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 😂

Will get some ordered, thank you. Fed up of balancing a funnel on little ones to fill up!

All of the bedding set talk makes me feela need to contribute! My DH and I have seperate duvets and we have a king size and 3 pillows each, so a bedding set is quite big. When the washing is being put away, I fold the 1st duvet to a pillow case size, then the 2nd, then the pillow cases go on top of that, and then I fold it in half. This keeps everything together and wrinkle free.

Not household but work - adding a 2 minute delay on emails. Saved me when I've rethought off the cuff emails after pressing send on a number of occasions!

Hooks are clearly the way forward 🤣

When DD2 got married she wore a 1950s silk wedding dress she bought on Etsy. The dress had to be taken some distance so did crease slightly on the journey. I have almost the same little steamer as this and we just put the dress on a hanger and it was done in about ten minutes. So handy.

I think it's a case of finding what works individually. I find scheduling tasks tweaks my anxiety as they pop up in front of me and I'm in danger of not doing them at the appointed time, not carrying them forward to another day and then losing sight of them. It also clutters my calendar and I'm prone to missing appointments.

The full version of what I do centres around the Productivity Ninja (it's a great read and system) which includes a main "master" list which captures everything I've thought of. I then transfer tasks over to a "to do" list in a way that isn't overwhelming. It works for my brain.

I'm currently using MS To Do's for Android which is free. At the moment I'm dumping all tasks in the to do list with their due date so they sit in order, unimportant things just sit at the bottom, it then has a "My Day" function which only shows what is due. I do also flick through the main list at times to check dates etc.

This version is a work in progress as I've just retired. I find the concept of one big list that means I've captured everything and can now forget it, alongside a to do list that doesn't (unless something is time critical) pop up in front of me works for me but my issues are around trying not to feel anxious about what I've got to do.

I agree it is what works for individuals- I have tried various ‘to do’ apps and think that just means spending more time creating lists than actually getting stuff done.
it helps my stress in that when I think of something that I need to do I add it on any random day then if I can’t do it then reallocate to another time when I can.

Two that probably won’t help anyone else but make my life easier:

Prep the day’s food for the animals in the morning. Although I’m not a morning person it doesn’t take much more time to chop a whole pepper than a half, an extra few inches of cucumber etc and it means that it’s ready for the evening meal. I often fall asleep with dc when putting them to bed and wake up at midnight needing to do it and feed them and really don’t want to be cutting veg then. There’s only a few times a week just a bag of kale will do. (I sometimes feed them before bedtime but the rabbit likes to stay out until it’s dark which means I have to go out again later anyway in the summer.)

Tie dc’s tamagotchi to a long ribbon. That way, when it starts beeping when they’re at school I have a chance in hell at finding it!

I was thinking about this. You'll be left with a triangle of wall or banister where the curtain (or 2 curtains: 1 wider at the bottom, plus a narrow one at the top of the ) drops down. Could you cover this part with a stick-on wallpaper in the same pattern as the curtains?

I’ve just ordered soap bags!

Not sure what you mean? I was thinking of Velcro or magnets all the way down so there wouldn’t be any gaps. It will probably look crap but at least it would hide all the stuff!

I think velcro all the way down the diagonal could work. Go for it. 👍🏻

Every time I go to the attic, something comes down and goes in the bin. I have a big attic, but that's no excuse for it being full of crap.

When there is enough of something to justify going to the tip, I go that week instead of never.

If something still works but you don't use it, put it on a local giveaway site - you get rid of it, and have the good feeling that someone else has got something they need for free.

Baking paper instead of scraping food off and cleaning the roast pan every time.

Unpack the day you come home from holiday, not two months later.

When chargers break(-ish), throw them out and buy a new one instead of fiddling and suffering charge anxiety for 6 months.

If you have the cashflow and storage, never buy 1 of something consumable. Buy 6. It will save you having to think about it the next 5 times. (my kids always joke about 6 bottles of soy sauce, 12 cans of chickpeas, 8 bottles of shampoo/conditioner etc., but I can assure you, going to the garage when you need something is favourable to going to the shop.)

