Our first stop was a Lowe's store in San Francisco, California. This is one of the company's 2,200 or more locations in North America, according to Lowe's website.
Source: Lowe's
Upon walking in, we saw trash bins and brooms, just to name a couple of the mounds of different products lining the shelves and aisles.
But after that, the hammers were easy to find. Lowe's had a wide selection of them, which was a little overwhelming to us home-improvement novices.
There were multiple brands, and prices were varied, too. Some were priced under $10, while others were closer to $30.
She told us that if we were looking for a basic hammer just to keep around the house, a $5.98 fiberglass-handle option (pictured on the left) was the way to go.
Shelling out $6 for the tool seemed to be a good deal. Plus, it didn't take long at all to locate the hammers.
And it wasn't difficult to find the tape measures, either — they were right across the aisle from the hammers.
... but we looked for a 25-foot measure, since that's usually a safe bet for most users. This Craftsman one below was priced at $19.98.
Source: Business Insider and How Stuff Works
Another 25-foot non-stainless measure by Kobalt cost $12.98, so there was a bit of a range in pricing.
The first thing we noticed, though, was a bunch of intimidating drawers that we thought would have nails in them, but they turned out to be nuts, washers, and screws.
There was a $4.48 assortment of box nails, which are similar to your average common nail, that would seem like a good purchase.
Source: Britannica
And finding everything was a breeze, which made entering a specialty home-improvement store less of a headache.
It was also reassuring to know that if we had come into the store with a list of items needed to complete a do-it-yourself project, there would have been plenty of help at our disposal.
There were signs posted around the store for customers with questions. One even advertised an app that you could download to help you find a product you're looking for.
Others promoted meet-and-greets that could help further educate customers. And throughout our visit, at least three sales associates passed us and asked if we needed help finding something.
Another user-friendly aspect we appreciated were these handy visual explainers above product sections, like a bathroom drain graphic showing what a P Trap was.
If the need arose for a replacement of that specific toilet part, navigating the selection would be less daunting with easy-to-read visuals displayed above it.
And for customers looking to create their own gallery wall in their home, for instance, there was a designated section for hanging frames instead of shoppers having to independently hunt down each thing.
There were, however, also aisles lined with bare materials that seemed clearly more designed for a more advanced do-it-yourself project. One had boards of wood in varying lengths and widths.
The store we visited is one of the company's 2,284 North American locations. The aroma of wood was overpowering before we even walked past the entrance doors, and there was sawdust sprinkled across the floor in certain areas.
Source: Home Depot
With its high ceilings, the warehouse-like Home Depot gave off an industrial feel to seemingly draw in more professional home improvers.
We looked for the hammers immediately, which were easy to find. The size of the selection was comparable to the selection at Lowe's, and the hammers were from different brands and in varying sizes and prices.
There was also a useful graphic above the rows to help customers make their selection, like how to opt for a lighter hammer for general use or a hammer with a longer handle for framing things.
We looked for a similar general-purpose fiberglass handle option and found one on the bottom shelf for $6.97, which was a bit more expensive than the one at Lowe's. There were also more inexpensive wooden ones.
A few aisles over, we found tape measures by brands like DeWalt, Stanley, and the more affordable Anvil.
Source: The Wire Cutter
There was a Stanley 25-foot measure for $6.97, which seemed like one of the best deals in the section.
... and we looked for a versatile nail kit like the one we found at Lowe's but didn't find one. On Home Depot's website, though, we found this $3.98 98-piece assortment.
Source: Home Depot
I could have used Home Depot's app to search for the item and figure out where to find it in the store. I also could have asked one of the sales associates I saw walking around — there was at least one in almost every aisle I ventured down.
In fact, there were a number of elements in the store that seemed to meet the home-improvement beginner halfway.
There was a color-coded banner in the nail aisle describing which nail finish would best suit a customer's needs.
Another service Home Depot offered to simplify matters was free carpet installation — there was a large banner promoting it at the store's entrance. Lowe's has a similar service.
Source: Lowe's
And we found tons of other product categories for the home remodeler in the store, like light fixtures ...
The appliances section, filled with refrigerators, washing machines, and dryers, seemed endless and more vast than Lowe's. They also seemed better grouped together than at Lowe's.
Overall, we found most of our items within five minutes at Home Depot, the prices were low, and the overall selections across multiple departments were much more extensive than at Lowe's.
But how does Walmart, a store with much less of a focus on home improvement, measure up to Home Depot or Lowe's in terms of finding basic items?
Upon walking into this Walmart, we saw a navigation banner directing customers to the left, toward the lawn and garden section, which we followed ...
... and just like that, we were in the home section. Though Walmart isn't a home improvement retailer like Home Depot or Lowe's, we found it considerably easier to navigate to where we needed to go to find our basic items.
And we pinpointed the hammers in no time at all. However, if we'd had trouble finding them, tracking down a sales associate would have taken some time — it was a ghost town in that part of the store.
Though our choices were more limited, we found a Stanley fiberglass hammer for $4.88, a price much lower than over at Lowe's or Home Depot.
It was the same with the tape measures that were further down the aisle: there were fewer options, but that can be a good thing when you're trying to make a decision.
... and also a $13.97 25-foot option by Komelon, so there was a price range even with the limited supply.
And finally, one aisle over, there were small boxes of different kinds of nails for under a dollar, which seemed like a great deal. It took perhaps one minute to locate all three items in Walmart.
The best part about Walmart was that because the home-improvement section was smaller, all the basics were so close to each other.
The hammers, the nails, and the tape measures were all either in the same aisle or just one aisle away from each other.
And like at Home Depot and Lowe's, Walmart's shopping process was streamlined. For example, there was an area where customers could find everything needed to hang a frame.
There were plenty of helpful samples and explainers in the paint department, just like at Home Depot and Lowe's.
Though the paint brands weren't as popular as the ones at Lowe's or Home Depot — Behr and Sherwin-Williams, just to name some that the latter two carry, are fairly recognizable household names ...
Source: Good Housekeeping
... they did carry Glidden, which has been found to be of similar quality as the bigger players like Behr. We saw Glidden advertised at Home Depot as well.
Source: Good Housekeeping and Consumer Reports
