40 Quick Home Hacks That Make Us Say “Why Didn’t We Know About These Sooner”

This article appeared in Thefashionball and has been published here with permission.

These Hacks Are So Quick!

They say your home is your castle. So it’s understandable that you might want to upgrade it in as many ways as possible, whether that’s to save money, make life more convenient, or just enjoy yourself more. You can get some upgrades simply by purchasing them, but you can also employ some hacks in order to make those upgrades happen. Such hacks are usually clever, much cheaper, and even fun to make happen. In this article, we’ll talk about some nifty home hacks that will make you wonder how you didn’t think of them before.

Make Your Windows Look Bigger

While this little trick won’t actually change the size of your windows, it will create an optical illusion that makes them seem bigger than they are. Simply by hanging your curtains in a wider and higher manner, your windows will appear much bigger than they really are.

Make Your Windows Look Bigger

You may wonder why this would be worth doing, but the illusion of bigger windows means an illusion of more light and a less cloistered room, and what you perceive can be just as important to your happiness as what really is. So why not?

Grocery Bag Storage

There’s no reason to throw away grocery bags you get from the store. Those things can be really useful! That said, if you have a lot of grocery bags, you may not know where to put them. The answer for this hack is… a tissue box. You can store all those bags in a tissue box.

Grocery Bag Storage

Then you can keep them all in one tidy place, and pull them out of the box one by one as you need them for whatever you need them to do. It’s a great way to reuse something that many people would otherwise throw away, even though they shouldn’t.

Headphone Hangers

Anyone that has a pair of headphones knows the difficulty that is finding somewhere to put them when not in use. They have a tendency to fall when we really don’t want them to. In order to get around that, consider using a banana hanger: it’s perfect for the job.

Headphone Hangers

It will hold your headphones with little trouble, and stop them from falling all over the place, which is all any of us can really ask for in an easy home hack. Of course, there’s lots of other places you could hang some headphones, but this one works particularly well.

Storing Spherical Ornaments

A whole lot of ornaments are round or spherical in some way or form. Storing them can become a big headache if you don’t really have the containers to do that properly. The good news is that there are plenty of useful alternatives: have you ever seen a Costco apple container?

Storing Spherical Ornaments

They are the perfect shape to store all the ornaments you need, keeping them secure no matter where you choose to store them. And of course, apples aren’t particularly expensive, so getting your hands on these plastic containers is pretty easy and cheap.

Make Your Own Flexible Adhesive Cover for Cords

Speaking of hiding cords, it can be kind of difficult to do that when those cords twist and bend around in many ways. But you can hide any cord if you use scissors to break adhesive cord-cutters into smaller pieces. By doing this, you can cover nearly any cord.

Make Your Own Flexible Adhesive Cover for Cords

No matter how tricky it may be to hide a cord that is all twisted and weird, by cutting up your adhesive covers into small pieces, there’s pretty much no cord that you can’t hide, and all it takes is a little bit of time and some scissors.

Flip the Fan Switch

Did you know that most ceiling fans have a switch on them that you can use to control the direction of the ventilation? Flipping this switch reverses the way the fan spins. Do this during the winter, and the warm air that rises to the ceiling will be pushed back down.

Flip the Fan Switch

This is a great way to keep your house warmer in the winter, so you can spend less money on heating and electricity. It’s a simple thing you can do that will save you a lot more than you think in terms of finances and energy.

Extend Soap Pump Longevity

Do you have a built-in soap pump for your kitchen sink? Do you have to refill it too often? Consider running a plastic tube from the soap dispenser to a large soap container under the sink. It’s not like this will make your soap supply limitless, but it will certainly extend the gap between refills.

Extend Soap Pump Longevity

The good news is that this is a very simple hack that you can do with minimal handicraft experience or knowledge. All you need is some basic tools that you can easily buy from any typical department store, making it a great hack.

Disguise TV Cords

No one likes looking at TV cords hanging down from a wall-mounted TV. Usually, there’s not too many ways to actually hide them that doesn’t look bad. But if you can find colors that match, you can use a cheap shower rod to hide them.

Disguise TV Cords

If you can find a hollow one, that would work best, but even if you find a regular one, you can hide the wires behind it with adhesive. This hack mostly requires you to match colors effectively, but if you can do it, it’s a pretty straightforward hack.

