Here are 10 household hacks you need to know, because anything that helps us keep our home in good shape is a winner in my book!

So, read on for some of my favorite household hacks…

Household hacks – Laundry:

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Hack #1. Use clothes cubbies in kids’ closets to organize an entire week of outfits all at once.

On the weekend, after laundry is all done, put together 5 outfits, including socks and undies.  Let the little ones help, too. Stack the outfits in the cubbies and then all the kiddos have to do is put on the outfit for each day.  They feel much more independent and it helps save time (and tempers) on rushed school mornings. The cubbies pictured below are from Ikea and are only $6.99.  What a deal! (Here are similar cubbies from Amazon)

Hack #2. Create a sock sorter.

Attach a lingerie bag to each child’s laundry hamper with clothes pins.  Teach them to put their socks in their bag.  On laundry day, all you have to do is zip the bag shut and toss it in the wash.  No more sorting whose socks are whose! Yay!!!

Here are some other ways to make doing kids’ laundry easier. 

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Hack #3. Refresh those old towels.

Have your towels seen better days? They aren’t as soft or absorbent as when you first got them? Do they now have a lingering weird mildew smell? No need to rush out and buy more. Here’s how you can refresh those old towels easily at home!

Here are some other ways to make your laundry room better.

Household hacks – Kitchen:

Hack #4. Use ketchup to clean copper pots and pans.

This is such an amazing hack!  All you have to do is pour the ketchup on the discolored copper and let it sit, then wash it off.  It’s really amazing how well this works!

Here is the post that shows exactly what I did. 

Hack #5. Baking soda to clean baked-on stains off of baking sheets.

This does work, but not as well as I had hoped. I discovered the stains are residue from cooking sprays that get baked on to the pan.  Now, I must admit.  I do use cooking spray a lot when I cook, and these pans haven’t been cleaned with anything other than dish soap for 20+ years, so they were pretty gunky.  I made a paste from baking soda and water and let it sit on the pan for about 15 minutes.  Then I scrubbed it off with a wad of aluminum foil. Quite a bit came off, but I would recommend leaving the paste on for at least an hour, covered in a wet paper towel to keep it moist, before scrubbing really tough stains, so it gets down into all the crevices. I was fine with stopping here. It was already so much better that before.

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Hack #6. Easily butter a baking pan by using a stick of butter still in its wrapper.

I learned this one from my mom. I keep a half stick of butter in my fridge for this very purpose.  Make sure you wrap the cut, exposed end in waxed paper to prevent it from getting hard. It is easy to butter the pan (even the corners) by just holding the stick. That way, your fingers won’t get greasy.

Hack #7. Use a sign on your dishwasher to show when the dishes are clean or dirty.

Knowing when the dishes were clean or dirty was definitely a problem at my house, so I created a clean dishwasher printable sign for our dishwasher.  Now, we can tell at a glance if the dishes are clean or not.

Click here for my free printable dishwasher sign.  It is attached to the dishwasher with a Command hook.

Hack #8. Turn a plastic pants hanger into awesome bag clips.

We seem to have multiple open bags of chips and cereal at my house.  Cut the pants hanger down and use those clips to keep those chips fresh.  These are great because these clips are really strong and I usually just recycled the entire hanger, so now I have a great purpose for the clips instead.

Here’s a tutorial on how to make the clips.

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Household hacks – Cleaning:

Hack #9. Use packing tape to de-fur furniture and dust lampshades.

We have 3 cats and a dog, so we have lots of fur at my house. Everywhere. So, a great way I have found to get fur off of the furniture is to turn packing tape sticky side out around my hand.  I then dab it on the furniture and it picks up all the fur.  I just keep turning the tape around my hand until I have used it all.  It really works well.

I also hate dusting lampshades. The dust seems to smear onto the shade even more as I wipe or it just doesn’t seem to ever really come off. Using packing tape sticky side out works great in really getting the dust off the lampshades, too.

It works just as well at dusting as it does in de-furring furniture. Try it and you’ll see!

This tip is from my post on how to get your house company-ready in 15 minutes. See it here.

Hack #10. Use a cat brush to clean pet beds.

With all of our fur babies, their beds get pretty furry, too.  So, we use an inexpensive cat brush to get rid of all the fur stuck to their beds. It works great in getting all the hair, and I like that it is small enough to get into all the little nooks and crannies to really get all that hair out.  If you don’t have a cat brush, you can also use either a squeegee or a dampened rubber glove to help pick up the hair, too.  But I have found the cat brush to work best.

Here is a post I did on how to wash pet bedding, too. 

Whew! So, now you have 10 household hacks you needed to know and can now put to good use!  Please share any good hacks you have with me, too!  I love getting good tips as much as I like giving them!

~ Pam