Leroy Merlin e as nossas últimas aventuras

As manufacturers of DIY product ourselves, it's in our interest to know as much as possible about the do-it-yourself industry, stores and marketplace. However as tool aficionados too, this also gives us the perfect mix of business and pleasure. Letting us indulge our passion for tools with keeping our fingers on the pulse of all that's going on within the business. And that, is how we came to visit Leroy Merlin recently.

As  you probably know, int the course of this "research" we do have a whole heap of fun. You'll no doubt already have seen much of our tool tourism in which we do a good amount of too shopping too. Important to add, we love supporting smaller independent businesses wherever we can, and very frequently do. However there's a place for the traditional DIY, home or hardware store in all our lives, and that's what we're exploring today.

All about DIY stores

At home here in the UK, our staple DIY store is B&Q. This is mainly based on geography as there aren't many Wickes, Homebases or The Range etc particularly close to us.. Now though we've been exploring even further afield. The USA, of course, was a real hotbed of home and DIY stores. The scale of which, we're simply not used to here at home. However our most recent trips to Europe have unearthed yet more beauties in the world of DIY shopping for us.

Until very recently, Germany had been our last tour of choice, where we found OBI and Bauhaus stores, and amassed a great collection of tools and cases duting our travels. Now though, our most recent trip has taken us across the channel, and we visited France, having a jolly old time unearthing all manner of finds at Leroy Merlin.

About Leroy Merlin

For anyone who hasn't come across those guys before, they're a French multi-national. As you'll see from our trip, they very much specialise in home improvement products. Founded way back in the 1920's by Mr Leroy and Ms Merlin (hence the name!) they were a real revelation!

Interestingly, this store originally started as a surplus goods outlet, selling leftover products from World War I. However over time, this has developed and evolved into the dedicated home improvement store we see today. We found them in France, of course, but they now operate in over 13 countries. And it's own brand Dexter tools proved to have some real gems for us during our trip.

Of course, there's aways method in this madness. We are constantly on the look out for new tools for our collection. And importantly for new tool box brands that we can add to our expansive range of ready made tool box inserts. 

We hope you enjoy our latest adventure at Leroy Merlin, but it would be great to know if anyone out there have more recommendations of places we should see or brands we should check out... please do drop us a note if you do!