Top 10 Family Friendly Appliance Hacks
Try these top 10 family friendly appliance hacks that will help the entire family (including your kiddos) better use the appliances you have.
Don’t you just love appliance hacks?
We can use our home appliances for so much more than they were built for.
Find more sanity saving home tips to help make your house run more smoothly.
Top 10 Family Friendly Appliance Hacks
Create Kid-Approved Snack Drawers in the Refrigerator
Keep kid-friendly food in the bottom drawers of the refrigerator. Stock up on apples and oranges.
Keep carrots and celery in the crisper.
And create a drawer just for refrigerated snacks such as cheese sticks and apple sauce packs.
The see-through drawers will ensure your kiddos see those snacks easily and will be able to make smarter snacking choices.
Put a lazy Susan in the Refrigerator
Personally, I hate having to dig into the fridge to find things.
And with a lazy Susan, the kids can easily get items from the back by turning the platform.
It helps them be more self-sufficient in the kitchen!
Mark Up Your Dishwasher
To get your kids helping clean up the kitchen more, you probably need to help them understand the settings.
Mark a small dot on the buttons they need to press before starting the dishwasher.
For us, we have to press “normal wash,” “heat dry” and then “start” every time.
Keep a vacuum upstairs.
One thing about getting the kids to clean up after themselves, particularly after a spill, is they have to be able to access the vacuum cleaner themselves.
To solve this problem, I purchased an additional smaller vacuum to keep in one of their closets upstairs.
Now, I don’t have to carry the vacuum upstairs for them every time and they can take care of their own room.
Keep appliance replacement parts in the upstairs closet.
My son has ongoing allergies.
To help him out, we have an additional stand-alone HEPA air filter in his room.
But this appliance requires monthly charcoal filter replacements and quarterly main filter replacements.
We were keeping all of these items in the basement.
So every time I needed to change out a filter, I had to hike it downstairs to get the items, go back upstairs to change out the filters and then hike back downstairs to return whatever I hadn’t used.
I took a box and marked it “Air Filters.” Now, it sits in my son’s closet so when it’s time to change out the filters, I can just grab them and be done with it.
Or better yet, get an air filter that has a washable pre-filter… problem solved!
Repurpose Your Kitchen Wine Cellar
Turn the wine cellar sitting in your kitchen into a beverage center.
I can’t tell you how many friends have moved to find a wine cellar installed in their kitchen. Yippee!
And then they remember they have kids and can’t have bottles of wine sitting around accessible.
Rather than losing the space, many of them use their wine cellar to store beverages for the whole family.
And did you know there are actual beverage centers better designed to store all of the family’s drinks?
You can easily switch it out, too.
Remove the Gas Stove Knobs
If you have little ones around, you’ve probably child-proofed the house.
But what about your gas stove?
Rather than buying expensive knob covers, just pull the knobs off and store them in a small basket or container near the stove.
When you want to turn it on, just grab one of the knob covers to cook and then put it back in the container when you’re done.
Create a Snack-Friendly Space in the Basement
If you have older kids, keep a refrigerator in the basement with snacks the kids know they are allowed to grab.
We keep a refrigerator in the basement so I can buy in bulk as well as cook in bulk and save money.
Why not create a refrigerator shelf dedicated to “approved” drinks and snacks the kids can have while they’re hanging out downstairs.
This way, they don’t have to ask you every 15 minutes about what they can eat and you know they’re eating/drinking items you’re okay with.
Oh, and you could also just place a separate mini-fridge downstairs, stock it up and place a basket on top with pretzel bags and whatnot to create a snacking space.
Mark the Toaster Settings
A toaster is one of the first appliances my kids learned to use.
But when they messed around with the settings, suddenly all of the bagels were getting burned.
Use a piece of washi tape to mark the proper settings for toasting items so they will be toasted to your kiddo’s liking.
Have All the Same Laundry Baskets… Except One
Laundry is an ongoing activity in our house.
Some days I’m able to throw in a load and get it dry but won’t have a chance to fold until the following day.
Then, my husband and kids are confused as to what is clean and what isn’t.
They also love to throw their dirty clothes down to the basement, which complicates things even more.
In our house, I have multiple laundry baskets all of the same color… except for one.
This basket is blue.
Anything that goes into that single blue basket is always dirty.
If there’s a white basket full of clothes, my family knows it’s clean and to not throw in their dirty stuff.
 It keeps me from running the washing machine more than I have to and helps separate the clean clothes from the dirty. Problem solved!
These are excellent tips! Love the idea to put marks on the toaster and dishwasher – it allows kids to be helpful without creating more of a mess 😉 I also love the idea to keep snacks and appliances convenient. Even for me as a grown-up – if it’s not convenient, it can get pushed to the wayside!
I know that the snack drawers have personally helped even me make better snacking decisions! Now that I see the apples and carrots right there, I usually go for those first.
I love the idea of snack drawers and having a separate fridge for “big kid” snacks. As my little gets older it’s becoming more an d more clear how often easy trumps healthy.
I will say the wine comment kind of made me laugh. It would never occur to me to keep bottles out of reach of kids. Really littles can’t get into them and older kids know better. I’m not opposed to sharing space my wine fridge, but Momma needs her bubbles cold.
xoxo
Katie
http://beyondtheclothing.com
I keep my wine cold on the top shelf! When my boys were toddlers, they would have pulled all of those bottles out… it would have been a mess!
Great set of hacks. Thanks for sharing with us at #Throwback Thursday. Hope to see you again this week.Pinned and shared.
Lots of great tips and ideas. Pinned and Tweeted. Thanks for sharing at Snickerdoodle Sunday.
It’s always a balance trying to figure out how to let my kids learn to use appliances safely. The more I let them do, usually the happier everyone is. They feel grown up, and I get some help with household chores. These are some great ideas that will keep them safe too. Thanks.
I always find it hard to turn over the reins to my kiddos. But as they get better at working the appliances, I find when they ask for something, I can say they can help themselves!
Great tips! I love the idea of a lazy susan in the fridge. Never would have thought of that, but would make a big difference. We have a smaller fridge, so we are always digging around trying to find things. Thanks 🙂
The digging in the fridge DRIVES me CRAZY. A lazy Susan definitely makes a difference.
This list has some great tips and tricks, especially the reminder about the knobs on gas stoves and little fingers 🙂 thanks for bringing this to last week’s Throwback Thursday party!