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Cleaning products-Shutterstock

These Three Inexpensive Cleaning Products Perform Miracles

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What we know for sure is that these three ordinary household cleaning products really can perform miracles.

Cleaning products-Shutterstock

 

BUY RIGHT | Supermarkets everywhere contain aisles full complex and sexy (the Method brand comes to mind) home and laundry products all claiming maximum cleaning efficiency. Would that everything their manufacturers said about them were true. Then again, there isn’t much any of these companies could say about their liquids and powders that would sway us away from our arsenal of basic, inexpensive household cleaners. Why make a switch when every one of them is a miracle worker—every time out.—Team Frugalbits Read more

Barbara Barry Bedding

Bed Making 101: Fold “Hotel Corners” Right

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Contemporary bed making requires a skill practiced by the military and hospital and hotel staff. Here’s how to do it right the right way.

Barbara Barry Bedding

 

DO IT RIGHT | The wedding cake bed—you know, the ultrafeminine one (pictured here) with a frothy meringue of duvet, pleated bed skirt and rows of European shams racked up against the headboard—may not be passé, but it is not what’s currently hot in bedding. What’s in fashion in bedding right now is a tailored, masculine effect, characterized by lean, clean lines and multiple layers of fitted sheets and flat covers drawn in tight to the bed frame. Read more

Thermador Dishwasher Interior

When Dishwasher Soap Packets Are Overkill

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Premeasured dishwasher soaps are convenient but overkill almost everywhere—and particularly unnecessary in places where the water is soft.

Thermador Dishwasher Interior

 

WASTE NOT | When my four-year-old European dishwasher crashed a while back, I called in a repairman who made an eye-opening comment about my dishwashing detergent. “You use that stuff?” he asked, pointing at the Electrasol Dishwasher Detergent with Powerball Tabs I’d bought in a convenient 100-tab tub at Costco.

“Yes, and I love it. It’s so easy,” I chirped, citing a no-mess no-fuss defense and explaining how my dishes looked at least as sparkly clean as they had with other detergents I’d employed. Read more

Sweater Stone

Pill Popper: Why You Need A Sweater Stone

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The best device ever for removing pilling from fabric is on sale right now.

Sweater Stone

 

SALE ALERT | This is hardly the time to suggest that you rush out and buy stocking stuffers with another 354 shopping days left until Christmas, but we’ve decided to do a little pre-Christmas shopping at Eddie Bauer this week because they’re having a sale on our all-time favourite Christmas stocking gift, the Sweater Stone and we plan to stock up. If you’ve ever put one of these tools to work, you’ll know why we’re excited; if you haven’t, you might want to listen up. Read more

Deep Cleaning The Floor

How To Deep Down Clean Your House

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How to keep your house deep down clean year round—without a live-in maid.

Deep Cleaning The Floor

 

CLEAN SMARTER | Have you ever noticed there are two kinds of house dirty? The first is surface dirty. This is what most of us deal with on a weekly basis, doing the dusting, vacuuming and general tidying that keep our homes looking presentable.

The second is deep down dirty. This kind of dirty creeps up on you while you’re religiously attending to the surfaces. Deep down dirty is the leather sofa that never gets conditioned, or the back of the insides of bottom kitchen cupboards that become magnets for grunge, or the dust and gunk that gathers on baseboards behind bedroom dressers that seldom if ever get moved.

Deep down dirty can make even a tidy house feel unclean. Read more

Bleach Bottle - Shutterstock

Is Bleach Superbad For The Environment? You?

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Is common household bleach a threat to the environment? Can it kill you?

Bleach Bottle - Shutterstock

 

BACK TO BASICS | Call me a freak, but putting on rubber gloves and plunging my hands into my own toilet bowls to clean them with a scrubbing sponge doesn’t bother me at all. What does bother me is that no matter what cleaning products I use, the bowls of my newish toilets look dirty again in days. Frustrated by the ineffectiveness of Vim, Ajax, Lysol et al., I turned to cheap, common household bleach. Read more

James Perce White Tee Shirt

Yesss! OxiClean Is A Miracle Stain Remover

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We’re kind of obsessed with clothing stains around here, and guess what? We’ve finally found the perfect—and easiest—way to remove them.

James Perce White Tee Shirt

 

PROBLEM SOLVED | At Frugalbits we’re suckers for expert advice so last spring, when we wanted to know how to remove perspiration stains from white tee shirts, we contacted Madame Paulette in New York City, an international expert in fabric care. The company president graciously shared Madame Paulette’s DIY stain removal formula with our readers (CLICK HERE for the story), and although it is good and useful, we’ve recently been introduced to an even simpler solution that’s equally effective and no work at all. Read more

Why Reupholster When A Nip And Tuck Will Do

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Why flat out reupholster your old, classic sofa when a nip and a tuck may be all it takes to give it a lift.

SERVICE ALERT | Although home décor and design are all about modernism right now, I’m still in love with the George Smith-inspired scroll arm sofa and chair I bought on sale at Conran’s in England when my now-teenaged son was small. One thing I appreciate about my pieces is the way their fabric has faded ever so softly over the years in that endearing English country house way. It made me sad to think about completely recovering them when two of the arms frayed, one each on the sofa and chair, but what else can you do when your living room starts to look more shabby than chic? I had pretty much resigned myself to an expensive upholstery redo when Susan Poling walked into my life. Read more

Swimming Pool With Infinity Edge

Home Upgrades That Really Don’t Pay Off

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Renovation projects that experts say aren’t worth your time (or money).

Swimming Pool With Infinity EdgeNEVER DO THESE | Not long ago, the website real simple.com ran the headline we’ve republished above. When I first saw it, I jumped on the story, only to find myself disappointed when some of their suggestions didn’t seem to compute: like never changing a bedroom into a home office because people won’t be able to imagine reconverting it into a place to sleep. Or that you shouldn’t install a concrete patio because it can crack and is too harshly reflective; hello, concrete done right should hold up—oh, and it can be repaired btw. Or the idea that you mustn’t waste wads on tennis or basketball courts, as if these were popular additions.

In the spirit of the realsimple idea, we decided to create our own Never Do List. Here are three reno projects local realtors say aren’t worth the time or money.

What Not To Renovate Read more

A No-Fail Way To Get Kids To Turn Off Lights

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There is a NO-FAIL way to get your kids (or anyone else in your house) to douse the lights when they leave a room.

 

WASTE NOT Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the times were desperate around my house. After what seemed like eons of continual nagging by me and my husband, our children, lovely individuals all, continued to leave the lights on when they exited their rooms, or any of the other spaces in our home they frequented with regularity.

“Turn off the light when you leave a room” is one of our basic house rules, along with “Do not take hour-long showers” and “Avoid drinks in disposable containers” if at all possible. But where wasting water and steering clear of junk plastic seemed to click with my tribe, remembering to douse the lights remained an issue. Read more