AllTheToolsYouNeed.com

Here’s something you don’t hear every day… for anyone wanting a really high-quality drill, the Bosch brand reportedly has the endorsement of a Russian brain surgeon.

According to a story in The Times, Henry Marsh, a consultant at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, South London, visits Kiev twice a year to assist his colleague Igor Petrovich at a neurology clinic.

In Britain Mr Marsh is accustomed to using a £30,000 medical drill driven by compressed air. But equipment in the Ukrainian capital is so scarce that the men have resorted to a £30 Bosch RSR960 to drill holes through patients’ skulls:

Surgeon uses DIY drill to perform brain operations

…Many of the operations, such as those to remove tumours, are done without general anaesthetic – a common practice in this type of surgery. By talking to the patient, surgeons can gauge precisely how far they can go without damaging vulnerable parts of the brain.

Mr Marsh has now taken a drill designed for medical use to Kiev. “I’m not recommending that we should all use Bosch do-it-yourself drills in England,” Mr Marsh said. “But it shows how with improvisation you can achieve a lot. Read on here…

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed to keep updated on all the latest news and offers. Thanks for visiting!

Which way is consumer spending going? Will the home improvement market expand or contract in the months to come?

One school of thought believes that DIY might get a shot in the arm from uncertainty about the housing market, saying that householders are choosing to improve when they can’t move.

If this sounds appealing, then what’s the best approach to take to maximising the value and enjoyment you get from your living space? Here are Times writer Kasia Maciejowska’s tips for 10 great ways to add value to your home:

Top ten: Home improvements

MOVE or improve? A familiar question if you’re faced with lack of space, a growing family or itchy feet. With 58 per cent of us improving our homes over the past year (12 per cent more than the year before), we prefer making do to moving out.

Faced with high house prices, the popular solution is to expand or improve with the aim of adding value – and now younger people are getting involved, with 68 per cent of people between 18 and 34 investing time and money in doing up their home.

So how to achieve that extra £100,000? A fifth of improvers think a kitchen extension will add the most value, although the most common project is redecoration, making up two thirds of all home improvements. Here we give ten of the best projects to make the most of your home.

Valuers at Halifax say an extension is the top option for adding value, as long as work is properly carried out. For structural projects employ a professional to ensure you comply with planning regulations. A good extension should create at least one extra room and be used to bring light into the house.

A loft conversion is the second most profitable option. While maximising existing space, it can increase the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, two key valuation factors. Read full article here…

Are you dreaming about banishing Britain’s grey skies in favour of exotic sun and sand? And, if so, will you be foregoing home improvements to pay for your summer break?

That’s the suggestion made in a BBC Online article this week. Mind you, they are quoting a spokeswoman from the Association of British Travel Agents. Perhaps if they’d spoken to someone from a major DIY chain it would have been a different story altogether.

Still it’s an interesting point. What will be people’s spending priorities in 2008?

With an expected downturn in the UK property market, as discussed in this article on the Easier Property website, home improvements are going to look like an increasingly attractive option for people who feel unwilling or unable to sell up and move on.

We reckon it’s probably too close to call at the moment - but we’ll be watching the business pages with interest…

Is holiday fever going to spread?

Perhaps it is the winter chill, or maybe the fast disappearing memory of Christmas, but at this time of year our thoughts turn to summer holidays.

Booking season starts in earnest after the first pay packets of the year arrive.

But will families be digging deep for a place in the sun as rising fuel bills start to land on the doormat, credit is harder to come by and house prices stall?

They already have been, according to Frances Tuke, spokeswoman for Abta. She says Abta members have been reporting a very busy January and February, although there are no figures yet to back this up.

“People will find a way to pay. They tend to cut back on things on home improvements and still go on holiday,” she says.

She predicts that spending on foreign travel will stay around the same this year as in 2007. Read full article here…

Screwfix has got together with publisher Collins to help you sort out your DIY woes. It’s published a series of how-to videos to promote the publication of The Complete DIY Manual and to help you tackle some common jobs around the house.

Below is a tutorial on hanging shelves, but you can view a whole range of other topics including draught-proofing windows, banishing floorboard creaks and repairing damaged plasterboard. View the whole set here. You can also follow that link to win a copy of the manual - competition ends on March 30.

Click here to view shelving products at Screwfix.

One of the UK’s largest DIY businesses has appointed a new boss - and it’s someone close to home.

Kingfisher Plc, the DIY giant that owns B&Q, Screwfix and Trade Depot, has appointed Ian Cheshire as its chief executive officer.

Formerly the chief Executive of B&Q, he starts his new job with its parent company today.

This follows the announcement on November 1 2007 that Gerry Murphy was to stand down after five years in the job.

The new CEO’s job will include the task of reversing a sales decline at B&Q, currently the UK’s largest home improvements chain.

Since he took the reins at the company, he has instigated big changes there.

Kingfisher says that a third of B&Q’s large stores are now trading successfully in a modern format and more than 60 per cent of product ranges have been renewed.

It says Mr Cheshire “will continue to work closely with the B&Q management team to ensure the momentum behind its renewal programme continues.”

The company has now started a search for a new managing director for that company.

We all like things to stay familiar - which has a lot to do with the success of the big High Street DIY chains.

Go into a store and you’ll find exactly what you’re used to, whether you’re in Aberdeen or Ashby de la Zouch, and often in approximately the same position.

But it’s looking like we may have to get used to a few changes.

According to this business article in the American publication Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the UK DIY market could be in for a degree of consolidation.

It is predicting that we could see the break-up of the powerful Kingfisher group, and B&Q being taken over by the major US chain Home Depot:

British chain could open door for Home Depot

Only five years ago, B&Q — the Home Depot of Britain — was riding high in a booming do-it-yourself market. With new chief executive Gerry Murphy at the helm of parent company Kingfisher, the B&Q chain’s profits were buoyed by a nation hooked on home makeover TV shows.

But after two years of decline in Britain’s troubled DIY market, Murphy is due to step down in February, and some analysts say the move could set the stage for an acquisition by Atlanta-based Home Depot, sending it into Europe for the first time.

The analysts believe that with Murphy gone, the Kingfisher group could break up, spinning off the core B&Q business and the chain’s operations in Asia and Russia, the Castorama DIY business in France, and a 21 percent stake in Hornbach, the leading DIY business in Germany.

Thanks to a slumping U.S. housing market, international operations have become key to Home Depot’s growth. Read full article here…