I’m always looking for homemaking tips to make things easier, less time-consuming, or simply make my homemaking life more beautiful. I decided to ask YOU, my readers, to share your best tips and received some great responses.
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The Best Homemaking Tips From Life With Dee Readers
I love all these wonderful tips and am so pleased to be able to share them all with you!
Mandy: I love a great smelling home. It is so comforting for me and my family but it is also very welcoming to our guests. Even children love to walk in my home and say “your house smells so nice”. It makes me feel good. Not only is my home clean and clutter free but smells wonderful. I use natural essential oils. I have different scents in different parts of my home. It is not overwhelming or mixed up. In the main part of the house and entrance I use rose oils. In the kitchen and dining room I use either lemon or cinnamon. The bathroom and hallways I also use rose oils and I use lavender oils in the bedrooms. It is one of the best and simplest things you can do to make your home special.
Dee: I’m the same way about having my home smell good. I love the idea of having specific scents for each area of the home!
Kat Murray: I love hanging my laundry out on the line. I think it is the nicest thing I can do for my family. My husband could tell the bedding was hung out as soon as he walked in our room.
Dee: There is absolutely nothing like the scent of line-dried laundry. David doesn’t know this yet but he’s going to be installing a clothesline for me soon!
Karla Riggs Neese: 1. I like to keep cleaning supplies in each bathroom under the sink so I don’t have to go very far to get to the stuff.
2. We mostly go barefoot in our house so we keep a pair of flip flops by the back door to put on when we go outside.
Dee: I do the same thing regarding cleaning supplies. This is especially helpful in an upstairs bathroom! And I love your idea of keeping flip flops by the door. I do wear my Birkenstocks in the house because they keep my feet from hurting. However, I don’t like the idea of wearing the same shoes indoors and out. I just bought a new pair so I think I will follow your example – sort of in reverse. I’ll put my old pair by the door to wear INDOORS.
Patricia Snodgrass: I have discovered that white vinegar does a wonderful job of taking soap scum off the bath tub.
Dee: We have terribly hard water here so that just adds to the soap scum issue. Vinegar is a great help!
Alice Birchfield: -Keep powdered milk in your cupboard. You never know. I don’t even drink cow’s milk, but I keep it for recipes and in case I need it.
Keep a basic drill and some bits and screwdriver tips.
Always have white vinegar and baking soda. You can clean most things with them, separately and together.
Also, a spray bottle with water, a tablespoon of bleach and a tiny squirt of dish soap is a good sanitizer cleaner too. I love bleach.
I do make my own laundry soap/detergent (powdered) and you can turn baking soda in to wash soda by heating it in the oven on low for a couple of hours. I set my timer and stir it around and then let it go another hour. I then put it in a container to use when I make my laundry soap.
I lived on an island for about 15 years, so I always keep back ups of things like toilet paper, toothpaste (I make that too), Dog and cat food and other essentials. I hate being forced to run to the store. I have to make myself grocery shop most of the time.
Dee: Wow! So many great tips. I don’t live on an island (yet!) but it’s about a 20 minute drive to town for me. When we moved to the country I learned the importance of keeping extras of the essentials.
Joan Johnson: Every other day, I set a timer for 15 minutes and grab 2 paper towels and a bottle of windex. I don’t stop wiping things down until the timer goes off. At first you’ll do windows, mirrors, etc. But if you keep at it, soon you’re doing lamps, phones, TV remotes, switch plates, etc., and quickly you see your home start to sparkle!
Dee: I LOVE this idea! I’m envisioning a group challenge. Maybe in my “Life With Dee” Facebook group? Have you joined the group yet? Please do!
Annabel Smith: Fold everything from the line and do not crush things up in a laundry basket ever! Also dry shirts and tops on hangers in the breeze, no ironing. Let the breeze do the ironing for you.
Dee: I will definitely keep this in mind WHEN David puts in my clothesline. 🙂
Jeff-Rhonda Oliver: My tip is to make lists to prioritize and plan ahead and then just do it. Procrastination just costs money with late charges on bills not paid, overdue library books, food that spoils because you put off cooking it, coupons that expire because you don’t use them, plants that die because you put off taking care of them. This list could go on and on. When you procrastinate laundry, the stains may set in and never come out, causing ruined clothes. I plan ahead as much as possible. I loosely plan out our budget for the year, including expenses that may only occur 1 or 2 times like insurance, pet checkups, vehicle registrations, etc, so they aren’t a big uh-oh when due, gifts, etc.
Dee: What a good point. So much could be solved simply by avoiding procrastination.
Jeff-Rhonda Oliver: (referring to a discussion about line-drying) Most of my clothes are knits and I wash them with fabric softener in the rinse and then hang them all to dry in doorways inside our home. Then when they’re dry, usually overnight, I just move them to the closet. There’s no folding or letting them wrinkled in the dryer. I do my husband’s knit shirts like this too. We had a clothesline, but our Oklahoma wind can just be fierce and would sometimes blow my laundry to the ground or just blow it gone. So I prefer indoor drying.
Dee: I like the idea of drying on hangers! I may need to come up with a place to hang them in our laundry room. I still want an outdoor clothesline (makes things smell so good!) but as you say, some days it’s too windy (or rainy).
Janice: When I was young, my nanny taught me a trick when sewing. You know how sometimes it’s hard to pull a needle through a fabric because it’s either getting rusty or the fabric is so tight? Well, she rubs the needle on a candle so it glides in and out with no problem. I’ve even seen her rub the needle on her scalp! Lol. She said not to do that, but she thinks it does the same job. Oh, I forgot to mention, she also wraps the threads around the candle and pulls, sort of to coat them with a bit of wax, so they don’t tangle while sewing.
Dee: I’m not much of a seamstress (that’s the understatement of the year!) but I do have a small basket of things that need to be mended. I’m going to put a candle in there so I can try your trick!
Greta Durbin: My best tip would be to clean as you go, especially in the kitchen. Do quick pick-ups as you go through your home and then it’s always easier to dust, vacuum , etc. when you don’t have every room to clear first!
Dee: Such a good reminder. David usually helps me clean the kitchen after dinner and he is very happy if I have cleaned as I cook. I figured out as a child that it isn’t cleaning I mind but tidying up after other people (my younger brothers, for instance!) drives me nuts.
Lisa Sharp: Set up a good morning routine. It will help get your day off to a good start and make your day seem productive even if the rest of the day doesn’t go as planned. Here is something I wrote about this: A Homemaker Morning Routine.
Dee: This is SO true. My morning routine keeps evolving. I’m working on a new routine for summer. If I want to get any gardening done I’ll need to do it in the mornings before it gets too hot.
Thank you all SO MUCH for your great homemaking tips and ideas! If anyone else has a tip to share, leave me a comment. Maybe I’ll do a “part two” if there are enough.
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These are great tips.
We don’t wear shoes indoors either. We have soft souled slippers we sometimes wear when the weather is really cold, but mostly hubby’s just in socks, and my feat are bare (I actually hate having anything on my feet, and am one of those people who would only wear shoes in really cold or really wet weather, if it wasn’t for the fact this kind of behaviour is frowned upon). Our shoes are lined up by the coats, near to the door, so we can grab them on our way out.
Also, I always like to have extras of essential items too. The shop is literally just up the road for me, but you never know… Better safe than sorry, right?