The Best Home Hacks

For the best results, choose your hack carefully. Here's our expert guide.

No matter how small your kitchen, it still has big potential.

It only took a few elements to revitalize this decade-old shelf.

You don't have to knock down a wall to get a bigger closet—you can fake it!

This floating shelf has real hack potential!

Call it the fountain of furniture youth.

You've probably seen this trick on Pinterest.

You would never guess the end product came from IKEA.

This one-day project gives your walls instant character.

With a little effort, you can get big results.

You don't have to spend a fortune to get a high-end look.

Step one: Let go of any concept about how things “should” be stored.

I’ve never met a cleaning hack I wasn’t willing to try. And this one paid off.

This IKEA hack has the look of custom woodwork—but costs a lot less.

First up: Turning a blah brown doormat into a cheery welcome.

This could be a good option for those who choose to use free and clear detergent—but would like their laundry to be mildly scented and aren’t bothered by essential oils.

You don't have to live with the splatter. We've got pro tricks for how to remove them, even if they're totally dry.

Stuck with stubborn wallpaper? You don't have to rip it down to change the look.

These simple hacks are stylish AND practical.

You'll want to save these smart tricks for later.

These upgrades are fast, easy, and full of love.

Here are some of the best ways to turn this small, often neglected room into its very best self.

The after has color and charm to spare.

There's always hope!

Make your next paint job a breeze with these expert tips.

It makes a huge difference in the look of your cook space.

I'll always be keeping this in my tool kit from now on—and you should, too.

No one will ever know you only paid $250 for it.

These budget-friendly ideas deserve a place on your list this year.

Give your old lamp the glow up it deserves.

Ring in the new decade with some IKEA hacks that will take your home organization to the next level.

You'll want to steal this clever idea for your home ASAP.

Your salt shaker doesn’t have to stay strapped to the kitchen table. We’ve got 18 ways to put it to work all around your house.

Put these smart solutions to work next year to make life easier in 2020.

Your home gets dry skin in winter, too. Here's how you can help.

Get this hero out of the pantry and into your tool kit.

It's time for your mirror to feel like the fairest of them all.

Is it just us, or has this holiday season felt extremely short? If you're worried you've run out of time to turn your home into a holiday wonderland, look no further.

You're welcome.

We've rounded up our favorite, most hackable finds from your new go-to store.

You can put this household workhorse to use in every room of your home.

These ideas will take your kitchen to the next level.

Upcycling never looked so chic.

These types of IKEA "hacks" are the perfect combo of affordable and fast to do.

Check decorating off your list (and then check it twice, because this is THAT simple).

This trick is a game-changer for sofas, chairs, and headboards everywhere.

While duct tape usually gets touted as the fix-everything sticky product, I think this tape might be out to steal that title.

Blogger and journalist Caroline Sølver renovated this entire Denmark apartment herself, with the help of friends and family.

They're all under $50!

Allow us to introduce you to The Couchlet.

The half-moon dowel is more or less having a moment.

Because small can be so stylish!

Here are nine useful or fun ways to use your food coloring and bring the rainbow to projects outside of the kitchen.

Whether your thumb is green or black, whether you have one plant or a jungle's worth, here are some plant-care tips that can help keep your greenery not only alive, but lush.

We have the most simple solution for your most simple can: Command hooks!

Much of the appeal of watching “House Hunters” is playing detective, tuning into side comments and reactions that hint at what the ultimate house will be. You’ll be tempted to learn the secret to predicting the outcomes, like me. However, you might sincerely regret it once you know because all future “House Hunters” viewings will be forever changed. Consider yourself warned, far more than I was before embarking on this experiment, which began with a Reddit thread.

Some single-use gadgets and home tools just take up space versus regularly make our lives easier. It’s hard to purchase an entire device that just de-pills sweaters, for example, when you know it will wind up languishing in your cabinet or drawer. Which is why it’s great to discover multiple handy uses for ordinary objects and materials you already have lying around the house. Today’s unsung household hero: sandpaper.

At this point, most of us can spot a BILLY bookcase, KALLAX cubby, or LACK table a mile away. Basic and affordable, they’ve been some of the most popular items at IKEA for years, and our first apartments would’ve been bare without them.

