The owners of this house didn’t rip anything out. They kept the granite. They kept the floor. They kept the appliances. They even kept the heavy red paisley valance over the sink window. Then they painted two colors and swapped the backsplash, and the whole kitchen stopped looking like 2005.

The starting point almost everyone has seen

This is the builder kitchen that got installed in millions of US homes between the late 1990s and the mid-2010s. Orange-toned maple cabinets. A busy cream and brown speckled granite that nobody actually picked. A diamond-set tile backsplash. Warm travertine-look floor tile. And over the sink window, a red and gold paisley valance that your mom or your mother-in-law also has.

Walk a few steps and the same orange tone is still running the room. Here’s the built-in desk corner.

And the cooktop wall, with the stainless microwave stacked over a gas cooktop.

What actually changed

The whole makeover comes down to a short list.

Two paint colors from Sherwin-Williams. Westhighland White SW 7566 went on every upper and every perimeter cabinet. Sage Green Light SW 2851 went on the island, and only the island. The backsplash got swapped out for Artisan Frost matte ceramic tile from Floor & Decor, which reads clean and quiet instead of busy.

That’s it. The granite is the same busy cream and brown speckle. The floor is the same warm porcelain tile. The appliances are the same stainless pieces. The cabinet boxes are the same, in the same spots. Even the red paisley valance is still hanging in the window.

Why this doesn’t feel like a half job

Most honey oak repaints you see online go wrong for the same reason. People paint the cabinets a cold gray toned white, and then the warm granite and warm floor fight the cabinets instead of helping them. The room splits into two temperatures.

This one went the other way. Westhighland White is a warm, slightly creamy white. It sits next to the beige and brown granite without arguing with it. Sage Green Light is a muted warm green, not a cool forest and not an olive, so it talks to the cream in the stone instead of clashing with it. The whole scheme respects the warm bones of the house.

You will love these

TRENDING

They spray painted the honey-oak cabinets with a $10 gun: now the whole kitchen looks brand-new

JUST IN

He refused to replace his dated granite countertops: one Sherwin-Williams color changed the whole kitchen

Keeping the island as a single color moment is the other smart call. One accent, on one piece, in a color that will still look good in five years. Not three cabinet colors, not a trendy black bottom, not a navy that dates fast.

What this actually cost (and would have cost)

A pro painter will usually quote cabinet painting for a kitchen this size somewhere between $3,500 and $7,000. The backsplash swap, done pro, is another $800 to $1,500. Call the whole job $5,000 to $9,000 if a crew does it, less than $3,000 if the owner picks up a brush.

A gut renovation of the same kitchen, with new cabinets, new granite, new floor and new appliances, lands between $35,000 and $70,000 depending on where you live. This house got the look of the second number for the price of the first.

The lesson most people miss

The honey oak isn’t the problem. The temperature mismatch is. Pick a warm white and a warm accent that respect your granite and your floor, change the busiest thing on the walls (usually the backsplash), and you don’t need to replace anything else. Even the paisley valance can stay.

The post They painted oak cabinets Westhighland White and the island Sage Green Light: same granite, new kitchen appeared first on TheCoolist.

This is not your fault: the calendar is the wrong tool for the question. The lawn doesn’t care what month it is. It follows the temperature, and once you know the threshold, the decision makes itself.

The rule: temperature, not the date

Iowa State University’s horticulture specialists put the first half of the rule simply: “Continue to mow the lawn until the grass stops growing in the fall.” For cool-season grasses such as Kentucky bluegrass, that happens when daytime highs are consistently below 50°F. In central Iowa, that usually means early to mid-November. Minnesota’s extension service puts it at around the end of October.

Warm-season grasses work on a different trigger. Dennis Patton, a horticulture agent with K-State Research and Extension, notes that they go dormant when the soil temperature reaches about 55 degrees. Either way, the sign it’s time is the same: you mow, and a week later the lawn hasn’t grown enough to need it again.

The height, and the mistakes on both ends

The last cut is not the time to scalp the lawn. Patton recommends mowing at about 3 inches all summer and into fall, and the University of Minnesota’s target for a typical residential lawn is 3 inches or higher. Then follow these steps for the final passes:

1. Keep the usual height. Stay at about 3 inches rather than dropping the deck for one last short cut.
2. Respect the one-third rule. Never remove more than a third of the blade in one mowing. To hold a 3-inch lawn, mow before it reaches 4.5 inches.
3. Don’t stop too early, either. Grass left too long over winter can invite disease, and longer grass may encourage voles, according to the University of Minnesota.
4. Mow the leaves in. Patton says mowing often enough to chop fallen leaves into the turf can replace much of the raking, and a healthy lawn can take up to 6 inches of leaves if they’re added gradually.
5. Clean up after the last cut. Bag the clippings or rake up excess debris so the lawn doesn’t go into winter under a mat.

