What small household fixes have made everyday life noticeably easier?

[HardyPinkPanda]

I’m between jobs at the moment and have decided to use some of the time to basically snag my own house.

I’m going through every room and making a note of all the little things that have mildly irritated me for YEARS, but which I’ve somehow just accepted as part of life. You know the sort of thing - not actual problems, just things you regularly curse under your breath and then continue living with for another five years.

So far I have:

1. Ruthlessly slimmed down the kitchen cupboards so I could lose one cupboard and fit a tumble dryer. Every winter I normally spend approximately 46% of my waking hours hanging damp clothes around the house and rotating them like prize livestock, so I’m disproportionately excited about this.

2. Reorganised the Tupperware so every container now lives WITH ITS OWN LID. No more rummaging through 17 lids while slowly losing the will to live.

3. Thrown out about 12 random, ancient, slightly raggedy towels that had been granted permanent residency in the airing cupboard. It now has SPACE. Things are FOLDED.

4. Replaced the sieve that hasn’t had a handle since approximately 2020. Why did I just... live like that?

5. Put bigger shoe storage by the door, so we no longer have the traditional hallway shoe landslide.

6. Rewired a switch so it finally works the way you instinctively expect it to work rather than requiring a tiny moment of irritation every single time.

Honestly, none of this is exactly world peace, but the cumulative improvement to my quality of life is ridiculous. I keep thinking, WHY DID I PUT UP WITH THIS FOR SO LONG?

So humour me: what tiny, boring, seemingly insignificant thing have you changed/fixed/bought/reorganised in your house that has made you disproportionately happy?

I want the really mundane ones. The things nobody is putting on Grand Designs but which have genuinely made your day-to-day life better.

Basically, tell me what else I should be wandering around my house looking for 😂

I tried the chalk pen but found it difficult to read on opaque plastic lids, particularly once they've been in the freezer for a while. Big black caps all the way for me! And the chalk pens dry up quite quickly.

I buy old china pomanders in charity shops - nobody wants them, nobody buys them. I put various smellies in them - spices mainly, crushed beforehand and wrapped in muslin, not to escape - and put them in wardrobes to ward off moths and to perfume clothes.

Dehumidifyer for drying clothes. Everything goes on a clothes horse in the spare room, dehumidifyer on, door shut. 2 hours later everything is bone dry and is cheaper (and less damaging to clothes) than a tumble dryer.

Can also just leave clothes hanging there until I have time to put it away...or the next lot of washing needs drying!!

We have 2 dishwashers it's great and not lots more expensive if you are replacing a kitchen. We reused our old integrated one and I picked up another integrated one from Facebook Marketplace.

Wonderful idea for a thread

Thanks op

A dehumidifier for the utility room. The washing dries in a fraction of the time

Oh yes you beat me to it, just posted this below.

and you can use the collected water as deionised water for the iron if you live in a hard water area

I have small hooks inside one of my kitchen cupboards and hang all utensils up instead of having a massive draw full to rummage round in! Yes you need to open it slowly but you can instantly find the potato peeler, can opener etc.

Am jealous. I wanted this when we put the utility room in, unfortunately due to layout there’s nowhere for the hatch upstairs.

Definitely this. You can almost go blind spending hours peering at socks trying to decide whether this one is very very very very very very VERY dark grey, or just faded black.

I don't have the doubtful pleasure of washing socks for a teenage family, it's just DH and me, so his black socks are his problem and my black socks get a tiny stitch or two of different coloured thread along the top for each pair. Finally that Aldi/Lidl multipack of 50 different rainbow colours of thread has a use! (If 6 cm of thread per coloured bobbin can be called a use.)

(Having said that, I've still somehow ended up wearing DH's socks. They're much nicer than mine. I think I'll surreptitiously mark them with coloured thread.)

and another one, i replaced the shampoo/conditioner/shower gels bottles in the bathroom with a triple pump like you get in a gym.I now buy big refills only.

Buying a load of heavy duty crates and properly storing things in the loft. I can actually move up there now!

also a vote for the coverless duvets, the silent night ones feel so lovely as well!

