Simple Home Hacks That Will Make Your Life Infinitely Easier!

Clean the AC Vents in the Dishwasher

Your home may seem spotless, but one thing that is probably filthy are your air conditioning vents. They are easy to overlook, but if not cleaned regularly they are prone to collecting massive amounts of dust and then recirculating them into your house.

A simple and fast method of getting those vents sparkling is to put them in the dishwasher. Just make sure to blow dry the excess water off them (on the cool setting) before putting them back in place.

The Perfect Hiding Spot for Your Spare Key

Most people have locked themselves out of their house accidentally, which is why keeping a spare key around is always a good idea. The usual hiding places are under a potted plant or somewhere else near the front door, but burglars already know about those spots.

Instead, you can put your key into an empty bottle of pills and then glue a pinecone or something else which won’t look out of place on your front lawn. Then, you bury the bottle in a place you are sure to remember near the door and you are all set.

Use Binder Clips in the Freezer

Frozen fruits for smoothies take up a lot of room in your freezer, and so do leftover vegetables from the new stir fry recipe you tried. It is hard to keep those bags sealed and organized, but a few binder clips can solve the problem.

Just clip the folded open end of your frozen vegetables or fruits to the middle rack of the freezer. They will be left hanging, freeing up extra space and letting you easily see what you already have and what you need to buy.

Organize Your Closet with Pot Lid Racks

Storage solutions may have been designed for your kitchen but that doesn’t mean they have to stay there. A pot lid rack is the storage solution your cluttered closet didn’t know it needed.

You can use one of these racks to organize your clutches, wallets and even small purses that used to take up space and create a big mess in your closet. This way when you are getting dressed, you have all your choices laid out for you and all you need to do is pick one.

Fresh Herbs Can Be Stored in the Freezer

If you love to cook then you are probably purchasing fresh herbs fairly often. The problem is it seems almost impossible to use the entire amount you buy at the supermarket before it goes bad. Instead of throwing them in the trash, you can put them in the freezer!

As soon as you get home from the farmer’s market or pick your favorite herbs from your own garden, simply chop them up, put them in an ice cube tray with some olive oil and you have some seasoning ready for every occasion.

A Rubber Band Door Opener

Unloading the groceries from your car is heavy and difficult to handle even without having to deal with also opening the front door with your hands full. If your door just won’t stay open, you can make your trips to the trunk a little easier by tying a rubber band to the doorknobs as shown below.

This hack will keep the door from latching, all you have to do is push it open to get through. An important safety tip when using this one, don’t forget to take the rubber band off when you’re done!

Shoe Organizers Aren’t Just for Shoes

Everybody knows those plastic shoe organizers that hang on the back of closet doors with pockets for all your pairs of flat shoes. Here’s a groundbreaking thought, you can use them for storing things that are not shoes!

A shoe organizer can help you get your pantry in order. You can use it to store the smaller items and to see everything you have in a single glance. They can also be a great place to store all the different cords and plugs that can be found everywhere around the house.

Use a Pringles Can to Store Spaghetti

Spaghetti noodles usually come in plastic bags that are almost impossible to reclose once you have opened them. If you only cook some of the noodles, the noodles that are left in the bag become a bit stale and also have a tendency to start falling out into your pantry.

Next time you are snacking on some Pringles, keep the empty can, clean it out, and it becomes the perfect container for noodles. It is just the right size, has a lid and will save you the trouble and expense of getting a special container.

Flatten Your Ground Beef Before Storing

Ground beef is a great thing to have around for a last-minute dinner fix, but if you are in a hurry, it may feel like forever while waiting for the beef to thaw out. You can speed up the process by flattening your ground beef in a gallon-sized freezer bag before putting it in the freezer.

The flat surface area of the beef will cause it to thaw out faster and it will also take up less room and be easier to stack in your freezer!

An Old Bottle Can Help Store Jewelry

Jewelry can sometimes be a hard thing to store and often ends up as a mess on the bedside table. If you haven’t found a good way to store your bracelet collection, not only can you never find the one you want to wear, you may even lose some pieces underneath the furniture.