When the rule needs a second look

Fall weather rarely moves in a straight line. If a warm stretch gets the grass growing again and it passes 4.5 inches, one more mow at the same height is fine. If you’re unsure which grass you have, your local extension office can identify it and give you the typical stop date for your area. And while the mower is out for the final rounds, the patio and path weeds are worth one last pass too, with the free trick gardeners use instead of vinegar.

Watch the daytime highs, keep it at 3 inches, and stop when the grass does. That’s the trick.

The post When to stop mowing the lawn this fall: the rule gardeners go by appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• Elvis François, a 47-year-old man from Dominica, drifted for 24 days in the Caribbean.
• He survived on ketchup, garlic powder and bouillon cubes.
• He collected rainwater with a cloth and wrote “help” on the hull.
• He was rescued in January 2023 and taken to Cartagena, Colombia.

Swept out to sea during a repair

Elvis François was working on his sailboat off St. Martin when currents carried it out to sea, NBC reported, citing the Colombian Navy. He lost his phone signal. “I called my friends, they tried to contact me, but I lost the signal. There was nothing else to do but sit and wait,” he said.

A bottle of ketchup

On board, there was almost no food. What he had: a bottle of ketchup, garlic powder and Maggi bouillon cubes. That’s what he lived on for more than three weeks. For water, he collected rain with a cloth. He also had to keep bailing water out to keep the boat from sinking.

Ketchup isn’t a balanced meal, but it does contain sugar, which provides a little energy. Mixed with garlic powder and dissolved bouillon cubes, it was all he had to get through each day. He had no fishing gear on board and no way of cooking. For more than three weeks, every meal came from a few condiments most people barely think about, the kind that sit in the fridge door for months.

“Help” written on the hull

To be seen, he wrote “help” on the hull. After 24 days, a plane spotted the boat about 120 nautical miles northwest of Colombia’s La Guajira peninsula, after he signaled with a mirror. A passing container ship, the CMA CGM Voltario, then picked him up. He was taken to Cartagena around Jan. 16, 2023. “If it weren’t for them I wouldn’t be telling the story,” he said of his rescuers.

What’s really in your pantry

His story is a reminder of how long some everyday foods last. Condiments, spices and dry bouillon cubes are among the longest-keeping items in a kitchen. Storage makes a big difference too, as with potatoes that sprout too fast. And a power cut can be just as revealing as a shipwreck: here’s why a coin on a cup of ice in the freezer can tell you if your food is still safe.

The limit

Ketchup didn’t “save” him on its own: rainwater, his ability to stay calm and the people who searched for him mattered just as much. Without the rain he managed to collect, the story would have ended very differently. This is not a survival diet, just a remarkable story about what a few ordinary items can do.

That’s the story.

The post Lost at sea for 24 days, he owes his survival to… a bottle of ketchup appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• A DIY enthusiast known online as Glubux started his project in November 2016.
• He began with around 650 used laptop batteries and now has more than 1,000.
• They’re charged by solar panels and stored in a shed about 50 meters from the house.
• After eight years, there have been no reports of fires or swollen batteries.

How it started

In November 2016, Glubux began documenting his project on the Second Life Storage forum. “I already produce a part of the electricity that I need,” he wrote at the time, as Interesting Engineering reported. His setup then: 1.4 kW of solar panels on the roof, an old 24V forklift battery, and around 650 laptop batteries.

His project became one of the best-known examples of what DIY enthusiasts call a “powerwall”: a home battery bank built from recycled cells rather than bought new. The principle: laptop batteries contain individual lithium-ion cells. Many still work when the battery pack is thrown out, because only a few cells have failed. He tested them, discarded the weak ones and grouped the rest into blocks of about 100Ah.

From 650 to more than 1,000

The system grew over the years. According to Interesting Engineering, he added 24 more solar panels rated at 440 W each, and the storage capacity went from 7 kWh to 56 kWh. The cells, now more than 1,000 of them, are kept in a dedicated shed about 50 meters (164 feet) from the house, with the charge controllers and inverters. TechSpot added that not a single laptop battery cell had needed replacing, according to the reports on his project. The system runs at 24V and feeds a 3 kVA converter.

