Hammer Out These Home Repair Hacks with Common Household Items

Whether you’re a home owner or renting an apartment, it’s always nice to have a few handy tricks up your sleeve to deal with minor repairs around the house. And with these handy-dandy home repair hacks, fixing small things around the house has never been easier!

From checking for water leaks with Kool-Aid to ironing out the dents in your wood furniture, you’ll never believe how many of these everyday household items can be useful for home repairs!

Image by Lenets_Tatsiana/Depositphotos (102634752)

So, what are we waiting for? Let’s get to work!

You probably never thought to think about using nail polish as an adhesive, but it can really do wonders when it comes to a quick and easy home repair!

Whether it’s to keep a loose screw in your glasses in line or any other smaller household item, putting a layer of clear nail polish after screwing it in should give it an extra boost of strength to hold it into place.

Image by omameIS/Pixabay

Just remember you need to dab a little bit of polish on it, no reason to create a glob of messy goop for nothing.

It’s amazing how such a minor problem like having a hole in your wall can all of a sudden feel like such a big deal. But have no fear, we’ve got a handy-dandy hack to keep your worries at bay!

All you need is a crayon and a lighter or blow dryer.

First things first, pick the crayon color that best matches your wall.

Next, start circling the crayon around the hole from the outer part towards the center, using the wax as a filling. You can also give it a little jump start by carefully warming up the wax with lighter or blow dryer.

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Once you’ve filled the hole in, gently smooth the surface with either a blow dryer or rubbing your fingers across it. Just make sure you don’t melt the wax during this part.

We talked about how you can fill in holes by using a crayon, but when it comes to those tight corners and cracks, there’s no getting away from caulking. But how exactly do you get that beautifully straight and smooth line of sealant like the pros?

A master handyman hack is to first lay down some blue painter’s tape before applying any caulk at all! Obviously, make sure it’s as straight as possible, and that it’s tightly sealed so that the sealant won’t seep behind the tape.

Image by Capri23auto/Pixabay

The other important thing to note is to remove the tape before the caulk dries, so that it doesn’t damage your hard work.

Trying to remove screws can be such a pain and can really put damper on your work flow, when they’re stripped down and just won’t budge. But instead of getting frustrated, just try out this super simple trick!

Image by Steve Buissinne/Pixabay

Grab a rubber band and place it on the head of the screw to use as a friction buffer between the screw and the screwdriver’s head. This will give it the extra tension needed to help get that screw out for you. How cool!

Don’t have a crayon to patch up the holes in your wall? No worries, you can always fix ‘em up with another everyday household item.

Image by Barry/Flickr

Similar to how the crayon works, using a bar of soap as a filling layer to patch up those holes from nails and thumbtacks seems to work wonders! All you need to do is grab your bar of soap, rub it on the wall with a little bit of pressure. Make sure you use circular motions, too!

There’s nothing more annoying than a squeaky floorboard, right? But you can easily fix this problem and keep your floor on the down low with this really cool handy-dandy hack!

In order to silence those boards, just sprinkle a bit of baby powder along the seams and work it into them. The powder will act as a lubricant on the wood, and will prevent them from rubbing against each other and making that annoying creaking sound.

Image by Mike Mozart/Flickr

Baking soda or graphite powder can also act as a similar agent if you don’t have baby powder.