household Archives

food for thought thursday – tiny living

I came across this video doing some research for the recent newsletter. This tiny 30 square metre apartment in Hong Kong has 24 rooms (as a comparison, the average sized home in Australia is 215 square metres). Don’t believe me? Check out the video, it’s pretty darn amazing.

tip tuesday – quick tidy strategy

We have a rule in our house: never walk up or down the stairs empty handed. We have a drop off point at the top and bottom of the stairs where items that need to be relocated back to their proper place are left for when one of us next treads the stairs. This keeps [...]

getting the washing dry without a dryer

You know you’ve reached adulthood when your first thought on a sunny day is “I’ll get the washing dry today.” Sunny days however, have been few and far between over the last few months and washing has been an all week chore, when it is normally a two day chore. The humidity doesn’t help. Even [...]

tip tuesday – conversions

The best website that I have ever come across for converting weights, measurements, volumes, time zones and all sorts of other conversions is Online Conversions. There is rarely a day that goes by that I don’t refer to this website, it is permanent link on my browser toolbar. My favourite section is weight to volume [...]

tip tuesday – fixing smelly floor drains

This is a tip I picked up when I was working for a pluming company. If bad smells are coming up through the floor drains in your bathroom or laundry, pour a bucket of plain water down the drain. The drain has a trap in it where water sits, preventing smells from coming up the [...]

pest control and the cycle of life – to kill or not to kill?

You may or may not be horrified by this confession, but we share our home with a variety of bugs and other critters. While I wouldn’t go as far as to say we live in complete harmony with these fellow residents, for the most part ants marching across the living room floor are ignored and [...]

the last of the bottle

I was making Asian-style sticky drumsticks the other day (recipe to come), and I found myself with only the dregs of kekap manis. To get every last drop out of the bottle, I did my usual trick of watering down the kekap manis with soy sauce. This got me thinking about my obsession habit of [...]

moving house on a budget

Moving house. Described as one of the top five most stressful things in life. If money is the number one cause of marital arguments, then the cost of moving can be a nightmare. DIY moving saves a packet. It’s more work, but quite doable. I’ve moved house 7 times in the last 12 years.  I’ve [...]

giving the dishwasher a holiday

There is an art to washing up, but in a world of dishwashers (of the electric kind), it’s a dying skill.

all about bath towels

To me, towels are one of those items that are worth spending a bit more money and investing in quality. Quality towels dry better, are softer and last longer. You also don’t need to worry about good towels going rough and stiff.