I think it could look great. I made something similar for DS to cover gaps in his kitchen where there were not units. Old school but works.
On sewing.
I had a huge scarf collection. People buy scarves as gifts for middle aged women. It never occurs to them that they've never seen me wear a scarf. I sewed a load together in similar or contrasting colours and made a channel through the top and hung them as curtains in a little sitting room. I love them.

Idk if this counts but DH and I have a Google sheet for 'house things' which has tabs such as
'where things are in the attic'
'broken stuff we need to fix'
'who runs our utilities'

I'm a great list maker. I have packing lists by season, length of holiday etc.
I have a what to do if we die folder (we are older).
All bills and outgoings,who the provider is and where the DD goes from.

I'm interested in the steam cleaner. I can't get my head round how they work? If you blast something with steam how does that clean it? Doesn't it just make it hot and damp? Where does the dirt go? I imagine you have to wipe it as well but how would that clean textiles?

If you have the cashflow and storage, never buy 1 of something consumable. Buy 6. It will save you having to think about it the next 5 times. (my kids always joke about 6 bottles of soy sauce, 12 cans of chickpeas, 8 bottles of shampoo/conditioner etc., but I can assure you, going to the garage when you need something is favourable to going to the shop.)

I'm a great bulk buyer and on the back of this thread I've just reorganised and cleaned all the shelves and storage in the garage where the overflow lives along with wine, beer and soft drinks that aren't actually needed in the fridge.

That’s brilliant 🤩

@HereComesTheNight you wipe away the gunk (water and dirt) produced by the steam cleaner. What it'll do though is get in the tiny gaps, clean grout beautifully and clear grease really well.

I now use loaf tin liners for baking, really cheap from the supermarket, cleaning the tin is almost unnecessary.

And I bought a pack of silicone muffin cases which fit in our muffin tin. They're reuseable, don't need greasing, again hardly need washing, so much better than paper ones.

I look at Instagram of Bible of British Taste or at their website - and I now don't throw old shit away at all - this is my excuse of not feeling guilty about repurposing cracked jugs, teapots, etc.

Please can you link me to this, I seem to live in a constant dust prison.

You can really dislike a poster. I'm meant to be decluttering and I love the cluttered look! Thanks.
Mañana ...

In the winter I wash out tights each night in the bathroom sink with some liquid soap and hang them over the towel rail to dry overnight.

It prevents them all multiplying and getting tangled up in the laundry basket

I also cut up brushed cotton clothes (eg old pyjamas/tee shirts) which cannot be sent /are not good enough for the charity shop and then use them as disposable cloths.

I have 4 dc so when they were little systems were essential

each dc had a color and everything that was possible was in that color, so towels, flannels, lunch box, school bag, duvet cover. Then everyone knew whose was whose at a glance

each dc had a basket by the back door and when they came in shoes, hat, gloves coat, bags all went in it .. piled high. Then everything was easy to find. They did have hooks above the basket for their coats, and they sometimes used those as well!

my outside lights broke and it would have needed an electrician to fix them and maybe digging up the garden. So I just ignored them and bought a set of solar lights on a stake to replace them. They are so inexpensive it cost less than a quarter the electrician would have charged. And i have light in more places because i got a set.

To cope with the mountain of art etc the dc brought home, each dc had a set of 5 clips on a string on the kitchen wall, and they could hang their artwork on them. They got to choose which 5 pieces they wanted to keep and were in charge of switching them if a new piece came home that was worthy. Any that we didnt keep they got to decide if it was worthy of being photographed on my phone. Those photos just get sorted into an online album and when we need to wait somewhere and needed a distraction, they would sometimes look through the artwork album at the family’s creations. It really keeps the paper clutter down and helps them learn the skill of recognizing quality over quantity.

I use my label maker to label plugs and cables, very helpful so you know which thing to unplug.

I've always wondered about the sets of bedding in a pillowcase thing - then realised that I'm pretty minimal in the bedding department, so it's one set on the bed, and one in the linen cupboard. Even when my children were at home, the linen cupboard never became disorganised as it didn't have too much in it.

I 'designed' my dressing table so that most things can be put away - one drawer has my hairdryer, straighteners and Revlon One Step 😁 things having 'homes' makes me happy, keeps the house tidy, and I always know where things are.

This is niche but drives me crazy- I’ve seen on Amazon these covers that you put on the bottom of shavings foam so they don’t rust up your bath! Buying them! 👍☺️