winders and hose pots but am looping on hangers these days. Since you can just wind around a good sized pot such things aren't essential purchases. Just tossed my ancient water wands and they won't be replaced and am using a freebie trigger water sprayer. Sometimes I think my thumb is better than those sprayers anyway. That plus an old sock tied to the end of the hose for a bubbler and I'm set. I gave up on commercial lawn sprinklers and built one with a standard lawn sprinkler head and PVC so I can have the half circle low throw that works best for me. Hands. Most important garden tool. Protect with some sort of gloves. I've decided cheap is best as I am wearing out the index fingers no matter how good the glove is supposed to be so buy a multi pack and toss as those fingers wear out. I use nitrile coated that more or less fit as sloppy gloves are annoying in the extreme. Lawn tools? Small lawns so a corded electric works fine. It replaced the manual reel that couldn't get through St. Augustine or cut rye flower stalks. Loved that mower but it couldn't do the job so bye bye. A strimmer is in the garage but hasn't been used for years as I use my hands to pull stray runners because St. Augustine will build up a regular dike if trimmed flush with paving. Loved it on Bermuda grass though. A corded electric blower is essential. Sweeping will only get you so far on door mats and blowing works better around pots on patios too. The wheelbarrow was taken apart this week. I hadn't used it for years. Okay the wheel was flat and too small but I really didn't miss it. When I need to move heavy bags I turn them end over end or use a furniture mover. Haven't moved loose stuff since we got rid of the truck and would get a two wheeled cart if I need to move such stuff. Home Depot has an incredible deal annually on a small one by Ames but I resisted. This year. I think a hand truck would be better than a furniture mover but that's what I've got. I use a concrete mixing trough more than the wheelbarrow for mixing as it's more stable. Was bought as a dog wading pool so multipurpose. A tool rack is useful too. Couple years ago I made one from large PVC fittings I've been hoarding that resembles this Never enough wall space and leaning things makes for a tangle. This sort of thing keeps things straight and untangled for the first time since I started outdoor gardening.

My most used tools are my battery powered string weed trimmers that I use to trim the grass and weeds between my plants in my perennial beds. (Trimming is far easier than pulling weeds.) I seldom move a perennial, only if a plant really needs to be moved because conditions where I initially put it are killing it. I never divide my perennials. However, when I do need to move a perennial, when I am planting a new perennial, turning over the vegie patch in the fall, or planting tree seedlings via the "slit method," a good long handled shovel does the job. I have at least a dozen shovels, long handled to spare my back. My older ones have hardwood handles that are still holding up, and they trace their heritage back to the days when we had horses to care for and clean up after. Wooden handles on newer shovels are purported to break easily. Some newer shovels have fiberglass handles - bad choice of material. Like fiberglass fence posts, these shovel handles seem a great idea in the beginning but age and sunlight deteriorates them and you can experience the pain of a thousand microscopic splinters if you touch a "seasoned" pole of this material. The only way to salvage an aged fiberglass shovel handle is to wrap the length of it in duct tape. I bought this shovel a few years ago, thinking that it would be the ultimate tool for digging into root and rock infested soil, but it proved entirely useless. The medieval-looking serrated edge tangles in weeds rather than cutting through them. It has been relegated to a museum piece on my barn wall, interesting to look at, but no practical value. I had such high hopes for it, but it is nothing more than a conversation piece now. As to forks, I prefer my standard pitchfork, also dating back to the days of horses, and moving hay bales. I have a host of short handled gardening tools, but I find that they are only good for planting annuals in pots or containers. My back has seen better days, and long handled tools cause the least damage.

If you have a Kitchenaid mixer, you can get a grater attachment for it. That's what I mainly use for grating cheese, and I tend to leave it on the mixer most of the time. It's very powerful and won't break, and you can use the fine grater attachment for hard cheeses, even though I do use a microplane some of the time for that. The regular grater will grate the softest cheese, including fresh mozzarella, although that I usually slice. Plus you have only one part to wash. Lars

Wisconsin was on the list, but I'm sorry dear...I need the entire 6000 sq ft :oP I want a big sewing room and DH insists on adequate wine storage...we have a 3 year old so that's a LOT of wine. Speaking of wine...do you drink? I think taking up drinking always helps with old house restoration issues :oP You know, we've taken this question of yours and applied it to all of the homes we've looked at throughout the country, mostly in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Washington. These big old beauties in particular are rather daunting when it comes to the sheer magnatude of work required to do the basic stuff that has to be done regularly, let alone the every so often stuff like new roofs. The one we had agreed to go ahead on had a serious need for an immediate paint job outside. $30,000!!! Ouch and you get to do that how many times in a lifetime? But if you can afford to love the joint, without being rediculous (we have looked at a couple of houses that were just too far gone to make it a wise investment) it is a rewarding task, especially with a beauty like yours. One of the houses we seriously considered was Starrett House (in port townsend wa, google it...it's gorgeous) ok it's gorgeous on the outside, and superficially on the inside, but when you start poking around you realize the serious needs. That gorgeous home, for sale for about a million, needs about a million put into it to bring it back to the show house it as when I was a little girl. It's an amazing home, and I absolutely would love to do it, but at that amount it's a rediculous purchase. I guess that would be the definative "unhealthy investment" although you'd be buying one of the nicest and most distinct homes in the pacific NW so I can see how someone could be talked into believing it was worthwhile...we even caught ourselves trying to justify the purchase LOL I hope your beauty has many many years ahead of her. She's amazing and if you stay or sell, I'm sure she's the type of home that will find the right people...homes like that normally do!