Anyone who’s ever hammered a nail knows that there are two acceptable places to put it: your mouth, or on the surface below where you’re hammering, where it will inevitably get lost. The solution? By adding a strip of magnetic tape to the handle of your hammer, you can keep those nails where you need them and never risk losing another.
Whether you’ve snagged it on your keys or it’s just weakened over time, a hole in your screen render it practically useless. Fortunately, there’s a simple solution for those small tears: clear nail polish. If you have a minor hole in your screen but don’t want to replace the whole thing, simply add a swipe of clear nail polish to the screen to cover the hole and it’ll be as good as new in minutes.
You may love your pets but odds are you don’t relish getting covered in their fur every time you take a seat on a piece of fabric-upholstered furniture. However, instead of spending endless cash on lint rollers that hardly pick up a thing, there’s an easier solution. With a squeegee—the same one you use to get your windshield gleaming—you can get all the pet fur off your furniture in a single swipe.
While plaster walls may offer better soundproofing than drywall, they’re not without their own problems, particularly when you’re trying to hang something on them. But all it takes is a little tape to fix the issue.
Before you nail a hole in your wall, first put down a small square of masking tape or painter’s tape over the area where you’ll be placing your nail. That way, when you nail into the plaster, it’s unlikely to flake or spread dust, and may even prevent future cracks down the line.
Is your water bill outrageously high? Your toilet tank could be the problem. To help reduce the cost, put a brick or other heavy item in the tank. This will displace at least a few cups of water, helping you reduce the amount you use with every flush.
If you live with someone who seems incapable of opening a door gently, there’s a quick and easy solution that will save your sanity and your walls. Simply cut a slit in a tennis ball and wrap it around the offending knob—when it hits the wall, it will bounce right off rather than leaving an indentation.
There are few things more frustrating than trying to remove a garbage bag from your can, only to find that it’s holding on for dear life. The solution? Simply drill a small hole in the bottom of your trash can and you’ll prevent the vacuum-like seal that often makes the bags stick.
Wire mesh magazine holders are the perfect size to keep your smaller goods in order while making them easy to find.
There are few things that make a tub or window look less presentable that a messy line of caulk. To ensure that you always have a perfectly-caulked surface every time, use painter’s tape on either side of where the caulk will go and voila! No mess and a professional-looking job.
If you have easily-locked doors and clever pets or children, you know just how easy it is to find yourself locked out of a room. Fortunately, all it takes is a rubber band to keep those doors from locking. Simply loop it around one doorknob, twist it over the latch bolt so it’s pressed into the door, and loop the other end of the band over the other doorknob.
If you’re dealing with a less-than-ideal kitchen—especially one that’s particularly dark—use some LED lights to brighten up your set-up. Instead of installing pricey under-cabinet lighting, a few stick-up LEDs can help illuminate your counter tops for virtually no money.
If you forgot to put on deodorant and you don’t want to smell like you’ve been at the gym, cut a fresh lemon or orange into two halves and just rub it onto your skin. The body odor will disappear.
If you don’t have a dryer and need to dry your clothes quickly, here’s what you can do. Place your wet clothing on a dry towel. Roll the towel with the garment inside. Pick it up, and twist it as tightly as possible to squeeze out the excess water. After you’ve drained the excess water, hang your garment on a hanger to fully dry.
Just like your face, your scalp needs a good scrub every now and then to get rid of all the dead skin cells. When you add a little bit of sugar to your shampoo, you’ve basically created a natural scrub. Because of the sugar, you will gently scrub the dead skin cells from your scalp and they will rinse away through the shower drain. You don’t need any fancy, expensive scrubs! It is good to know that you shouldn’t scrub your scalp with sugar every single day, though. Once per three or five washes is plenty.
Get out a jar of peanut butter. It needs to be completely smooth, the smoother the better. Rub a layer of the spread onto the scratched part of the DVD. Leave this to sit for about a minute to let it do its thing. Take a soft cloth or a tissue and wipe away the peanut butter. The reason this works is that the oil from the peanut butter is sticky and it temporarily fills the scratch up to the surface. This will stop the DVD from faltering and you’ll be able to properly watch the film without any annoying interruptions (from the DVD at least). It’s not a permanent solution, though. Eventually, the scratch will return and you’ll have the same problem again. You can also use toothpaste or Vaseline for this trick.