Privacy at Low Expense

Sometimes, your windows provide too much insight into your private life. A curtain could stop that, but also stop the light from getting in. There is a way to create a semi-transparent covering that will provide you with privacy, but still let the light in.

Privacy at Low Expense

All it takes is a cornstarch and water mixture applied over lace or even plain white paper. By doing this, you can stop people from looking into your windows, but not stop the light from coming in. It’s the best of both worlds, and isn’t very hard to do.

Dress Up the Closet Doors

Do your closet doors feel a little bare in your bedroom? Well, there’s a pretty cheap way to do that. Sprucing up your closet doors is as simple as adding some cheap, full body mirrors to those doors. They are quite affordable, easy to set up, and do a pretty good job of adding some décor to the room.

Dress Up the Closet Doors

Overall, it’s a really easy thing you can do in your home that doesn’t cost much time, money, or effort. That is, of course, the best kind of hacks available. Nothing better than cheap and easy, while still achieving the goal in mind.

Use Two Shower Curtains Instead of One

Do you feel that your shower just isn’t elegant enough? Well, that’s not actually a hard thing to fix. Just use two shower curtains instead of one. Everyone knows that being able to part curtains is much more elegant than sliding just one to the left or right.

Use Two Shower Curtains Instead of One

That may just be bias on our part, but if you want a cheap and easy way to alter your bathroom just a little bit, this is a perfectly viable way to do that, and it’s not very expensive either, making it a side project that won’t cost you much in time or money.

Making Paint Easier

Some surfaces need multiple coats of paint, but you don’t want your paint brushes to dry out in the meantime. Rather than washing them in-between coats, put them in a plastic bag and refrigerate them. When it is time to use the brushes again, you’ll just need them to thaw out.

Making Paint Easier

This prevents the paint from drying on your brush, and you don’t have to wash them while waiting for one coat of paint to dry. This nifty trick could save quite some time for anyone doing some DIY work around the house, if they just remember to do it.

Efficient Vase Filling

Do you need to fill a vase for some aesthetic purpose? Well, whatever you want to fill a vase with, you can save on that filler by putting some sort of large object in the vase first to take up space. Take the image below, for example: the wine bottle means less cork is needed to fill this vase.

Efficient Vase Filling

You can use this strategy no matter what type of vase or type of filler you are using. Marbles, cork, pebbles, you name it: less space to fill means less filler wasted, which means more vases that can be filled with the same amount of filler.

Pad Out Rugs

Rug a little too thin for your liking? This hack solves that problem. Just pad it out a bit with some carpet padding. Not only is carpet padding often thicker than a rug pad, but they tend to be cheaper too. This means you spend less money for more comfort.

Pad Out Rugs

We’ll admit that carpet padding isn’t exactly attractive, but then again, you’re hiding it under a rug that presumably is attractive, so that shouldn’t really be a problem. It’s a cheap and comfortable solution to a common annoyance.

File Holder Help

Speaking of maximizing your storage space, consider how useful a file holder could be. Most people don’t think about this because most people don’t use file holders, but a quick look at the image below, and you’ll see just how useful they could be for your cabinet space.

File Holder Help

Kitchen or bathroom, any cabinet could acquire a significant amount of space by taping a file holder to the inside of the door. Remember, the inside door has plenty of free room to take advantage of, and it would be remiss not to do so!

Plot Out Your Paintings

Are you unsure if a painting will really fit where you want it to be? Or do you just have a ton of art that needs to be hanged? If you want to know how everything will look before you commit to it, just try making little templates or placeholders out of paper or cardboard or something.

Plot Out Your Paintings

By doing this, you can see how things will roughly look before you actually commit to hanging any pictures, which means you won’t have holes in walls where you ultimately don’t want them, among other things. It’s also very easy to do this, which is a plus.

Protecting the Thumb

Speaking of hanging pictures, if you are going to be hammering in the nails by hand, your thumb could be in danger. That being said, consider this hack: use a pair of pliers or a clothespin to hold the nail in place while hammering, as opposed to your hand.

Protecting the Thumb

By doing this, you completely nullify any danger of whacking yourself with the hammer while you are doing your work, and all it requires is for you to have one of these items lying around, which let’s be honest, most people do.

