When it comes to matters of the home, here are a few simple tips and tricks I have picked up along the way to make your life easier. Here are 7 home hacks I personally swear by!
1. Keep a small discreet waste basket in your living room to make quick clean ups even easier. As much as we try, trash accumulates all over the house, and not just in the kitchen. I don’t know how many times I have cleared out old napkins or wrappers off the coffee table before I figured out that a trash can in the living room is a brilliant idea. As much as we hate to admit it, it’s unrealistic to think that we are going to get up off the couch and throw away our trash all the way in the kitchen while we are eating dinner in front of the TV like normal millennials. Here’s where the living room waste basket comes in handy.
2. And while we’re on the subject, here’s a little trick I do with all my small wastebaskets throughout my home – in bedrooms, bathrooms, and of course, in the living room. Whenever I change the trash bags, I always pile 2-3 empty trash bags at the bottom, so that the next time I take out the trash, there’s another empty bag already waiting for me. This is a game changer. It’s like doing a solid for your future self, and thanking your past self in the present. I also reuse any shopping bags I get as trash bags instead of buying the mini trash bags!
3. Consider ditching your coffee table all together. Before I traded in my coffee table for a large, plush ottoman, I used to have a beautiful, elegant gold and glass coffee table. While it looked amazing in my living room, the upkeep started to be more work than it was worth, mainly because I have a curious 7 month old baby boy (who just started walking!!) at home. I wanted a cozier alternative, and I wanted to be free of the burden of another table top to keep clean! Switching out my nice showpiece coffee table for a large cozy ottoman has been the answer to a stressor I didn’t even know I had. Bonus tip – get one with storage to easily hide away kid’s toys, extra blankets, etc.
4. This cleaning hack is an obvious one to me because I’ve been doing it for so long, but if you haven’t heard of it, I’m about to change your life. Ok, ready? Here it is. Before you clean the microwave, put a little vinegar in a bowl and zap it for like 30 seconds. Then, take it out and any crud in your microwave will be softened (ew, gross) and easy to wipe away.
5. Have you ever tried to hang a picture or a piece of art, only to find it has two hooks on either side of it, instead of one in the middle? These split hooks can make hanging art (and making it level) a pain. As someone who hangs art for a living, here’s a hack that has quite literally changed my life and has probably saved me hundreds of hours of my life. Before you hang a piece of art with dual hooks, run a piece of painter’s tape on the back of the art between the two hooks. Mark on the tape where the hooks are with a pencil (or just pop a hole in it with the nail like I do) and then stick the tape on the wall. Step back to get a visual. The tape should be as horizontally straight as you can get it, and aligned with how high you want the hooks to go on the wall. Sometimes I hold the art up to get a visual of how high it will hang. (Quick tip, it should be eye-level) Then, all you do is measure down from the ceiling (or the floor if the ceiling is arched) so that both nails are even. Just remove the tape and you’ll have 2 perfectly even nails, exactly aligned to the hooks on your art!
6. If you make a nail hole in your wall that you want to fill, and you don’t have any spackling, you can use toothpaste! This tip should be used sparingly, but it’s effective in a pinch! Use Sensodyne, or any similar baking-soda-based, white, chaulky toothpaste. (Obviously bright green Crest won’t do the trick!) Also, this really only works on white walls, unless you can touch up the paint afterwards.
7. Here’s another random little cleaning tip – For superficial scuffs on the wall, use magic eraser. They come off effortlessly. It’s a dream, you’re welcome.
Some of these might seem obvious to you, but if I can enlighten just one reader, then writing this list was worth it!
Comments