Hacks for your House!

July 2020, Updated September 2023

At my house I need all the help I can get to keep things together. Want to know some of my tricks? Check out these hacks for your house! I have hacks for the laundry room plus two more!

*Some links are affiliate links. By clicking on them and making a purchase I may make a small commission. Thank you for your support!

House Hack #1

How to clean your chalkboard

I have an awesome chalkboard wall in my house. It is also magnetic! I use it for our chore chart, daily schedule and a drawing space for my little guy-among other things. After daily use it gets gross after a while and I need to start fresh.

Step 1- Use an eraser

Actually take a minute to erase any remaining writing and drawing off of your board.

Step 2- Wash with water

Use a wet microfiber cloth (or any cloth, try to avoid paper towel because it leaves more dust behind) and thoroughly wash down the chalkboard. When you are done it will probably still look like this:

Step 3- Wipe with olive oil

What??? Olive oil??? I know! I thought it sounded crazy when I first heard this too. BUT IT WORKS! Using water on your chalkboard gets rid of a lot of the dust from the chalk, but it also dries out the board. Put a bit of olive oil onto your microfiber cloth. In small circles rub it onto the chalkboard. The results speak for themselves:

I have used this hack several times now and the chalkboard still works great. I have used my middle of the road quality olive oil but would be curious to know if it worked with cheaper vegetable oil or even spray? Let me know in the comments if you try it out!

UPDATE: Today I used non-stick spray oil (kind of like spray painting the wall!) It worked great! I sprayed an area and worked it in just like the olive oil. The only thing to watch out for is it will make the floor extremely slippery if you miss the wall a bit…not that I would know…not that I fell or anything….

House Hack #2

How to save money on soap & sanitizer

Do your kids use giant pumps of soap & sanitizer? I don’t even buy foam hand soap anymore because it’s gone so quickly. Until now! I learned this home hack from E’s teacher (you know, before school shutdown because of the global pandemic). All you need is a rubber band!

Take a small rubber band and wrap it around the pump of your sanitizer or soap. This will only allow a small pump to be taken! It is just enough for kid sized hands. Adults may need two pumps, but it helps the kids get just the right amount.

House Hack #3

Laundry Communication

In my house I am really good at getting the laundry into the washer…I am awful about remembering to put it in the dryer. Most nights I plead with my husband to throw it in the dryer right before bed. The only problem with this is he doesn’t know which items need to line dry. I solved this problem with a dry erase marker!

I use the marker to write on the washing machine which items can’t go into the dryer. It has saved many a pair of precious jeans from shrinking! I don’t guarantee this will come off of all machines, please try a test patch first!

Update: Since I wrote this post, we’ve moved! In our new laundry room there was a perfect space to add a small white board instead of needing to write on the machines.

House Hack #4

Dryer Dust

I hope I’m not the only one who’s dryer constantly looks like this:

The dryer seems to collect dust worse than most things in my house. It is also in my basement, so I never have dusting supplies close at hand. I do however have dryer sheets! I use one dryer sheet and it collects all of the dust so easily. See the difference for yourself-

Extra House Hack

Use Grove Collaborative or Instacart!

Full disclosure, I am a (former) affiliate for Grove Collaborative. However, I began using them over two years ago, long before any affiliation! Grove is a mail order service for natural cleaning, household and self care supplies. The hack here is you can order everything from your couch and all of your supplies will arrive at your door a few days later!

Don’t remember to order things? Grove will e-mail you to be sure everything in your cart is correct before they put together your next shipment.

The very best thing about Grove is their reliability. During the heart of the pandemic I was able to get toilet paper and soap from them! As of this publishing they also have full sized hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes available. Please give them a try if you’re looking to make your life a little easier!

Need more than cleaning supplies? Try Instacart Grocery Delivery!

Do you need help with other areas of your home? Let me know in the comments so I can give you more hacks!

Meal Planning Hacks by The Chaos Manager