Customize Your Dresser or Side Table

Do you want to switch up your aesthetic in the bedroom or something? This can seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. You don’t have to paint the cabinets or replace them entirely. Simply switch out the knobs and you can actually create a whole new look.

Customize Your Dresser or Side Table

The good news is that you can buy a huge variety of knobs from stores for very cheap, so there’s no end to the amount of variety available to you. It’s a cheap and easy way to change the feel of the furniture, and by extension, the room.

Avoid Trashcan Suction

Does your plastic trash can liner often get stuck in the can itself? Or does it come out when you don’t want it to? There’s an easy way to avoid the travails of this suction: simply drill some holes in the plastic liner. By allowing some air to get through, you avoid the suction problems.

Avoid Trashcan Suction

And of course, this doesn’t really cause any problems for the plastic liner as a whole. In fact, you can drill a great many holes into it and have no real problems at all. Of course, you don’t really need to drill that many holes, but you could.

Easy Tub Scrubbing

Nobody we know enjoys the process of scrubbing their tub. But with this nifty hack, it can be made a lot easier. All it requires is a broom and some dish soap. With a new broom, you have a ton of scrubbing power that you can exert without having to bend your knees or back too much.

Easy Tub Scrubbing

And of course, that makes the whole task a whole lot more approachable, doesn’t it? Why settle for hurting your body when you don’t have to do that? Of course, you might have to dedicate a broom to this one task for cleanliness, but brooms are cheap.

Wipe Greasy Pans Easily

Cleaning pans with burnt crap on them is hard, and not at all fun. However, there is an easy way to take care of it. Fill the pan with hot water, dish soap, and believe it or not, a dryer sheet. Let it sit for awhile, and after that bit of soaking is over, you’ll easily be able to wipe away all that grime.

Wipe Greasy Pans Easily

Of course, dryer sheets are super cheap to get in bulk, so there’s really no harm in using them for this particular purpose. It’s a cheap and easy hack that doesn’t really cost much to employ, which is of course, our favorite kind of hack.

Opening Stuck Jars

Everyone knows how painfully difficult it can be to open stuck jars. Trying to do it barehanded can be a pain for your hands and your sanity. While it might not work on the tightest of jars, you could try using duct tape. It requires you to use a special technique, however.

Opening Stuck Jars

Simply wrap the duct tape around the lid, fold the duct tape so it’s stuck to both sides, and pull. This might not work on the toughest jars, but it will work better than your bare hands on almost any jar. It’s just something to give a try.

Make Your Shower Rod Smoother

If your shower curtains often have some issues with sliding across your shower rod, you can use this retail hack to make things a little easier. Rub wax paper across your shower rod, and you’ll find that your shower curtains slide much more smoothly than before.

Make Your Shower Rod Smoother

This is actually a hack that retail employees do when they have product that has to hang on rails, including shower curtains. That being the case, you can rest assured that it will definitely work in your home, seeing as how it works in stores.

Create Your Own Organizer

Any hack that can help your organize your life is a good one. Lots of people have large amounts of plastic containers in their kitchen, and keeping them in check can be a hassle. The answer is, oddly enough, more plastic containers. One big one, to be exact.

Create Your Own Organizer

Combine this big plastic box with a shoe divider and you have just created your own divided storage unit for all of your plastic containers, and it can even be inserted into drawers if you pick the right size. Now that’s one nifty home hack.

Preventing Water Spots

As everyone knows, water spots do a fine job of making your faucets and other appliances look dirtier. Believe it or not, a wax paper hack can serve you pretty well right here as well. Once you clean the surfaces that you have in mind, rub them down with wax paper.

Preventing Water Spots

By doing this, you’ll prevent water spots from forming as easily from there on out. It’s a cheap and effective way to cut back on how many times you’ll have to clean these surfaces, with less cleaning occasions and greater lengths between them.

Easy Pest Disposal

Have a gross bug that needs to be eliminated from the confines of your house? This hack will make the whole process much more bearable. Use a lint roller! Not only can you squish the bug with this, but the stickiness of the tool will pick the bug up too.

Easy Pest Disposal

On top of that, you can easily tear off the piece of the lint roller the bug is on and get rid of it however you choose to do so. It’s definitely one of the easiest ways to facilitate every aspect of bug disposal in one fell swoop.

