40 brilliant home organising hacks you’ll wish you knew sooner

When disassembling a piece of furniture that needs to be repaired or moved, thread the screws and nails into a piece of rigid foam. Group similar fasteners together or arrange them however it will be most helpful when piecing the furniture back together. You can also write on the foam with a pen or marker to label the fasteners or to make notes that will be helpful when reassembling the piece at a later time.

Use old prescription bottles to hold nuts and bolts, screws, nails, etc on a shelf by your workbench. Remove the original label, so you can easily see the contents inside.

You can also make a simple customised shelf for your fastener storage bottles by using a 5cm hole saw (or one that is just larger than the diameter of your bottles yet just smaller than the lids) to drill a few holes in a shelf. Then the bottles will fit through the holes, keeping the bottles and your fasteners easily visible and organised. — Mike Yavorski

It seems the older I get, the more keys I carry around. Between the car, house, shed and garage, I have a whole pocket full of keys. To make it easier to quickly find my most used keys, I paint both sides of the key head with brightly coloured nail polish. I use a different colour for each key. The nail polish is extremely durable and you’ll be surprised how much longer it lasts than spray paint. —Joseph Grayson

I’m all for dry-erase message boards, but they’re usually pretty unattractive. So I make message boards using nice picture frames. To make these message boards, grab a picture frame and some paper. Cut the paper to fit the frame and set it in behind the glass. The glass makes an excellent dry erase surface! — Jessie Dawson

My kitchen drawers used to be an absolute wreck; pans and dishes crammed in however they’d fit. And nearly every time I needed something, it was always at the bottom of the drawer. My solution was to cut a piece of 3mm pegboard to the size of the drawer bottom and attach dowels using screws from underneath. Now my pans are organised and easy to access. The 10 minutes it took to build was easily made up for with how much frustration it has saved me.

Moving is always a pain, but using plastic containers that don’t stay closed adds even more frustration. Zip-ties to the rescue! After putting on a container lid, drill a small hole through the lid and handles. Run a zip-tie through the holes and you’re on the road.

I have always hated the way drawer organisers move around when you open and close a drawer. I measured the distance from the back of the drawer organiser to the back of the drawer and used a utility knife to cut the noodle to size. The pool noodle fits snuggly in place, so the drawer organiser doesn’t move around anymore. You could also cut the pool noodle in half lengthwise to reduce the amount of space that it takes up. — Roy Allison

Keeping your car clean can be difficult. There are dirt roads, messy trees, pet hair, food crumbs and wrappers. And there’s likely rubbish on the car’s floor, under the seats and in the seat cracks. Toss out any wrappers, bottles and other objects in sturdy car trash can! Line a plastic cereal container with a grocery bag and use it as an in-car trash can. To keep the container upright, apply a strip of self-adhesive hook and loop fastener to the bottom of the container, so it’ll stick to your car’s carpet.

I received a storage tube with a pack of earplugs that I purchased years back. After I lost that tube, I started to think about what kind of container I could use to store my earplugs. Then it came to me: an empty medicine bottle! The small container not only keeps the earplugs clean, but it’s also small enough that I can keep it in my pocket at all times. Now when I need hearing protection, I have it on hand! — Mike Yalch

The next time you have a barbecue or a meal such as tacos with lots of different ingredients, pull out a muffin tin. Rather than using it to bake muffins (although you can do this later too), fill the cups with various condiments and toppings. This way your condiments are easy to access and you will also dramatically increase your table space, and cut down on the separate serving bowls to clean up afterward.