The neck of an empty bottle can be the perfect storage space. It will not only keep your bracelets and hair ties organized and accessible but will also give new purpose to the empty drink receptacle you have enjoyed but not discarded.

Use Labels to Identify Your Cords

When you use an extension cord or a power strip to power several things in your home, it can become confusing which cord belongs to which item, especially when they all get tangled up over time. If you need to unplug something, you have to start following cords to find out which belongs to the device you’re trying to find.

You can avoid this confusion by labeling the different cords with bread tags or washi tape and using a permanent marker to identify the devices which they belong to.

Your Boots Will Stay Upright With Pool Noodles

As soon as the first leaves fall, women can’t wait to pull out their beloved winter boots, but in warmer weather, they are typically put away for the season and their storage conditions are less than ideal. If the tall part is left flopping all summer, creases can spoil the footwear’s nice lines.

In order to keep your boots standing tall all year long, just put pool noodles inside them. Simply cut the noodles into the appropriate length and place them into the boots.

Command Hooks Are Also Good for the Holidays

If you are a fan of DIY, you probably already have your share of home hacks and know that Command hooks are the greatest. These small and sticky friends can help hang almost anything on the wall without puncturing holes or leaving a trace.

A way you may not have considered using these hooks for is to hang holiday wreaths and other decorations on the front door. All you have to do is place the hook on the inside of your door upside down, use a string and your decoration can hang on the other side.

Cure Carpet Dents with Ice Cubes

If you have wall to wall carpeting then you are definitely familiar with this problem, when you move the furniture the dents in the carpet just won’t go away. If you have guests coming over and you want everything to look nice, you can put some ice cubes in the dents.

After the ice has melted completely, the dent will be gone, but you have to make sure that you wipe off the excess water and fluff out the carpet. Take into account that this may take up to 12 hours to work completely.

A Rubber Band Can Help with Stripped Screws

Sometimes you are working on something, and everything is going great until you encounter one stripped screw and it keeps you from finishing the entire project. Your screwdriver can hardly get it moving, but you just sit there and keep trying while getting more and more frustrated.

If this happens to you again, try putting a rubber band in between the screw head and the screwdriver. The rubber band lets the screwdriver get a better grip and you can at least ease the screw out. If anyone asks, you definitely loosened it up a little.

Hiding Your Router

These days it is hard to live without Wi-Fi, making a router a must-have item in every home. Unfortunately, most routers are not as appealing to the eye as they are functional. If you can’t stand that eyesore anymore, you can hide it with some innovative decorating ideas.

You can place your router in a pretty box and cut out a hole for the cords. Or you could make yourself look smarter by building a fake bookcase to store it upright.

All You Need for This Hack Is an Empty Bottle

People who are enthusiastic about home décor may have large vases full of ornamental items like glass beads or wine corks placed strategically around their house. But what happens when you are not a big wine drinker?

Instead of chugging down some wine, inviting over people you don’t like for a drink or running up a tab at the local craft store buying more and more glass beads, you can simply put an empty bottle into the vase first! It will take up space, meaning you will need fewer beads or corks to fill it up, while still maintaining the illusion of a full vase.

A Wine Cork Can Also Serve as a Chip Clip

Whenever you need to close an open bag of chips or some other half-eaten snack, you never seem to be able to find any of your chip clips around. If you don’t feel like searching your entire house again, there is a way to make your own clip from an old wine cork.

All you have to do is slice half the cork down the middle and use the slit you created to close your folded bag of chips.

Desk Organizers Can Be Used in Other Parts of Your Home

Despite your best efforts, pantries can quickly become cluttered and messy. Open bags and boxes of food become mixed with various spices and soon you can’t find anything or even worse have everything topple when you reach for something.

Old and unused desk organizers can actually solve this problem. You can use them to organize some of the smaller items inside your pantry. If you have the room and a little technical skill, you can even attach them to your wall, freeing up more shelf space to accommodate larger items.