Maintain Makeup Brushes

Is it hard to dry your brushes without the things losing shape? Well if that’s a problem, a hair elastic band is a pretty solid solution. By looping them around a towel rod, you can hang your brushes in a way that will allow them to air dry, so they won’t lose their shape.

Maintain Makeup Brushes

Best thing is, most of the people using makeup are probably the same people that have elastic hair bands on hand, so there’s really not a whole lot to do other than take the time to loop those bands effectively, which isn’t very hard.

Make Your Own Battery Connections

If a spring is lose in a remote or anything else that needs batteries, trying to get those batteries to fit can be nearly impossible. However, a bit of tinkering can help. A piece of tinfoil is all you need for this hack. Simply wedge it between the spring and the battery and you’re good to go.

Make Your Own Battery Connections

This is a really easy hack to do that doesn’t require much in the way of skill, time or money, and that makes it one of the best hacks in our books. After all, what more can you ask for when it comes to something like that?

DIY Kitchen/Bathroom Cleaner

Need to get cleaning, but don’t have any suitable liquids on hand? You can actually make your own. Vinegar, water and alcohol (the rubbing kind is best) can be combined to create a mixture that will clean mirrors, glass and even faucets until they shine. It’s surprisingly effective.

DIY Kitchen/Bathroom Cleaner

The best part is, these things are pretty easy to acquire in great amounts, so it can actually be a cheaper cleaning solution than dedicated cleaning liquids you would buy at the store. It’s always nice to have things be cheap and easy.

Color Coding Kids

If you have kids, you know how hard it can be to keep track of all of their things. But what if you color coded all of those things? If each kid has a color, it’s easy to keep track of what belongs to who at any point in time. This works wonders if you have hard time knowing what belongs to who.

Color Coding Kids

But moreover, this hack will ensure your kids don’t forget what belongs to who either. If you have multiple kids, this is a good way to ensure they don’t get their toothbrushes or towels mixed up. This hack even promotes hygiene, in that sense.

Organize the Cleaning Supplies

Do you have a ton of different cleaning supplies that are hard to keep track of? Here’s one easy hack that makes the whole thing super easy. Get a shoe organizer, and hang it from any door of your choosing. Now, you have a nifty rack that can hold all of your cleaning supplies.

Organize the Cleaning Supplies

As you may have surmised by now, most of the hacks on this list are really just ways to use other common household items for different purposes. Creativity really does pay off, if you know how to use it and where to look for potential.

Use Windex for Crayon Markings

Do you have kids that like to draw all over your walls with Crayons? Is the notion of cleaning those markings a huge bother for you? Well, there are easier ways to take care of such a problem. In fact, Windex is remarkably good at eliminating such stains.

Use Windex for Crayon Markings

You can just spray some Windex on a cloth and wipe away, easily getting rid of those markings without having to put a ton of effort into it. And of course, the easier it is to eliminate Crayon stains, the better it is for everyone.

Keep Pests Away

Ants, mice, roaches: all sorts of pests detest peppermint oil, and you can use it as a natural means of repelling them if you know what to do. Simply soak cotton balls in peppermint oil and place them in nooks and crannies around the house.

Keep Pests Away

By soaking up the oil, the peppermint scent will last longer, and thus repel pests for a decently long amount of time. At any rate, it will be longer than the other ways you could employ peppermint oil around the house, so that’s a plus.

Candles in Vases

Are you looking to put a candle in a hurricane vase? If you are, you’ll probably need to fill that vase, which is something we talked about earlier. In this case though, the best thing to do is put your candle on a can as a pedestal.

Candles in Vases

First of all, this pedestal will ensure that the candle is perfectly level. Secondly, it will take up space in the vase, thus ensuring that you use less filler than you would have if you had just filled the vase regularly. Efficient and practical, as hacks should preferably be.

Maximize Storage Space

Not enough space in your closets, cabinets and pantries? Consider this hack that makes use of those little wire containers. You can set them up pretty much anywhere you have a little available space in order to make little tiny shelves that can actually store things.

Maximize Storage Space

You’d be surprised how much extra space you could create for yourself simply by doing this. It doesn’t take much handicraft knowledge, nor does it require much of a financial investment. It’s quick and easy, and makes your storage more efficient.