Cut a grapefruit in half and generously sprinkle the flesh with salt. Then, wetten the surfaces you want to clean with water and scrub them with the citrus fruit. Do squeeze the fruit every once in a while, so the juices come out and a lovely smell will spread through the room. Rinse the surfaces you’ve cleaned with lukewarm water when you’re done. You’ve got yourself a clean, fresh-smelling bathroom without using any chemicals!
Spinach is full of iron, folic acid, vitamin A and beta-carotene. This makes it not only very healthy for your body; it’s also very good for your hair! By adding a little more spinach to your diet, your hair will grow stronger because it combats brittleness. Your hair will break off less easily and it will look a lot healthier too.
To make this mask, you have to mix a couple of tablespoons of milk with two tablespoons honey, lemon juice and baking soda. Mix this together properly. You can also grind a few vitamin E tablets into the mixture as well. This will make for the ultimate cleanse. Apply the mixture to your face and let it sit for about a quarter of an hour. Rinse it off and your face will feel silky smooth.
When you cook a lot, it’s only a matter of time before your gas burners become really dirty. If you don’t clean them regularly, it can turn into a very tedious chore. A sponge and some soapy water won’t be enough to get them squeaky clean in that case. To clean your gas burners, fill a plastic, resealable freezer bag with a dash of ammonia and a glass of water. Place the burners inside this bag, close it and place the bag outside to let the burners soak. Believe us, you don’t want to keep this bag inside your home because the smell of ammonia is quite intense. The next morning, take the burners out of the bag and rinse them properly. You’ll see your gas burners will shine again and that your kitchen immediately looks a lot cleaner. It really is that easy and you don’t have to do any scrubbing!
Did you accidentally drop a bit of paint on your tile floor or did you get it on a doorknob? Not to worry! Apply a bit of mayo to the paint stain before the paint dries and goes hard. The oil in the mayo attracts the oil in the paint, which means you can easily remove the paint and the mayo together with a cloth after the paint has absorbed the mayo.
A dripping faucet is super annoying and it also wastes a lot of water. It needs to be fixed as soon as possible, of course, but if it’s already late at night, you won’t be able to do it right away. To not go completely crazy from the sound of dripping water, you can tie a piece of floss around the faucet. Make sure the end of the floss hangs in the drain. This way, you’re guiding the drops of water to the drain via the piece of floss and you eliminate the dripping.
You’re going to sleep much more soundly and calmly with a clove of garlic under your pillow! We realize this sounds a bit weird but the sulphurous substances in garlic combined with the aroma have a calming effect on you. The smell of the garlic will reach through the pillow a little bit, which helps you to fall asleep more easily. Plus, it’ll also improve the quality of your sleep. In other words: you sleep quicker and deeper; what more do you want? Put one or two cloves (including peel) under your pillow and you’ll notice the effect. You’ll sleep like a baby! And don’t worry; your bedroom won’t smell of garlic when you wake up the next morning and neither will you. Everyone will still want to sit next to you! Worth a try?
A lot of houses make use of central heating, which provides warmth throughout the entire house through the use of radiators placed on the outer walls of the building. A thermostat is placed in a central spot in the home and this, in theory, ensures that the whole house gets warmed up to a certain temperature. Yet we often notice that some rooms are heated a lot less than others. Since most radiators are placed along the exterior walls of homes, a lot of the warm air escapes to the outside and the room doesn’t get heated properly.
Want to amplify the effect of your radiator? Here’s a very simple tip. All you need is a roll of aluminium foil. Roll out a piece of foil of the same length as your radiator and stick this to the back of your radiator with some masking tape. Repeat this process for all of your radiators. The heat from the radiator will be reflected by the aluminium foil. That means that instead of escaping through the walls, the warm air will be reflected back into the room. The trick is so effective that it feels as if you’ve simply turned on a second radiator in the room! When your home is heated more quickly, the thermostat turns off quicker as well (until it needs to start heating again). This means you’re also saving money. It’s a win-win situation!
Dissolve pieces of eggshell in a small bowl with apple cider vinegar. This could take up to two days. Apple cider vinegar helps blemishes on your skin to fade away and the eggshell adds calcium to the mix. Apply the apple cider vinegar mixture onto your skin by dabbing it on and you’ll see it’ll soothe irritation or pain.
Something only very few people know is that you shouldn’t clean your car windows with regular glass cleaner! It can cause streaks and foggy stains. Plus the ammonia in glass cleaner can damage the windows causing the tint to break down and peel in the long run.