10 Practical Things to Improve Your Home (All Under P150!)

IMPROVE YOUR HOME with these items that cost less than P150!

During the ECQ / GCQ, many of us were stuck at home and relying on online shopping to get us what we needed.

Many of us are spending our lockdown time cooking and doing home improvement projects 🙂 I did some organizing, decluttering and decorating, too.

Here are some really cheap things I found online (Shopee, Lazada) that made a huge impact in terms of getting organized and tidying up!

10 THINGS UNDER P150 TO HELP IMPROVE YOUR HOME!

Bed Sheet Clips

Hate having to fix your bed sheets all the time? These bed sheet clips keep them in place! Around P120 for a set of 4. I recommend this kind of bed sheet clip – they are easier to use compared to the white plastic ones.

These were around P120 for a set of 4 clips. Here I have a mattress protector under the bed sheet.

Wire Organizers

Keep your wires tidy and/or hidden with wire organizers. There are different kinds available. Just pick what you need. The problem, I notice, is that although the stickers they use are supposedly 3M, they can’t handle the wire weight very well if they are too far apart. A solution is stick them closer together. If you run out of stickers, you can just use the Nano Tape below 🙂

These are P50 for a pack of 20 clips. I use them to keep wires off the floor and to prevent all the wires from looking like a Tarzan-scape ?

Nano Tape

Do you have drawer organizers that move out of place every time you open or close a drawer? This nano tape is only P68 for 3 meters. How do I describe this? It’s like a double-sided gel tape. You don’t need to use a lot – I just cut 1/4-inch of the tape and stick it to the bottom of the drawer organizers so that they’ll stick to the bottom of the drawer.

You can also use it to stick other things 🙂 It has very strong adhesion. This roll is supposedly 3 meters long. I’ve only used maybe a few inches of tape so far. But it’s only P68.

Corner Protectors

I always bump into corners. Arrgghh!!! This is why I always choose rounded corners or oval-shaped furniture. If sharp corners are unavoidable (shelves, for example), I always stick them with corner protectors.

Just ordered some new ones. They were on flash sale at P9.00 per piece.

Power Strip Holder / Wall Mount

Always tripping over loose power strips? Why is it that every room and area in our house now needs its own power strip? Power strips have just become indispensable nowadays, and it’s better if they are off the floor.

Stick them to the wall with a power strip holder. I prefer this over using a nano tape because the power strip is easier to remove from the wall with the power strip holder. This is because when I travel (huhu, when is that going to be?) I always take a power strip with me so I can charge all my stuff at the same time. Most likely, you only have one electric plug adapter, and if you don’t have a power strip, you’ll have to charge your gadgets one at a time.

Got mine for P66 per set. You stick one piece to the power strip, you stick the other piece to the wall. The power strip slides into the wall mount.

Mop Holder and Sticker Hooks

It’s true. I didn’t believe that the sticker could hold up a mop, but it can! We’ve been using ours for a few months to hold up the squeeze sponge mop thing we have in every bathroom.

We use the sticker hooks to keep tabos out of the way when not in use.

Price ranges from P25 – P100.

Remote Cover

I’m still on the fence about the remote cover. I used to wrap plastic around our remotes and then heat them with a blow dryer to shrink the plastic. And then I’d have to do it again every time I had to change the batteries on the remotes. If I don’t do that, the remotes get very dirty very quickly, and it’s hard to clean, especially between the buttons.

With the remote cover, I don’t have to do that anymore. However, the remote cover is not fully transparent, and sometimes that makes it hard to see the buttons, especially when the lights are turned low when watching TV for a cinematic experience.

Price from P40-70. There are different sizes available. The remote cover is stretchable.

Silicone Food Cover

My first purchase of this product was P165 per set (several sizes per set). Now it’s only P59 per set, so I bought a few more 🙂

If you often use cling wrap to cover food, you can replace them with these reusable silicone covers most of the time. They are also stretchy. Only downside is that the edges where the silicone cover meets the bowl need to be dry (not wet) for the silicone to stick, but other than that, it’s actually quite useful. You can even use it to cover a halved watermelon.

We usually use them to cover leftovers in the same serving plate to store in the ref (if it makes sense to do so). This way, we don’t need to transfer the leftovers to another container with cover — minus one step and fewer dishes to wash!

Spray Paint

An easy and cheap way to make something look better is to spray paint it in the color you like. But spray paints are expensive! Or so we thought. I used to avoid spray painting because the spray paint prices were suspiciously high. I’ve always wondered how those who spray paint graffiti can afford all their spray paint.

And then I found some people selling it online for only P85!!!! Versus almost P200 at where I used to buy them.

You can go on a spray painting spree and make your things look new again, or make them fit your color scheme 🙂

Sticker Wallpaper

Sssshh… I don’t really use them for our walls. Hahaha 😀 They are cheap at P109 for 10 meters.

Are you still using nice gift wrapping paper as a drawer liner? I’ve switched to using these sticker papers to line my drawers and cabinets. They are actually made of plastic (PVC) and are also waterproof.

There are so many designs to choose from, compared to regular drawer liners. And because they stick to the bottom of the drawers, they don’t get messed up when you open your drawers.

I’ve also used them to cover shelves that were not in the color I wanted. These shelves were originally wood-looking. Now they are “marble” ?

And just recently, I used some to cover my desk. Some of the white paint on the table surface has chipped off and stuck to the glass top, so I covered the table with sticker paper 🙂

The P109 stickers are not glossy and have a linen texture. The glossy ones are more expensive.

SHOPPING TIPS:

• Learn to use the Filter and Sort functions on your online shopping app 🙂 This way, you can sort products by popularity, relevance, price, quantity sold, or location.
• Read reviews. Even if the price from Merchant A is cheaper by a few pesos, but most of the reviews are bad, go for Merchant B whose product might be a little more expensive, but has better reviews and who has sold more product. Most of the products might be the same because they have the same supplier, but the difference may be that Merchant B is more responsive to customer queries, or takes better care in packaging orders for delivery.
• Browse other items the shop sells. This was how I discovered many of the things on the list above 🙂 Also, it’s better to buy items from the same shop, if possible. If the price difference versus another shop is small, I just buy from the same shop. If there is no Free Shipping promo, this will help you save on shipping fees.
• Add to Cart! Also known as Collect and Collect, then Select 😀 If something interests me, I add it to Cart. They are usually not “urgent” items I need to buy right away. So everything is in my cart. When Sales Days like 6.6 or 7.7 or Free Shipping Days come along, I go through my Cart and see which items I still like, which have become irrelevant, and remove things I don’t like anymore. And then I take advantage of the sales day promos like discount vouchers, free shipping, etc… 🙂

Do you like these kinds of posts? Let me know in the comments! 🙂 If you like them, I’ll try to make more posts like this.