Extending Spinach Life

Do your greens often spoil before you actually finish using all of them, even when stored properly? There is a way to get around this: put a paper towel with the greens when you store them. By doing this, the paper towel will absorb some of the moisture.

Extending Spinach Life

And by absorbing that moisture over a significant period of time, a mere paper towel will greatly extend the lifetime of your greens. It’s a fantastic way to make them last longer without having to invest in any particularly expensive device.

Create No Slip Hangers

This hack can make it so your clothes don’t fall off hangers, and it’s really cheap and easy to do. The only stuff you need is pipe cleaners. It’s a simple hack: wrap the pipe cleaner around the ends of your hangers, and just like that, no slipping.

Create No Slip Hangers

We don’t need to tell you how swift and easy it would be to make this hack work for you, and that’s not even mentioning the fact that it doesn’t cost much of anything to achieve. As we’ve said before, that’s what makes some hacks so great!

Cleaning Silver Tarnish

If you have tarnish on your silverware, that can make them especially unattractive. However, it’s actually not that hard to fix this. By rubbing toothpaste on the tarnish, you can actually get rid of it with just a bit of scrubbing.

Cleaning Silver Tarnish

You’d be surprised by just how much some mere toothpaste will go in cleaning up your silver, and you can use pretty much any type of toothpaste that you have available. A ingredient present in nearly all toothpaste is what makes all the difference, after all.

Keep the Toilet Flowing

Does your toilet flush not do as much work as you would like? Make sure your valve is all the way open by turning it to the left. If the water valve is only partially open, then the water flow isn’t as strong as it should be, and flushing isn’t as efficient.

Keep the Toilet Flowing

Basically, it works like the picture above. That’s the way you want things to be if you want the water flow to be as effective as possible. Needless to say, this will go a long way in helping you keep your toilet as clean as you want to.

Scent Your House

Do you have odors that are hard to get rid of in your house? You don’t have to spray Febreeze everywhere. Instead you can use this hack with vanilla extract. Put two or three drops on a cool lightbulb, then turn it on. The heat will warm up the vanilla extract, and make your room smell great!

Scent Your House

Just make sure you don’t try to do this while a lightbulb is actually on and warm, or you’ll probably just burn yourself. And remember, the smell might not be super overpowering, unless you apply this technique to a bunch of different lightbulbs at the same time.

Essential Oils

Essential oils provide multiple benefits to the body and the skin. They can also be used to add shine to the furniture in your home. The essential oils effectively clean those stubborn stains and spots besides providing a pleasant aroma.

Essential Oils

Just add two to three drops of any essential oil of your choice on the cloth before you begin the scrubbing. Did we tell you that its smell also keeps those bugs at bay?

Ice, Ice Baby

One of the downsides of burning a candle is the wax it leaves behind. No matter how hard you try, the wax of a finished candle always ends up spilling over onto the surface that the candle is sitting on. And it’s just very hard to scrape off.

Ice, Ice Baby

The solution is to place a plastic bag filled with some ice cubes over the wax. The ice will harden the wax, making it easy for you to scrape it off in a single stroke.

The Magic Eraser

PSA: Your hairdryer is actually one of the most functional items in your household. Besides being your hair’s BFF, your hairdryer can also come in handy when it comes to removing those nasty crayon markings off the wall that the kids left behind.

The Magic Eraser

Simply turn up the heat mode of your hairdryer and point it towards the marking on the wall for a few seconds. The heat will melt the wax, which can now be removed easily with a soft cloth.

Sticker Residue

Peeling the label off the jar is a pretty sticky situation to be in. The residue left from the label doesn’t go away that easily. Have you tried everything, but can’t seem to get rid of those stubborn, sticky spots?

Sticker Residue

Here’s what you can do. Dab a few drops of cooking oil onto a cotton ball or soft cloth. Once done, rub the sticky portion of the jar with it. Now, wait for a few minutes before you wipe it clean with a paper towel.

Heatin’ Up

Microwaves can begin to smell after a few uses. If your microwave smells worse than a skunk’s spray, here’s what you can do. Simply fill a small bowl with vinegar before microwaving it for a few minutes (around five to six minutes is more than enough).

Heatin’ Up

Now, take it out and clean your precious appliance with a clean cloth. Try this out — we guarantee your microwave is going to smell brand-spankin’ new!