IKEA Israel is teaming up with two nonprofits to make their products easier to use for people with disabilities. Along with nonprofits Milbat and Access Israel, Ikea has 13 new items designed to upgrade handle-less drawers and low-profile furniture, Fast Company reports.

IKEA estimates they sell one of their BILLY bookcase every five seconds, which means there are a lot of BILLY bookcases out there in the world. It’s probably the most recognizable product in the canon of IKEA merchandise, and it’s endlessly versatile and adaptable to different rooms and situations. What better way to celebrate its 40 years on the planet than with some hacks?

Murphy beds are the ultimate space-savers. They neatly store themselves when not in use and can quickly turn your office or bonus room into a complete guest retreat. Finding an attractive Murphy bed within your budget just got easier, because we’ve rounded up our favorite DIY and pre-built options.

This simple white storage bench, designed by the Swedish powerhouse, IKEA, has found a new home and a totally new look in a Victorian in London. IKEA’s PLATSA storage bench—not currently available in the U.S. so the STUVA might be the best alternative—fits perfectly into this living room nook, with just a little bit of wiggle room. It looked just fine in the white space, but the room now has a completely different look—and, therefore, so does the PLATSA.

Thanks to a blush of color and a clever installation job, the ubiquitous blank-slate PAX wardrobe from IKEA gets a major upgrade in a graphic designer’s Copenhagen apartment. Four IKEA PAX wardrobes are now painted the same pink as the surrounding walls, giving them the appearance of a built-in closet. Michella Laura has turned pink into a sophisticated neutral that sets off the white bedding and trim to great effect and allows the stunning white-and-blue vintage Murano light to pop.

In 2018, we saw IKEA hacks move towards achieving high-end dupes (like designer lighting or custom closets) and were blown away by people's creativity.

It's like walking into a little, glamorous jewel box every morning.

In the near future, we can expect robots to start taking on some of our more nerve-racking daily tasks, from organizing our closets to assembling a flat-pack chair, while we sit back, sip coffee, and observe in smug satisfaction. Until then, you can certainly call upon TaskRabbit for assistance, or you can personally piece together your own IKEA furniture, one cam at a time. If you do, here’s a potentially life-changing item that will save you time and frustration.

Laundry is the most avoided chore in our home. We don’t have a good spot to keep dirty clothes, which leads to chasing down little piles on laundry day, then scrambling to find a place to put the clean batches as each load comes out. Some very organized people have figured this out though. With their DIY sorting systems, household worths of laundry are neatly sorted before, during, and after each cycle.

Tried-and-true tricks to keep your plants happy and healthy.

This entryway had a spot for coats, a large landing strip, a mirror for last looks, personality, and beauty, but it was lacking in storage for shoes and other odds-and-ends. A DIYer who enjoys “trying to figure out how to make things with no experience” solved the issue with a few ordinary IKEA drawers and some very special wood.

The last thing anyone wants to deal with after a long day of adulting is a clingy garbage can that staunchly refuses to release its grip on a full-to-bursting trash bag. No matter how many times you tug on the bag, it refuses to come out, even after you’ve removed some of the (smelly) contents. Instead of contemplating precisely what you did wrong in a former life to deserve this karmic kitchen payback, avoid future frustrations by drilling a hole in your trash can.

I am sitting on my sofa right now, writing this, wearing a wool sweater, swaddled in a blanket, and I’m still freezing. My fingers, toes, and nose feel particularly arctic, and I dread leaving the house later to walk my dog. Yep, I’m one of those people: always cold. Like a heat-seeking missile, I will shamelessly and relentlessly navigate towards warmth, wherever and whenever I can. Here’s a neat hack I use to get through winter.

The Instant Pot is one of the biggest food trends of the past few years, and it is only getting bigger. People are obsessed with it because it does the work of seven other appliances and takes up less space in the kitchen. It can pressure cook, slow cook, cook rice, steam food, make yogurt, warm food, and sauté food. And now it looks like the Instant Pot is actually an eight-in-one machine, because you can even use it to make wine. Yes, wine! It sounds unbelievable, but it’s true.