In general I’m improving my whole house. Partner is a multi-tradesman so I can have pretty much anything I want. Everything is being designed bespoke and around making life easier as well as looking good. Furniture all built in and specific for its use - meaning it’s easier to keep clean, no dust behind things, and every that’s a dedicated place, including full cable management for TVs, consoles etc. all hidden wiring.

Appropriate sockets everywhere - lots of usb sockets in well thought out locations, including 45W usb-c sockets which will charge a laptop the same as the proper adapter.

Will be getting a robot vac-mop as well, and have an air purifier to keep on tool of airborne dust.

Smart lighting - don’t need to go over to the switch, or if hands full can still turn the lights on. All built in or plastered in so it looks amazing, extremely cheap to run and convenient to use :)

Almost forgot one - I've recently renamed the wi-fi boosters to match the rooms they are in - so when I get an alert saying one is not working, I know exactly which one it is!

Another vote for upstairs and downstairs hoovers! I can't get past shoe mountain with a hoover so two works well for us! Also means kids can quickly run it round their rooms with out smashing the stairs to smithereens dragging one up.

Chucked out all the annoying baking trays with coatings that wouldn't survive the dishwasher, and replaced then with stainless steel or enamelled ones that would. On the rare occasions when we actually need them to be properly nonstick we can just use a bit of baking parchment.

Me too, except I have king size. Both for my double bed and the single in the spare room. A couple of years ago, I bought a load of those clear plastic shelf boxes, now all my small food items are easily accessible; instead of being pushed in anyhow. https://www.amazon.co.uk/SmartStore-10490-Compact-Transparent-Colour/dp/B07H6THFNX/ref=pd_lpo_d_sccl_1/258-9912969-9825442?pd_rd_w=xZnnY&content-id=amzn1.sym.bb13d3fc-af40-4fff-a822-e0e4c415da96&pf_rd_p=bb13d3fc-af40-4fff-a822-e0e4c415da96&pf_rd_r=13MRFHNJV0P64EM9P7B7&pd_rd_wg=fdaR3&pd_rd_r=346bbba1-7282-442d-a7be-6630bed5bc39&pd_rd_i=B07H6THFNX&psc=1

You can buy rechargeable (USB) motion activated lights really cheaply from Temu, they would be great for the cupboard under the stairs. We have them in bathrooms so night time visits mean you don't need to put the big light on.

I'm between jobs ATM (gardening leave) and have redesigned the household financial OS and built a dashboard in PowerBI (I used to run everything in Excel, but my OH does not share my enthusiasm for spreadsheets and trying to show him anything that way was like wading through treacle).

I've streamlined all the accounts, bills, DDs/SOs etc and I am bloody thrilled with myself.

I should say that I am a systems architect by trade so I wasn't doing anything particularly out of the ordinary for me, but it makes everything easier and I've been able to keep my professional muscles flexed to an extent.

Which steamer do you have and do you need to use special deionised water with it? I’ve tried a couple of steamers, but never quite got on with them. But I hate ironing and would prefer to use your steam-as-you-need method.

I just regret not putting in a proper electric light when we had one put in the pantry, which backs on to the cupboard under the stairs. Could have been done so easily.

We tried that and quite quickly ended up with a set of chipped crystal ... So we tamped down the feelings of guilt, slung them, and replaced them with cheap but nice wine glasses and cheap and sturdy but nice water etc. glasses.

Just a cheap £20 one from Amazon. I just use tap water. I probably replace my steamer every 18 months?

I sorted an accumulated mass of woodworking screws (some inherited from DF and DFiL) into little poly bags, graded by size and material, and keeping only Phillips/Pozi heads (plus a few unusual types). About half of them went to the metals skip at the dump. Now I can easily find whatever I need for any project, and it will be quite a while before I have to buy anything new.

We did this. The old kitchen had a slimline integrated one as the kitchen was too small. When we had an extension we bought a second slimline one. It's perfect IMHO - small enough to run every day, you can still put dirty dishes in one when the other is running, and two together is big enough to cover every eventuality.

Plus as a bonus, if one breaks down you still have the other. Wish we had two washing machines this week! 😭

Wrong thread