Toilet Cleaner

Yes, you can use mouthwash for things other than your mouth, believe it or not! You can even use it to clean the toilet! All you have to do is pour some of that mouth wash into a small bowl and empty it into the toilet.

Toilet Cleaner

Let it sit for about 30 minutes before you scrub it off with the help of a toilet brush. This is a great hack to follow if you’re running low on toilet cleaner or bleach.

Avoid the Dirt

Like it or not, a bathroom is a warehouse of germs (no matter how sparkling it looks!). It’s also the place most people store their toothbrushes. So, with that being said, you might want to exercise a bit of caution when it comes to how you store your toothbrush in the bathroom.

Avoid the Dirt

Clip your toothbrush with a clothespin to prevent it from catching dirt from the surfaces. The clothespin will elevate the toothbrush.

Conserve

With frequent hand-washing becoming absolutely essential these days, it’s common to run out of a hand soap quite sooner than expected. That’s why one should be aware of this hack. So, here goes.

Conserve

Wrap a rubber band around the neck of the dispenser to regulate its flow. This tiny trick will help the hand soap last longer, thereby increasing the quantity. Genius, right?

LED Lights

Want to find out a way to illuminate the dark spaces without having to invest in expensive lighting? Well, we have a bright hack for that. Quite literally! Just order some LED stick-on from the internet or buy them from the supermarket near you.

LED Lights

Stick them strategically, on the corners of your cabinets and countertops. And, you’re ready to turn your kitchen into one big, bright light.

Ex-straw-dinary!

Wilted flowers can teach you a thing or two about the importance of maintaining good posture. Most people treat wilted flowers like an eyesore as they’re quite gloomy to look at. But, you can prevent them from bending further by supporting their stem with plastic straws.

Ex-straw-dinary!

These straws not only correct their drooping posture but also ensure that the flowers get their daily intake of nourishment from the water. Easy peasy!

Easily Repair Holes

A hole in the window or door is unaesthetic to look at. But, you can fix it on your own without having to resort to some pricey carpentry work. Hide the hole by applying a coating of clear nail polish and it will be as good as new in no time.

Easily Repair Holes

The clincher here is that this hack only works for minor holes. It is always best to leave it to professionals in case the hole is bigger in size.

Can’t Find the Masking Tape?

It’s hard to find the start of a roll of masking tape. It’s honestly easier to spot a chameleon than it is to see the beginning of the roll and so, it ends up taking much longer than necessary to rip off one piece of tape.

Can’t Find the Masking Tape?

To solve this, especially when you intend to stick a poster on the walls, pull out the masking tape and stick it on the wall or a flat surface of some sort. Now, you can cut it as per your desired sizing without having to worry about finding its edges.

Repurposing Mason Jars

Yes, we know that mason jars are Instagram friendly. They are also functional to the core and can be used for storing multiple things. You can use them to store your paints as well.

Repurposing Mason Jars

The painting cans, as we know, can be pretty cumbersome to move around. Hence, one can use these jars in place of the cans to make their life easier. And, as we said earlier, they look on ‘gram too!

Use Squeegee to Eliminate Pet Fur

Any pet parent worth their salt would tell you that cleaning their pet’s / pets’ fur can be quite a headache. While you can’t control the movement of your pet; you can definitely manage your cleaning tactic when it comes to cleaning the pet fur.

Use Squeegee to Eliminate Pet Fur

A squeegee is the holy grail of cleaning in terms of getting rid of pet fur. All one has to do is to make an upward and downward motion on the surface containing fur, and the squeegee will take care of the rest.

Cat-Proof Your Home

Pet-cleaning hacks can be divided into two categories — namely cleaning hacks for pet parents and cleaning hacks for cat parents. This one is for the latter. While you can’t stop your cat from clawing your furniture, you can cat-proof your space with the help of aluminum foil.

Cat-Proof Your Home

Aluminum foil will create a funny sensation on your kitty-cat’s claws, making them literally stop in their tracks. Trust us — they’ll think twice before clawing your furniture again. This hack is (dis)approved by our cat, Toby.

An Inviting Smell

Air fresheners may make your smell good, but they do a lot of harm to the environment. Here’s what you can do instead to make your home smell great, the natural way!