Eight years without a fire

That’s the most surprising part. After eight years of operation, TechSpot noted that there were “no reports of fire hazards or swollen battery issues.” Glubux “claims he can power his entire house from it, including the washing machine.”

Why it speaks to so many people

With energy bills climbing every winter, the idea of reusing what others throw away is appealing. It’s the same logic behind many simpler ways to save, like choosing the cooktop that uses the least electricity or finding the right thermostat setting.

The limit

This is not a project to copy at home without serious electrical knowledge. Lithium-ion cells can overheat, swell or catch fire if they’re damaged, badly matched or poorly managed, which is precisely why he keeps them in a separate shed. His setup also relies on years of testing, solar panels and space most homes don’t have. For most people, the safe move with old laptop batteries is to drop them at a battery recycling point.

That’s the story.

The post He began collecting them in 2016 and now has over 1,000: this man powers his entire home with old laptop batteries appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• In many states, keeping lost money without trying to find its owner can be treated as theft.
• In California, the law requires “reasonable and just efforts” to return lost property.
• In Ohio, if you know or should know who the owner is, you can’t keep it.
• The rules vary by state, but the safest move is always the same: report it.

“Finders keepers” isn’t the law

In California, before keeping lost property, you must make “reasonable and just efforts to find the owner and to restore the property to him,” explains criminal defense attorney Peter Liss. Failing to do so can be treated as theft. What counts as reasonable “can vary from person to person and from one situation to another,” he adds: a few dollars on a sidewalk doesn’t call for the same effort as a thick envelope in a store.

The stakes aren’t symbolic. Under California law, up to $950 is petty theft, generally a misdemeanor. Above $950, it becomes grand theft, which can be charged as a felony.

Lost, abandoned: the difference that matters

Ohio attorney Mark McCown explains the logic in his column. Abandoned property, which the owner gave up on purpose, belongs to whoever finds it. Lost property is different: if the finder knows, or reasonably should know, who the owner is, keeping it can be charged as theft. And “if the finder does later find out who the owner is, he does have to give it back to the owner.”

What to do if you find money

According to Peter Liss, the safe steps are:

• In a store or restaurant: tell the manager and leave your name and number.
• Use the lost and found of the place where you found it.
• For a larger sum: take it to the nearest police or sheriff’s station.
• Post a notice, online or in a local paper.

In California, if the police take a report and no one claims the money within 120 days, you may be allowed to keep it.

The wallet case

A wallet or purse is the clearest situation: the ID inside tells you who the owner is. McCown also points out that losing one costs much more than the cash, from canceling cards to replacing documents, and that owners often care most about the photos inside. Everyday legal questions are often trickier than they look, like what you can legally put in front of a neighbor’s window.

The limit

This isn’t legal advice, and the law differs from state to state. A coin or a single dollar on the street with no possible way of finding the owner isn’t treated like a wallet with an ID inside. If in doubt, a call to the local police department settles it. Some “lost” things are worth more than they look, like the everyday item that contains real gold.

That’s the trick.

The post Picking up cash you find on the ground can get you in trouble, according to a lawyer appeared first on TheCoolist.

Stop right there, and don’t feel bad: almost everyone tries the knife first. Ice builds up for reasons that have nothing to do with how you clean, and the fastest safe fixes use heat and patience, not force.

Where all that ice comes from

Every time the door opens, warm room air rushes in. Its moisture condenses on contact with the cold and freezes into frost, layer after layer. A door seal that doesn’t close tightly lets warm air in and cold air out, and the buildup speeds up. Whirlpool recommends defrosting once frost reaches about 1/4 inch thick, and at least once a year.

The 3 methods that clear it fast

Start the day before: turn the freezer to its coldest setting about 6 hours ahead, so the food is as cold as possible. Then unplug it, empty it into coolers with ice packs, put towels or a pan under the drain area, and pick a method:

1. Bowls of hot water. Set a bowl of hot water inside and close the door, so the steam softens the ice. Lowe’s suggests replacing the water every 10 to 15 minutes. Never set a hot pan on cold glass shelving, which can shatter, or against plastic that could melt.
2. A fan. Aim a fan into the open freezer to keep room-temperature air moving across the ice.
3. A plastic or wooden scraper. As chunks loosen, lift them off gently with a plastic spatula or wooden spoon and drop them in the sink. Don’t force stubborn spots.

