Cleaning Tips

Keep the heart of your kitchen clean by lining the bottom with a nonstick oven liner. It can be wiped with a paper towel, put in the dishwasher, and reused over and over.

Always begin on the right side of your stove, then move clockwise around the room. The stove is typically the dirtiest part of the kitchen, so ending with it keeps you from spreading dirt and grease. (First, soak drip pans and knobs in warm soapy water. By the time you’ve Read more…

Don’t overlook the convenience of this hardworking appliance. It can take on unusual things, like your glass light-fixture globes, plastic toys, toothbrush holders, and so much more. Just choose a gentle cycle and skip the heated dry.

Can’t spring for a fancy, sliding cabinet system? Plastic bins work just as well. Load them up and slide them out to reach that mixing bowl way in the back with ease.

Hung on the back of your closet door, a curtain rod is the perfect place to loop scarves (or hang your umbrella!). It’s a slim solution that won’t get in the way as you’re picking out your clothes.

Flipped on its side, a filing cabinet isn’t so great at storing important papers — but it’s a surprisingly stellar container for garden tools. The cabinet’s drawers become deep cubbies to keep unwieldy rakes and shovels standing at attention.

An empty wipe container compresses your grocery-store leftovers into a manageable cylinder, but still makes it easy to grab a bag in a flash.

This clever blogger found a way to clean and salvage nearly empty candles. What once held wax and wick now stores Q-tips and cotton balls — with a pretty bird on top.

A muffin tin provides a handy single-step solution to rallying the bits and baubles that live in your junk drawer, home office, or vanity (try it with earrings, rings, and bracelets, too).

Avoid spending hours un-jumbling puzzles strewn about the playroom (“Is that Elsa’s braid?”) by quickly marking the pieces’ backs and box with a unique number when you open a new one.