In the wide spectrum of home improvement projects, from winging it with a roll of duct tape to definitely hiring a licensed contractor, theres an expanding middle zone of semi-complex projects people want to do on their own. Some, like hanging shelves, are straightforward. Others, like putting up an accent wall or repairing damaged baseboards, require a bit more know-how. But even these projects are being tackled by relative home improvement novices, and social media is awash with beginners documenting DIY home improvement projects and decoration jobs, racking up tens of millions of views on the way.The dirty secret of these viral videos is that while the person doing the project may not have much experience, they definitely have the tools for the jobtools most beginners either dont have, cant afford, or cant cram into their small apartments. So while a 30-second video might make replacing a countertop look manageable, it cant get done without a fair amount of equipment.[Photo: Dremel]Dremel, the brand known for its craft-centric rotary tools, has a new line of affordable and compact tools designed specifically for the DIY home improvement beginner. Reverse engineered by analyzing the steps involved in finishing hundreds of the most common home DIY projects, Dremels new Blueprint system of compact tools aims to enable users to do projects with as few tools as possible.The first two tools in the Blueprint line, now on sale, are a $99 handheld drill with a built-in stud finder and laser level, and a surprisingly compact $149 portable saw station with a battery-operated miniature circular saw. Like hyper-optimized contractors gear, these tools cram functionality into tiny packages that dont need a workshops worth of space to store.Like a miter saw, but less terrifyingThe idea for these tools came from seeing just how popular DIY home improvement has become on social media, but also how misleading some of these videos can be. Jeremy Rubens, Dremels business innovation manager, says hes encountered too many videos of DIY influencers advising their viewers to invest in equipment not meant for beginners. A repeated suggestion is a miter saw, a hulking tabletop machine with a 10-inch blade thats most often seen slicing two-by-fours on construction sites. These are really big tools that I would never recommend a beginner buying, Rubens says. That was a little bit of a spark to say, how could we do it better? How could we actually design tools for these people that want to be creative and do core projects but that wouldnt need to have all these crazy pro tools?Dremels product team dove deep into what exactly beginners were doing with their tools, and how those projects might be better handled. Rubens, along with Dremel global product director Saad Alam, launched an analysis of the most common DIY projects around a house or apartment, encountering everything from hanging a gallery of frames on a wall to refinishing dressers to building headboards. They had DIYers create video diaries of their projects, logging what they were doing step-by-step. Then the Dremel team broke each project down into its nine main steps and identified the tools used on those important parts of each project. What they found was a lot of cuttingchopping boards in half, ripping long pieces of wood to narrower bands, sawing angles. The jobs are all the same, Alam says.The miter saw, it turns out, is the kind of tool a lot of projects need. But with its massive blade, large size, and general danger, the miter saw is a tool most beginners probably shouldnt be using.[Photo: Dremel]A miter saws designed around a two-by-four [inch] capacity, which is why it has a huge blade. And what we realized is a lot of these projects are actually done with one-by type wood. A lot of them have to do with trim and decorating, taking furniture and putting accent details around it, or taking Ikea furniture and doing Ikea hacks, Rubens says.People dont really want to deal with giant saw blades, Alam adds. So that was a focus: How do we actually design these from an industrial design standpoint to be much more approachable and actually fit in the hands of a wide variety of users and genders.[Photo: Dremel]Compact-tool form factorThe result is Blueprint, the new line of compact Dremel tools. One is a kind of miniature circular saw, with a blade just 3 and three-quarters of an inch in diameter and able to cut straight through a standard 1-inch board. The saw is accompanied by an expanding case that doubles as a sawing station, allowing frame- and laser-guided straight cuts, diagonal miters, and angled bevels. Detaching the saw from the station and clamping on a guide, it can also be used to rip longer lengths of wood. [Photo: Dremel]Using a Blueprint saw station lent by Dremel, I found that each of these cuts was easy to accomplish, and far less intimidating that firing up a bigger saw. Crouched in my laundry room on a recent frigid winter day, I was able to use the saw, its station, and its guides and clamps to cut through several 1-inch boards, and to rip plywood into multiple pieces. With a 12-volt battery, the saw is not a heavy-duty machine, and encountered a little kickback going through some of the last cuts, but it eventually made its way through. One limitation is that the blade is not long enough to perform a full 45-degree bevel cut on a nominal 1-inch board, which would be useful for, say, cutting wood to redo baseboards around a corner.Another shortcoming is that the saw cant cut through a two-by-four in one go; A board would have to be cut once, flipped, then cut again. If youre not framing a house where you need 100 two-by-four cuts, its good enough, says Alam. Itll get you through the project.The Blueprint systems focus on smaller home improvement and home decoration projects means that it doesnt have to boast the power nor, importantly, the size of a typical tool. Rubens says Dremels industrial designers worked through prototype after prototype to squeeze down the size, making the system small enough for people who may live in apartments or condos, or who may lack workshop space in a basement or garage. Thats evident in the Blueprint multi-drill tool, which is a shrunken version of the standard electric drill, more akin to a garden hose nozzle than the gun-shaped drills of professional workshops. An extra bit of shielding in front of the handle looks like some kind of finger protector but actually holds the tools built-in stud finder, which quickens the pace of common uses like hanging frames or shelves. There was a lot of work done to try to figure out how to pack that stud finder in the front without it getting in the way, Rubens says.Dremels research on common DIY projects helped to identify which tools can do double or triple duty, tackling major elements of a project without the time it takes to switch toolsor go back over to the utility closet to find another piece of equipment. Were not expecting our users to buy a tool that only does one thing, Rubens says.Aside from the multi-drill and the saw station, other tools will soon follow, though Dremel declined to identify them. The product teams approach is to narrow in on the tasks people need to get done most often, and then build the tool capacity that fits as many of those needs as possible. The goal for us is to have a platform of somewhere around six to eight core products that can do hundreds of different DIY projects, Alam says. We joke around that its strange that were a power tool company that wants to sell you the least amount of tools.