Two things to skip. Never use an ice pick, a knife or any metal tool, since it can puncture the freezer. And while some guides allow a hair dryer, Whirlpool’s instructions say not to use electrical appliances such as hair dryers or heaters to speed defrosting. Water and electricity don’t mix.

Plan on a few hours: with the door simply left open, Lowe’s estimates about two to three hours, longer for very thick ice. Wipe the inside dry with a mild detergent and warm water, then plug it back in.

The habit that keeps it from coming back

Ice is a moisture problem, so cut the moisture. Open the door less and make sure it closes fully, keep the freezer at 0°F, fill it to about 75 percent so air can still circulate, and let hot food cool before it goes in. The fridge side benefits from the same thinking, and a roll of toilet paper in the fridge is one cheap way people absorb a little extra moisture there.

The honest limit: if you find yourself defrosting every few months, something is off. Check the door seal, the thermostat, the drain and the vent, and call an appliance technician if the ice keeps returning. Food that has thawed to room temperature during a defrost should be thrown out, not refrozen.

Hot water, a fan, a plastic scraper, and a door that seals. That’s the trick.

The post Thick ice in the freezer costs money every day: 3 home methods that clear it fast appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• Diane Keaton, who died on Oct. 11, 2025, at 79, renovated and sold homes for decades.
• Her last major project was a brick house in Los Angeles nicknamed “the house that Pinterest built.”
• It was built with 75,000 hand-selected bricks sourced from Chicago, according to TMZ.
• This summer, the house found a buyer at about $23 million, according to TMZ.

“That damn kitchen”

Keaton never hid her love for houses. “I always had an interest in homes and the concept of home,” she told Wine Spectator, in remarks quoted by Fox Business. About this house in particular, she said: “I started to really love the brick and the textures of it.” And her favorite room? “My favorite room in my home is that damn kitchen.”

75,000 bricks and a chicken coop

The house, a gut renovation that began around 2011, was nicknamed “the house that Pinterest built.” She lived there for about eight years, Fox Business reported.

According to TMZ, the 9,219-square-foot estate has five bedrooms and eight bathrooms. Its foundation uses 75,000 hand-selected bricks sourced from Chicago, an idea inspired by “The Three Little Pigs.” In the kitchen, the room she loved most, there’s a custom island, chicken-wire cabinetry and pendant lights that came from a former chicken coop.

A real estate career alongside Hollywood

The house was far from her first project. Fox Business traced a long list of homes she bought, restored and resold: a 1928 Lloyd Wright house in Los Feliz, a Spanish Colonial Revival in Beverly Hills, a house in Laguna Beach, another in Pacific Palisades, an adobe in Tucson. “I follow my impulses just like I did with acting,” she told Architectural Digest in 2017. Her approach was consistent: “My feeling is that you find an authentic house and, authentically, try to restore it.”

Sold this summer

After her death, the house went on the market. It was first listed at $28.9 million and went under contract in July 2026 for about $23 million, TMZ reported, with some conditions still pending at the time. Real estate broker Josh Flagg handled the listing.

A kitchen at the heart of the house is a choice many homeowners understand. If yours is due for a change, see why many kitchens are saying goodbye to the microwave and what’s replacing the toaster.

The limit

Price figures for celebrity homes vary from one outlet to another, and a contract isn’t a closed sale: the final price may differ. We stuck to the figures reported by TMZ and Fox Business. What doesn’t change is Keaton’s own words about the place she built.

That’s the story.

The post Diane Keaton: “My favorite room in my home is that damn kitchen”: inside the Los Angeles house she built with 75,000 bricks appeared first on TheCoolist.

This is not your fault, and it’s not a sign of a neglected yard. These are two very different insects, and telling them apart from the ground decides whether you should act now or simply wait for spring.

What’s Inside Each One

Silky tents at the ends of branches are usually fall webworms. They show up in late summer into fall on deciduous trees such as pecan, persimmon, walnut and fruit trees. Inside are yellowish-green caterpillars with black spots and long white hairs, up to 1.5 inches long. The good news: according to NC State Extension, the webs are unsightly but usually do not harm the tree’s overall health.

