Why we started this

Most "best of" lists on the internet are written by people who never opened the boxes. We've worked in editorial and content for over a decade, and we got tired of seeing the same recycled affiliate roundups masquerading as advice. So in early 2026 we started Handyfinds: a small, independent home-and-yard blog that publishes only what we've actually used.

The format is simple. We buy a product (usually with our own money, occasionally we'll borrow one from a friend or a local hardware store), use it for as long as it takes to form a real opinion, and then write up what we found. If a product doesn't earn a recommendation, we say so — or we don't publish at all.

The Handyfinds team

We're a team of three based on Long Island, NY. Between us we cover what you'd expect from a household that gets a lot of use out of a garage:

  • Editorial & testing — long-form reviews, methodology, and the actual hours-on-tool grind.
  • Photography — every image on this site is shot in our own homes, sheds, and backyards.
  • Fact-checking & copy editing — every published piece gets read by at least one person who didn't write it.

We don't list our individual names on every byline because the work is collaborative. When one of us tests a tool, the others ask the obvious questions: What broke first? Would you buy it again? What did the marketing oversell? Those answers are the article.

What we cover

Our beat is intentionally narrow. We write about:

  • Outdoor & yard tools — pressure washers, hose-bib timers, weeders, leaf vacuums, the occasional cordless drill.
  • Cleaning gadgets — small electric scrubbers, steam cleaners, vacuum attachments, hard-to-find brushes.
  • Garage & storage — shelving, pegboards, totes, anything that has to survive a Northeast winter.
  • Garden gear — drip lines, soil meters, planters, cold frames.

We don't cover smartphones, headphones, kitchen knives, or anything else that already has a thousand reviewers doing it better than we could.

Editorial independence

This is where we want to be plainly honest with you, because it matters:

  • We have never published a sponsored post and we don't plan to.
  • No brand has approval rights over our copy. We don't send drafts to manufacturers.
  • We sometimes earn a commission when a reader clicks a link in our reviews and buys something. That commission does not change the price you pay, and it does not influence what we recommend. We've recommended products that pay us nothing, and we've panned products that pay generously.

For the full picture, see our affiliate disclosure and editorial standards. They're the most-read pages on this site for a reason.

How we test

Every product gets at least one of: a fixed test protocol (timing, measurements, repeated tasks), a multi-week real-world stretch where we just live with it, or both. We've written a separate piece walking through our methodology in detail — see How we test products at Handyfinds.

How to reach us

If you have a tip, a correction, or a product you think we should look at, the best way is the contact form or just an email to hello@handyfinds.co. We read everything, even if we can't always reply quickly.

Thanks for being here.

— The Handyfinds team