If You Spot a Rubber Band on Your Door, Remove It ASAP

Hey... I was waiting for you. Now, say you’re spending the day alone in your house and you hear several loud knocks on your front door. You decide not to open it straight away. Moments later, when you do open it, you notice something strange. Someone has put a rubber band on your doorknob. If this ever happens to you, you should call the cops immediately. Someone in your neighborhood might be trying to rob your house!

This technique became frequent back in 2016, but some burglars might still be trying to use it. The idea of fixing a rubber band on a doorknob is that this will make it harder for a person to close the door in case of a robbery. The band holds the latch open! In this case, even if a person tried to slam their door on a robber’s face, the band would prevent them from doing so!

On the bright side, and we are, you can use this same technique inside your home to your benefit! If you have an annoying door that keeps slamming, try tying a rubber band on its doorknob. The thickness of the rubber will slow the door down and prevent it from making a loud thump whenever it slams all by itself. Oh, you can also try this trick in case you have a door that’s always getting stuck. Make sure to fix the rubber band in a way that it crisscrosses in front of the latch. This way your door won’t close or get stuck anymore. Simple, huh?

Still on the topic of rubber bands, here are a few other tricks that can make your life a tad easier. That pickle jar you always have trouble opening, well there’s no need to sweat over it much longer. Here’s what you’ll do: wrap a rubber band around the lid. Chances are you’ll need to wrap the band around the lid a few times to make sure it’s really tight. And that’s basically it. The band will give extra friction and leverage to open pickles and other jarred goods more easily!

In case you’re renovating your house but decide to do it yourself, you’re probably in for a hot mess. Rubber bands won’t save your life in this trick, but they will make tidying up much easier. Wrap a rubber band around a can of paint, but do so vertically. This way, you’ll have a string crossing the top of the paint can. You can prevent dripping paint over the border of the can by using the band as a helper. Once you’ve dipped the paintbrush inside the can, make sure to remove the excess paint by passing your brush across the rubber band you just installed. Good luck with that!

Next — You know what they say: all things are possible when you’re DIYing your house. Victory or defeat. If you’re looking for ways of adding a touch of fanciness to your house, try upcycling something you already own. For instance, take a bland, boring-looking bookcase, and add some wallpaper to its back panels. You can even play with prints if you want a modern, edgy look.

You just bought a bunch of new Tupperware to make your fridge look picture-perfect. But — oh, no. These new containers come filled with tags and labels glued to them that need removing. And they’re always a bore to remove! Now, now, no need to waste tons of hot water and soap to try to peel them off. Here’s what you can do instead: take a hairdryer; blow some hot air directly onto the tag for a minute or so. And there you go: the label comes off all at once. If you don’t have a hairdryer, just hold the item up to this screen, and MY hot air will loosen it up. Heh heh. Ah, if only it were so.

If you decide to Marie-Kondo your home and declutter your space, you have to start by throwing away anything you haven’t used over the last two years. We all spend a lot of time looking for things we need in the amount of stuff we hoard! We often end up holding on to items that have long fallen into disuse, but since they don’t come with an expiration date, we’re not sure when to get rid of them. I mean, do you really need that DVD set of over 100 boxes? Now, to help yourself declutter, you can ask yourself the famous Marie-Kondo question: does this item spark joy for me? If it’s a no, then toss it! Your future self will thank you a lot for having fewer useless items.

A simple swap can go a long way in how luxe your house looks. Most people tend to use liquid soap and cleaning supplies in the packaging they came in. So when you walk into someone’s bathroom or kitchen, the space is usually heavily loaded with these branded packaging that rarely goes well with the space’s decor. If you’re looking for a simple upgrade, you can buy plastic or even glass bottles and replace all branded packaging in your house. For a more luxurious look, you can even choose to go with an amber bottle to put in your kitchen and bathroom supplies — they will certainly give a nice and cleaner look to your spaces.

Did you know that the color of your walls can influence your mood? There’s a strand of psychology that studies the effect of colors on people’s moods and behaviors. According to these studies, if you’re experiencing a lot of anxiety, you should consider painting the walls in your room white. An all-white bedroom reduces distractions and creates a tranquil and Zen-like environment, which can help you relax and wind down. On the other hand, if you paint your walls red or orange, this can help to energize you! Maybe it’s a good color for office space?

Ever heard of feng-shui? And no, it’s not only the art of endlessly moving your couch around. It’s an ancient practice that can help us with home organizing. ’Feng’ means wind and ’Shui’ is water, elements that are traditionally associated with strong health and good fortune. According to this philosophy, a well-organized home can help us achieve our life goals and ideals more easily. For instance, if you’re feeling a little blocked creatively and can’t seem to get your juices flowing, try adding a little wood to your working environment. A little house plant will do the job as well. Bringing in the Earth element will help to ground and to focus. Ah yes, having candles around, especially aromatic ones, can also be good if you need inspiration and enthusiasm.

Next time you go to the supermarket, make sure to buy good old mason jars. You can use them for organizing, but also as containers for a homemade aroma diffuser. Diffusers are very hype at the moment for several reasons. Other than having therapeutic effects, they can liven up any corner and make it more luxurious. Here’s what you’ll need to do: grab a glass jar and add a few drops of essential oil to it. Use Lavender or Rosemary, for example, and add some water to dilute the oil. To finish, you’ll need a couple or multiple chopsticks to dip into the mixture you just created. Well, there you have it. Just remember to keep switching the ends of your chopsticks every once in a while, since it’s the moist bits that diffuse the most oil. Oh, you can always buy an electronic aroma diffuser, if you don’t want to go through all the trouble. They are usually just a little more expensive!

If you’re looking for a nice morning of artisanal work, how about making your own cleaning products? For this experiment, you’ll need ¼ cup of white vinegar, ¼ cup of bicarbonate of soda, a squeeze of any liquid soap, and 2 cups of water. Give it a good shake, and there you go! You can keep it in a spray bottle to use whenever you need to get some cleaning done. You can even use it to remove tough stains on your clothes or your carpets. Nice and easy and ready to use.