Hanging cone-shaped bags are bagworms, and they’re the ones to take seriously. Each bag, from about 1/8 inch to 2 inches long, is spun from silk and camouflaged with bits of the tree itself. They favor evergreens such as arborvitae, juniper, red cedar and Leyland cypress. By fall, the adults have mated and each female has laid her eggs inside her own bag: between 500 and 1,000 of them. The eggs sit there all winter and hatch from late May to mid-June, ready to strip the same shrub again.

The One Move To Make Before Spring

For bagworms, the answer is refreshingly low-tech. The Missouri Botanical Garden puts it plainly: “The most economical method of controlling bagworms is to handpick the bags and destroy them.” Late in the season, sprays don’t work once the caterpillars stop feeding, so picking is almost always the preferred method.

1. Bring a bucket of soapy water and a pair of pruning snips.
2. Pick or clip every bag you can reach, working around the whole shrub, inside and out. Bags blend in, so look closely.
3. Drop them into the soapy water to drown them, rather than just tossing them aside.
4. Finish before late May, when the eggs start hatching. Any time over the winter works.

For fall webworms, there’s nothing urgent to do now. If a web is within reach, pull it apart with a stick or pole so birds and wasps can get to whatever is left, or prune out the branch tip. Don’t burn webs in the tree: fire can get out of control and damage the tree, nearby property, or you.

When To Call An Arborist

Hand-picking has its limits. If bags are clustered high in a tall evergreen, or a shrub is already heavily stripped, an arborist can reach and assess what you can’t. Insecticides for bagworms only work on young caterpillars, in June or early July, while they’re small enough for the spray to reach them. Mark your calendar if you missed some bags this winter. While you’re scanning the yard this time of year, it’s worth knowing what tiny egg clusters in the yard can mean, too.

Tents can wait, bags can’t: pick them before the spring hatch. That’s the trick.

The post Web bags are hanging in trees right now: what’s inside and the one move to make appeared first on TheCoolist.

A homeowner in Georgia was ready to sign that quote. Before she did, she had a painter come out for a cabinet estimate. He walked around the room, looked at the slab, and told her the granite wasn’t the problem. The pale cabinets around it were.

Here is what she started with.

The counters are the first thing your eye lands on, because they are the only thing in the room doing any work. The cabinets have gone quiet. That greige paint, the agreeable gray every “safe” renovation reached for in the last decade, is not pulling its weight next to a slab this active.

Pale cabinets and loud granite is a fight

Walk around to the cooking wall and the same imbalance shows up. The counter is louder than the entire wall it is sitting on.

Same thing on the way in from the dining room. The cabinets flatten into the paint behind them, your eye slides past the whole wall, and you land on the stone.

This is why so much “Alaska White” and “Blue Flower” granite gets written off as dated. The slab is doing all the talking. It is not actually old. It is surrounded by surfaces too polite to balance it.

You will love these

TRENDING

They spray painted the honey-oak cabinets with a $10 gun: now the whole kitchen looks brand-new

JUST IN

He refused to replace his dated granite countertops: one Sherwin-Williams color changed the whole kitchen

Iron Ore does the opposite of what most people think

The painter’s call was Sherwin-Williams Iron Ore on every perimeter cabinet, with a saturated deep teal reserved for the island. No new counters. No new backsplash. No new tile. The hardware stayed.

Same room. Same slab. Same tile. Same pulls. One color decision.

What makes it land is how dark Iron Ore actually goes. It is Sherwin-Williams’ near-black with just enough warm charcoal to keep it from reading cold. A true black would have picked a fight with the cream backsplash and the tan floor. Iron Ore meets both halfway, which is why nothing looks orphaned after the paint dried.

The granite stops competing because it is no longer the heaviest surface in the room. The cabinets are. Dark cabinet, light counter is the whole trick, and your eye finally has somewhere else to land.

The teal island is the move most paint jobs skip

Painting everything in Iron Ore would have swallowed the room. Low ceiling, bulky soffit, nine feet of near-black wall-to-wall gets heavy fast. So the island was pulled out on its own in a deep teal, somewhere in the Dark Night family.

That teal is doing three jobs at once. It gives your eye a landing spot in a dark room. It reads as its own piece of furniture, which makes the kitchen feel bigger. And it is the detail that turns a paint job into something that photographs like a built-in bar.

Up close, the island shows what the painter was really solving for.

That is the same stone from the first photo in the article. Same pattern. Same movement. All that has changed is what sits behind it.