Use Your Beverage Dispenser as a Detergent Dispenser

Is there a beverage dispenser somewhere in your house? If there is, it’s most likely dusty and unused and is just another item taking up space around your house. If you are not the kind of person who hosts parties all the time, you probably barely use that old thing.

You can repurpose your unused dispenser and turn it into a laundry soap dispenser. Fill it with liquid detergent and you can make sure you use the right amount for every wash and your laundry area will even look better.

An Egg Carton Is the Perfect Holder for Near-Empty Condiments

There are few things more annoying in life than trying to squeeze the last few squirts of ketchup or mustard from the bottom of the bottle. You know there is plenty left in there and you don’t want to be wasteful and simply throw it out.

We have all tried to balance the nearly empty bottles upside down just to have them fall over time and time again. An egg carton will help you keep the condiments with the lid down and hold them steady so that you can squeeze out every last drop.

A Magnetic Way of Keeping Your Hammer and Nails Together

Most people don’t use a hammer and nails all that often. You know you have both somewhere in your house, but when the need arises, you often can’t find one or the other. This is not only irritating but can also be dangerous because it is never a good idea to have nails just lying around.

If you want to avoid this mess and keep them together and organized, you can attach a small magnet to the bottom of your hammer. That will make sure that the nails stick around for when you want to use them.

Old Tubes Make a Good Home for Cables

If there is a drawer in your house that you prefer not to open because it is full of unused cords and cables, this is the hack for you. Obviously, what you want is to be able to find the cable you need in an organized and efficient manner, but how can you tell which cords are which?

Fold your cords neatly and place them inside an empty tube of toilet paper or paper towels cut down to size. Don’t forget to write which kind of cord is in which tube or else you will be back at square one.

The Secret Switch Your Ceiling Fan May Have

Most people have at some point in their lives noticed that warm air rises. That is because it is less dense than cool air. That means that in the winter months you are missing out on the nice warm air your heating produces, but there may just be a switch on your ceiling fan that can help with that.

Many ceiling fans come equipped with a small switch that can change the direction of the fan blades. During the winter you can click that switch to get the blades to move in a clockwise direction, causing the warm air to be pushed from the ceiling towards the floor.

Pool Noodles Bumpers

Pool noodles have many different uses. This time they come to the rescue of people with small garages, big cars or both. If you have either of these problems, just slice a pool noodle in half and stick the pieces on the walls on both sides of your garage.

When you park your car and open the doors, they will softly open against the noodle instead of scraping the walls. This simple act will help you keep your car dent free and your walls free of scuff marks.

Essential Oils in the Bathroom

Let’s face it, bathrooms don’t smell like roses all the time and most people use aerosol sprays when they need to be freshened up. Those are usually a momentary solution, for longer-lasting results try using essential oils.

Simply place a few drops of your favorite essential oil on the cardboard of the toilet paper roll. Whenever someone pulls some out, the essential oil will be released into the air and freshen things right up!

Use a Garment Bag to Store Wrapping Paper

After the holiday season ends, you always find yourself with all kinds of leftover wrapping paper rolls that take up space in a closet or the garage. The worst part is that they keep falling over and become crinkled over time, meaning that by the time next Christmas rolls around, they won’t be in the best shape.

You can fix this problem by storing your extra wrapping paper in a garment bag. It is long enough for the entire roll and can also be hung up to conserve floor space that may be needed for other holiday leftovers.

A Squeegee Is Not Just for Squeegeeing

Having a pet is a wonderful experience, but what isn’t wonderful is the sheer mass of fur that can collect on your floor and especially your wall to wall carpeting. You can try and keep up with it by vacuuming regularly but sometimes even that isn’t enough to get rid of it all!

The next time you are planning to vacuum, you can try using a squeegee first to loosen the pet hair from the carpet. That way you can get out the toughest clumps before beginning to vacuum.

Tongs Can Help Clean Your Blinds

Window shades and blinds are great dust collectors, but cleaning them is one of the most boring household chores. You can make it go by faster and more efficiently by dusting them with a pair of kitchen tongs.