An Inviting Smell

Perfume the spaces in your home by boiling vanilla beans in water on a stove. Add some cinnamon and orange rinds if you want to create a medley of scents. This homemade fragrance will ensure that your home smells great without causing any harm to the planet.

Scratchproof the Surfaces

The constant moving and shifting of flowerpots while watering/adding manure or plant food can leave abrasions on the surface below them. This especially holds true in the scenario when the pots are gigantic in size.

Scratchproof the Surfaces

There’s a solution. Just add furniture sliders beneath your flowerpots to prevent them from causing scratches. These sliders can be easily removed, and create a barrier between the pots and surface so as to prevent any incidents of scratching.

Organize Your Wrapping Paper

Storing paper rolls can be pretty difficult as the paper can get creases and folds if not stored the right way. A great way to organize your rolls of wrapping paper is to store them neatly in a garment bag.

Organize Your Wrapping Paper

You can hang this bag on top of your closet so that you can easily find it when you need it. This bag can also be your one-stop storage solution for all kinds of paper needed for various purposes.

Sweet Dreams

Picture this — it’s an unbearably hot summer. Your air-conditioning system is being wonky and you’re having trouble sleeping. Well, here’s how you go back to sleep despite the layer of sweat that’s forming under your PJs. Simply put your pillowcase(s) in the freezer 20 minutes before you plan to go to sleep.

Sweet Dreams

Do remember to spray it lightly with water before placing it in the freezer. Once you take it out, it’ll be nice and cool so prepare for a goodnight’s sleep. Happy snoozing!

Color-Code Your Keys

Keys, like socks, can get mixed up quite easily — creating a challenge to keep track of what keyhole they each belong to. And, it can take minutes of sorting to figure out which one you need in that moment.

Color-Code Your Keys

Marie-Kondo your keychain by painting each of your keys in different colors. Your most-used keys can be painted in bold shades such as yellow, whereas the lesser required keys could be painted in soothing shades of pastel.

Make Use of Magazine Rack

Believe it or not, but everyone should own a magazine rack regardless of whether or not they read magazines. Seriously — magazine racks can actually store a lot more than your monthly subscriptions to Cosmo.

Make Use of Magazine Rack

For instance, it can be used to store your styling tools such as a hairdryer, curling iron, combs, and more. You can also keep your hairbrushes and products stowed away in one of these racks.

Cool Your Laptop!

Laptops can be quite hot-headed. What we mean to say here is that these gadgets can overheat quite easily and quickly if plugged in for a long time. While the laptop cooling pads they have nowadays are great and all, here’s what you can do if you don’t have one of those at hand.

Cool Your Laptop!

For a quick-fix solution, you can use an egg carton turned upside down. Though it’s not totally aesthetically pleasing, it does get the job done.

The Ultimate Crayon Hack

We’ve already gone over the fact that clear polish can mend tiny holes and cracks, but this next hack is for something a little more heavy-duty — when a mere coating of clear nail paint just won’t do. This one involves crayons. Choose a crayon in the shade that best resembles the color of the wall you want to mend.

The Ultimate Crayon Hack

Build the wax into the hole starting along the edges and working your way toward the middle of the nail hole. If it’s a larger hole, warm the tip of the crayon with a lighter to soften the wax before filling the space. You can then use the warmth of your fingers to smooth out the surface or blast warm air from a blow dryer five to six inches away, being careful not to melt the wax.

Fruity Fertilizer

A single banana has 0.3 grams of fat, 1.1 grams of protein, 22.8 grams of carbohydrates, 12.2 grams of sugar, 2.6 grams of fiber, and 422 milligrams of potassium. This means it’s good for the human body. But, did you know it’s good for plants as well?

Fruity Fertilizer

Since bananas are abundantly rich in potassium, they can be used as fertilizer, especially for rose plants. Who knew that bananas were the secret behind a rose’s pinkish beauty?

Pasta Hack

Over the course of burn time, the length of a candle’s wick can shorten over time — and, hence, it’s hard to reach when you want to light the candle the next time around.

Pasta Hack

Such a situation can make the candle pretty much useless in terms of functionality. Not anymore! Luckily, you can use dried spaghetti to light the candle when it’s melted too far down to reach the wick.

Be a (Paper) Plant Parent!

Here’s the hard truth — plants aren’t for everyone and especially not for people who have a busy or unpredictable schedule. The good news is that the paper plants are for anyone, no matter how busy they are.