Why Iron Ore works where trendier colors don’t

A lot of homeowners painting cabinets right now reach for Benjamin Moore Hale Navy or a deep forest green. Both are beautiful. Neither would have worked here. The warm cream backsplash and tan tile floor would have clashed with a cool navy or a true green, and the kitchen would still look mismatched, just in a different direction.

Iron Ore wins because its charcoal has warm undertones that already live in the floor and the backsplash. That is the quiet rule behind every dark cabinet transformation that lands. Pick a color whose undertone matches the stuff you are not replacing.

What the paint quote saved

A fresh counter install in a kitchen this size runs about ten to fifteen thousand dollars, before plumbing disconnects, backsplash repairs, and a week of takeout. A lacquer cabinet job of this quality runs about three to six thousand regionally and wraps in roughly two and a half days. Even at the top of the paint quote, that is thousands of dollars staying in the account, and the stone she already paid for stays in place.

The lacquer part is not optional on a job you want to last. Lacquer is what the big cabinet companies spray onto brand-new boxes at the factory. It cures hard, resists chipping around the handles and the stove, and holds its color past year one. A latex roller job on the same cabinets would look great for a few months and start to tire fast. Pay the upcharge.

Before you call the counter company

Pull up a photo of your own kitchen on your phone and squint. If the counter is the loudest thing in the frame, something above or around it is too pale or too safe to hold its own next to it.

Dark cabinets with a lighter, busier counter is a move interior designers charge serious money to recommend. In this house, it came out of a cabinet estimate.

Would you have been brave enough to go this dark on the cabinets before touching the granite?

The post They painted gray cabinets Sherwin-Williams Iron Ore: same veined granite, a custom-looking kitchen appeared first on TheCoolist.

Don’t feel bad for defaulting to it: for years it was simply the most common option. The white ladder hasn’t vanished, but it now has serious company, and the choice is wider, and often cheaper to install, than most homeowners expect.

What’s Showing Up In New Bathrooms

Radiator specialists tracking bathroom trends describe a clear shift in finishes. One retailer’s 2026 roundup notes that “in 2026 the palette is expanding to include deeper bronze tones and antique brass finishes.” Straight ladder rails remain popular, but curved rails are gaining attention, and sculptural designs with geometric patterns, unusual silhouettes or textured finishes are becoming a category of their own.

American towel warmer makers reflect the same widening menu. Alongside brushed and polished stainless, you’ll find matte black and gold finishes, and bars in round, square or flat profiles. It’s easy to see why: a towel warmer is one of the largest pieces of metal on a bathroom wall, and a finish that echoes the faucet or the cabinet hardware makes it read as part of the design instead of an afterthought.

What A Swap Actually Costs

• The unit. Basic models start around $100 to $200, while large premium designs can run several thousand dollars. One major US maker lists models from about $115 to $920.
• Plug-in installation. A plug-in towel warmer mounts on the wall and plugs into a GFCI-protected outlet. It takes 15 to 30 minutes and no electrician, which makes it the easy choice for renters.
• Hardwired installation. A hardwired unit connects to a wall circuit for a cleaner look, and needs an electrician for about 1 to 2 hours, plus mounting.
• Running costs. On a timer for 2 hours a day, an 80-watt model costs about $0.78 a month and a 150-watt model about $1.46, according to WarmlyYours’ sizing guide. Left on around the clock, those figures rise to about $9 and $18 a month.

If you’re also short on storage, a towel warmer is only half the answer: these bathroom towel storage ideas show how designers handle the rest of the wall.

Before You Rip Out The Old One

Check what you have first. If your current towel radiator is connected to the home’s hot-water heating system rather than plugged in or wired, replacing it means working on the plumbing loop, and that’s a job for a plumber. For electric models, every unit should sit on a GFCI-protected circuit, away from direct splashes, and any hardwiring belongs to a licensed electrician.

Finally, size it to your habits. A big hardwired rack makes little sense if you only warm one towel after a shower. A small plug-in model on a timer may give you the look and the comfort for a fraction of the cost.

Match the finish to the faucet, pick plug-in or wired, and put it on a timer. That’s the trick.

The post White ladder radiators are disappearing from bathrooms: what replaces them appeared first on TheCoolist.

Cats choose, they are not won over

Cats are less social by nature than dogs, and they value control over their environment. A cat that can decide when to approach, when to be touched and when to leave feels safe. A cat that is picked up, cornered or petted when it did not ask for it learns to keep its distance from that person, even if that person is the one who feeds it.

