Simple things that I should have done years ago to make life easier

[malificent7]

My lovely cat has been waking us up at 5/6am for 6 years.
Last night I had the genius idea of closing the lounge door so she couldn't come to our room.
Hence we slept longer. Why did I not think of this earlier? I love cat snuggles but love a lie in more.

Am I thick or does anyone have similar stories?

I put pillow cases onto half-folding duvet covers and roll them up tightly before storing. Seems to save a lot of space and it's easier to pull out the set I want from the linen cupboard.

I'm on day 3 of shutting the cat in the kitchen overnight (with cat flap, food, water and a comfy bed) because he was starting to do the 5am visits, which seemed to culminate in uber-grooming and noisily bringing up fur balls or finding a hair band to chase around the room. Previously he was happy to stay downstairs until one of us got up. Probably confusing for the old boy but when I have a free weekend and make a massive cup to tea to take back to bed with the paper, he's allowed to come for cuddles!

I can't visualise that. How does it work?

I put pillow cases onto half-folding duvet covers and roll them up tightly before storing.

I put a bedding set inside one of its pillowcases, has the same effect of compressing the linen and grouping it for easy retrieval.

We have individual clean laundry baskets in the utility. Clothes get folded straight into them. Everyoe is responsible for taking their basket up, putting away and returning basket.

Another basket for odd socks that people pair as they loiter about in the utility

Take photos of DC 'art' and various projects. Store pics in a single folder on your laptop or PC in a subfolder labelled with the year. Then once every few years or so (if you can be arsed) you can make a cheap little photo book of it all eg: Leo's Primary School Art book. You never have to keep a decorated egg carton ever again.

Train your tribe to do this when they take socks off, before putting in laundry basket. They will wash and dry and still come out in pairs. There are five of us and from smallest to biggest it's been a game changer.

Curtains just no full stop.

Shutters are the only way forward.

I never have this problem as I strip a bed, wash the bed linen Angela out the clean ones on later that day. The bed can be airing while the linen is washing/drying. We do have spares but only 1 spare set for each bed.

@dontsayltb
Yes! That’s exactly what we do and it’s a total game changer!

Angela out = put ?? I have confused myself

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sellotape-575450-Chrome-Dispenser-Large/dp/B000I6PL28

I have this one. So much quicker to wrap xmas pressies.

Because after a few months/years your wardrobe and drawers will smell. My mother always did this and believe me they smell.

This is a brilliant idea! Thank you!

@JumbleAndKitchen great tip! I put dog food in the veg drawer. Never gets forgotten, so good use of the space on no veg/ salad wilting away unseen and forgotten.

"When you pack away the Christmas decorations, write yourself a note with details of what you'll need to buy next Christmas ... "

Great idea but also add a bottle of Bailey's or similar drink and an envelope with cash in it. I usually add about £30. So when I take the Christmas decorations out of the attic. As I start opening things up. I have something nice to drink while I start decorating and money put aside for a take away while I do that.

My df is 92. He's given his ration book to the local museum.

Got a hot water tap put in the garden. Now all the muddy dogs/children/boots get washed out there.

Ooh I like the kitchen roll in half used salad bag tip. Will give that a go.

Another tip: To label stuff in the freezer, use masking tape (frog tape ideally) and write on it with a sharpie. Comes off easily and cleanly and you can use a longer strip if you want to write details like portion size or cooking instructions.

Related: if you have to remove a sticker from something and it won’t come off without ripping or leaving loads of sticky residue, blast it with a hairdryer first and it will come off much more cleanly.

OMG 😍and there's an elephant!

Alexa lights. Yes they aren’t perfect but they are better than stumbling in the dark or fighting with inconvenient light switches. I’m looking at you outside light with a switch in the middle of the wall in the garage that I schlepped out to multiple times a day for year!

my coffee maker. I don’t know why but I hate with a passion filling the caffe then dumping in the reservoir. I finally found one that can be plumbed in to the ice maker water line in the fridge. That has made my life so much better… seriously I used to curse filling that damn coffee maker every night.

Probably the dumbest one… I spent years draping my dressing gown on any available piece of furniture near my bed. It finally occurred to me to get a small hook to hang on the wall. So dumb that it took over 10 years living in my house to figure that out.

I call these ‘idiot genius moments’, you feel like a genius for thinking of it but an idiot for not thinking of it sooner.

Love this. Going to rearrange my fridge this evening?!

Our washing basket is actually a kallax unit (the tall 1x4 one) with 3 box inserts in it (the top hole can used for whatever plant/photo etc. Anyway one box is for whites, one for colours and one for black and then once it's full it goes in the wash. It's exactly the size of one washing load for us and it saves having to manually sort through the washing when you go to do it.

Name changed for this one as it's so stupid it's outing! Slightly to the side of the topic but definitely in the spirit!

My now DH and I bought a flat years ago after living with family for a while in his childhood bedroom. We were in the process of painting and eventually got round to painting the master bedroom. We'd covered our bed to paint and didn't finish the painting in one day so decided we'd better sleep on the sofa that night while it all dried and we could then just crack straight on the next day.

We made makeshift beds out of chairs and sofas in our sitting room, slept (fairly uncomfortably) there for the night and then IN THE MORNING remembered that we had a spare room.

With a double bed in it.

Oh I love this!

Mine was wearing black/dark knickers when I have my period. I must have been 30 before I thought of it.

In the days when I sent loads of Christmas cards and usually had batches for the following year, I used to put in a list of the people I'd received one from that year, along with their kids' names so I wouldn't forget to send them one, and would remember their kids' names.

But I am not sure if that is so useful as a tip as people send far fewer Christmas cards these days, and probably send them to closer friends and relatives so won't forget their kids' names!