Be a (Paper) Plant Parent!

Anyone can become a paper plant parent as they require way — and we mean, waaaaaaay — less care than their living counterparts. All you have to do is dust them once or twice a week.

Repurposed Pillow

Upcycling is not only sustainable, but it’s also pretty awesome as it breathes new life into old things. Plus, it’s fun to get those creative juices flowing.

Repurposed Pillow

If you have a pair of denim, or old clothes lying somewhere in the cupboard, give them a new lease on life by upcycling them into a pillow. You will not only reduce your carbon footprint and consumption in the process, but it will also inspire someone else to give upcycling a try.

Contact Paper for Tabletops

Are you bored of your tabletop but, also don’t have the extra spending money to replace it with something new? Here’s how you can make your old tabletop look new without breaking the bank.

Contact Paper for Tabletops

Invest in a cool patterned contact paper for your tabletop. Gone are the days when you could only choose between options A and B. Today, contact paper is available in all kinds of different colors and textures, giving you a sea of options to choose from.

Chalk to Me

A chalkboard drawing wall instantly adds an old-school peppy vibe to the entire décor. And, the best part is that it doesn’t require any major expenditure too (hello, savings!).

Chalk to Me

Ask your painter to paint a section of the wall with a chalkboard coat. This section can be used to jot down the thoughts or create a list of errands to be done during the weekend. Think of it as a big, shared old-school planner!

Knot a Drill

You may have never even given it thought but rope is another thing that can be upcycled in tons and tons of ways. Since rope is highly versatile in nature, it can bended to any shape with the use of the right adhesive.

Knot a Drill

Ropes can be used to make curtain hooks, pen holders, bathroom cubbies, and even floor mats! Who would have thought?! The best part, if you ask us, is the fact it costs next to nothing.

Cleaning Sticker Residue

We’ve all been there: you buy something new with a sticker on it, and there’s some annoying residue left on your purchase that you can’t get rid of. But with this hack, you actually can get rid of it. All you need is hand sanitizer and a paper towel.

Cleaning Sticker Residue

The sanitizer will help make the sticky residue much easier to get off of your purchase. Just rub it on and wipe it away with the paper towel. It’s quick and easy and doesn’t take much time at all to do, making it a super nifty and helpful hack.

Keeping Toilet Paper From Spinning

Do kids, cats, dogs or anything else cause your toilet paper rolls to spin out into long strands of frustration when you aren’t paying attention? If so there’s a relatively easy way to solve this problem, using this one easy hack: just bend your rolls into an oval shape.

Keeping Toilet Paper From Spinning

With an oval shape instead of a circular one, the toilet roll won’t continue to spin, instead stopping every time it hits the odd angle. This means you’ll have to deal with a mess far less often than you would have otherwise, since the roll doesn’t unravel so easily.

Prevent Toilet Bowl Cleanup

Everyone knows how bad scaly buildup in your toilet bowl can be, and no one wants to clean it more than they have to. For that reason, you should consider using denture tablets: after you clean your toilet bowl once, a weekly denture tablet in the bowl can keep scale away.

Prevent Toilet Bowl Cleanup

After all, denture tablets are meant to prevent buildup on things that go in your mouth, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that they also work on toilet bowls. It’s surprisingly effective, though it might seem a little weird to do.

Cover a Flush Mount

Let’s be honest, flush-mounted ceiling lights aren’t very attractive. But thankfully, there are some easy ways to hide them or make them a little more attractive if that’s what you want to do. For instance, you can take an unused lampshade and cover it that way.

Cover a Flush Mount

This can make for a much more aesthetically pleasing ceiling light, depending on the lampshade you use. And of course, you don’t have to stick to just lampshades. Don’t be afraid to experiment with other things that could cover the light without blocking it.

Hang Your Foils

Do you want easier access to your aluminum foil sheets and similar products? Well, recall that those sheets exist on a roll: punch holes in the side of the box, or just take the roll out of the box entirely, and you can hang them on hook in your kitchen in a manner similar to toilet paper.

Hang Your Foils

Hang them in the right place, and access can be swift and efficient no matter what you’re doing, and you won’t have to search through all your cabinets trying to remember where you put the aluminum foil. The best of both worlds, as it were.