All you have to do is fasten some microfiber cloths or an old t-shirt to the tongs with some rubber bands and you’ll create a tool that can remove dust from the bottom and the top of the blinds all at once!

Use Magazine Holders to Hold Water Bottles

If you feel like you have more water bottles than you know what to do with, welcome to the club. Everyone somehow seems to accumulate numerous water bottles as the years go by, but somehow, it’s still hard to just throw them away.

If an entire cabinet in your kitchen is unavailable due to water bottle storage, try keeping them in magazine holders instead. You save space and at least then your unused water bottles will be neat and organized.

Create Your Own Non-Slip Hanger With Hot Glue

The problem you are facing with your closet could have nothing to do with lack of space or hangers, but in the fact that all your pretty tops have a tendency to slip off their hangers and end up as a puddle on the floor. You don’t have to buy special hangers to fix this problem, there is a solution that you can do all on your own.

Use a hot glue gun to squeeze a thin layer of glue on the “shoulders” of your hanger. After it dries, it should provide a good grip for all your silk blouses and fashionable tank tops.

Use a Tissue Box As a Holder for Plastic Bags

It seems like every household has their own secret stash of never-ending plastic bags. They are good for picking up after your dog, lining garbage cans and a million other things, but are usually an unsightly mess in and of themselves.

You can up-cycle an empty tissue box by putting plastic bags inside and turning it into a bag holder. You put the bags in with the loops sticking up and fold the end of each new bag into the loops. That way, each time you take out a bag, another one will already be waiting for you!

Use a Tension Rod for More Storage

Household cleaning supplies are usually stored separately under the sink in the kitchen or bathroom, but all the different kinds of products, plus the oddly shaped spray bottles, can take up a lot of space and cause cabinet clutter.

A tension rod can really help with this problem. You can find them at any hardware store, and they don’t cost much. Hang one high at the front of the cabinet and you can line up your spray bottles on it, making them more accessible and creating more space underneath.

Sharpen Your Knives Using Ceramic

Dull knives are a real no-no in the kitchen. They make it much harder to chop food and are actually more likely to cause injury than sharp knives. If you don’t own a knife sharpener or can’t find one when you need it, you can instead use a household item that you already have in your cupboard.

The bottom of a ceramic bowl or mug is a good surface to sharpen your blade on, but if you are going to try this hack at home, please do so with caution!

Conserve Water by Doing This to Your Toilet

Saving water is more important than ever, and environmentally conscious households can do more than just shorten the lengths of their showers, they can also make sure that less is water is used every time they flush the toilet.

Instead of flushing less, which is kind of gross, all you have to do is put a jar full of water or a couple of bricks in the back of your toilet tank. When you flush, the tank will fill up with less water because of the space that the bricks take up.

Command Hooks Help Keep Bin Liners in Place

Your old plastic bags, which we assume are now in a neat tissue box, can be used as bin liners, but the downside to doing that is that heavy items can cause the bag to go in the trash along with them. You can keep them in place by using Command hooks.

You stick the hooks on the outside of the trashcan on either side and put the bag’s loops around them. This will ensure that your liner stays in place and your hands can stay garbage free!

Use Shower Curtain Hooks as Hangers

We’ve all had the experience of coming back from shopping with some great new clothes, only to discover that we don’t have any free hangers to put them on. This can be aggravating, especially when you take into account that you just came in and don’t want to go out again just to buy some more.

Instead, you can just use some shower curtain hooks! They don’t take up a lot of space in your closet and are perfect for clothes that have loops, such as jackets or jeans.

Save Some Paint for a Rainy Day

A freshly painted room can make you feel warm and fuzzy all over. Just changing the color of the wall can completely transform the way a room looks and feels, but it is really aggravating to see your hard work marred when furniture bumps into the walls and leaves an ugly mark.

You don’t need to save a big messy paint can to solve this problem, all you have to do is take an empty baby food jar and save a small amount of paint in it. That way you can dispose of the paint properly, but still, have enough left over to do some touch-ups and keep everything looking great.