Gadgets that will make life easier at home
I AM such a sucker for a useful gadget around the house. Anything that will make my life easier, quicker, cleaner or tastier, I am on it like a shot.
A gadget, to my mind, is defined as something that is handy and useful, but perhaps not entirely necessary, maybe it is something that you could live without, but that you’d rather not live without!
I have had a few hit and miss gadgets over the years, solar garden lights, an extremely messy crepe machine, and an ‘unwashable’ waffle maker are some of the duds that have passed through these doors.
Over the last few years though, there are a few specific gadgets that have proven their worth and earned a spot in this article.
Let’s start from the bottom up. We have hard floors in all but one room downstairs, a mixture of tiles and laminate which gets dirty when you have a dog that needs a run in the woods every day and kids that love the outdoors. I have a hoover and a mop but what I didn’t realise I needed was a hoover that was also a mop!
I have the Tineco Cordless Wet/Dry Vacuum and it is an absolute game-changer.
This gadget hoovers and washes the floor at the same time, so it cuts two jobs into one, and by the time I reach the other end of the kitchen the floor is dry where I started already. I use it every day now and it is just the most useful gadget I think I own.
We live in a house that is just over 20 years old and it needs some sort of system upgrade when it comes to ventilation (we’re working on it!), but in the meantime we have a problem in some bedrooms with condensation building up on the inside of the windows.
I have tried moisture traps before, but the volume of water that builds up was too much and it was leading to spots of mould, which nobody wants, so I bought a Karcher Window Vac, which is a small handheld vacuum for liquids. It mops up every last drop of water off the window and we have absolutely no issue with mould since we got it.
I also use it on the shower doors - ours tend to have a residue build off if we don’t give them a good clean every week - or if I am feeling very proactive I use it after a shower so that the water droplets aren’t resting on the glass, making work for me either way.
I absolutely despise ironing, perhaps because it just adds to the already obscene amount of time I spend washing clothes and sorting them out. That said, there is no doubting that plenty of our clothes need some form of straightening out after they have been washed - dresses, t-shirts and jumpers especially around the bottom hem when they start to shrivel up.
Now let’s caveat this by saying if you are into pristinely ironed clothes, this isn’t the gadget for you, but if you just want to take the worst of the creases out, then I have you.
It is so much quicker than pulling out an iron and ironing board and it leaves clothes lovely and soft.
I often add one or two drops of essential oil to the water tank of the steamer, just enough to leave a lovely smell on the clothes, but not too much so that you end up staining them!
I spend the vast majority of my time in the kitchen so suffice to say I have a few gadgets there, although not that many as the kitchen is already full to the brim with the necessary appliances.
The best gadgets include a handheld blender that has a potato masher attachment, the Ninja Multicooker, which is a slow cooker, pressure cooker, airfryer and more, all in one machine, and our beloved coffee machine. The latter is without a doubt an investment, but certainly a gadget that made sense with us both at home for the best part of the last two years.
The only other gadgets worth mentioning are my Cricut machines, which I am aware are completely niche, but if the house was burning down and I had to save one gadget, it would be one of those machines!
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