Food still matters, of course: cats associate the person who feeds them with something positive. But a full bowl does not cancel out unwanted handling. A cat can happily eat what you give it and still choose to curl up next to someone else on the couch, because that person never forces contact.

That is why the favorite person in a household is often not the most enthusiastic one, but the calmest: the one who sits down, lets the cat come, pets it briefly where it likes, and stops when it signals it has had enough.

What research shows

Researchers led by Dr. Lauren Finka at Nottingham Trent University have studied how people interact with cats. As Phys.org reported, their earlier work suggests that letting cats choose when to be petted is one of the best ways to increase affection and reduce aggression. Their later study, published in Scientific Reports, found something surprising: people who considered themselves the most knowledgeable and experienced with cats were more likely to touch areas cats often dislike, such as the base of the tail and the belly.

In other words, experience does not guarantee that a cat will like you. Respecting its signals does.

The slow blink is another sign worth knowing. When a cat looks at you and closes its eyes slowly, it is a relaxed, friendly signal. Many behaviorists suggest returning it: blink slowly back, then look away. It is a simple way to show the cat you are not a threat.

How to become your cat’s favorite person

• Let it come to you. Offer a hand at its level and wait for it to rub against it.
• Touch the right places: cheeks, base of the ears and under the chin. Avoid the belly and the base of the tail.
• Keep it short. A few strokes, then pause. If the cat pushes back for more, continue.
• Read the signals: a twitching tail, flattened ears, skin rippling on the back or a head turned away mean stop.
• Never force a hug or a lap, and give it places to retreat, high up if possible.

The honest limit

Every cat has its own personality, history and tolerance for contact. Some love being held, others never will, and a sudden change in behavior, especially aggression when touched, can signal pain. In that case, see a veterinarian before blaming the relationship.

Animals around the house have their own rules too: here is why garden birds avoid some nest boxes, and how one leaf is enough to keep mice away.

Let it choose, touch less, stop sooner. That’s the trick.

The post Animal behavior experts agree: a cat’s favorite person is always the one who respects its limits appeared first on TheCoolist.

Joy, most of the time

Dogs are social animals, strongly attached to their people. When you come home, they get back the company and the interaction they value, so a happy welcome is normal and healthy. Some dogs are naturally more intense than others: temperament, age, energy level, breed, training and past experiences all play a role.

Spanish veterinarian Ana Ramírez, technical director at Kivet, explained to HOLA that an intense greeting is usually positive, but not always a sign of happiness. In some dogs, it reflects difficulty managing separation.

How to tell the difference

The key is not the greeting itself, but what happens around it:

• After you arrive: a dog that calms down within a minute or two is simply happy to see you. A dog that stays wound up for a long time is a different story.
• While you are away: chewed doors, barking or howling reported by neighbors, accidents in the house, drooling or untouched food are classic warning signs.
• Before you leave: a dog that follows you from room to room, pants or paces as soon as you grab your keys is anticipating your departure.

Veterinary behaviorist Dr. Debra Horwitz describes the same picture in a paper on separation anxiety: problem behaviors usually start within 30 minutes of the owner leaving, and the greeting on return can be exuberant and prolonged.

What to do when you come home

Don’t feed the frenzy. If your dog is very worked up, wait a few seconds for it to settle, speak in a calm voice, let it come to you, and give attention and petting once it is calmer. Ramírez insists on one point: this does not mean ignoring your dog or being cold. It means not turning your arrival into the most exciting moment of the day.

The same goes for departures: keep them short and low-key, without long goodbyes. A toy or a chew can help make your absence more neutral.

When to ask for help

An enthusiastic greeting alone is not a problem. If it comes with destruction, nonstop barking or accidents while you are away, talk to your veterinarian or a certified behaviorist. Separation anxiety is treated with gradual training, and sometimes with medication.

Cats have their own rules, as we explained about who a cat chooses as its favorite person. And dogs are smarter than we think: the smartest dog may not be the one you expect.

A calm voice, a few seconds of waiting and a quiet hello. That’s the trick.

The post Vets agree: a dog that goes wild when you come home isn’t always showing happiness appeared first on TheCoolist.

The paint’s fine. The art’s up. The dresser matches the bed frame. On paper, nothing’s wrong. But the second you sit on the edge of the bed, your shoulders don’t drop like they used to. The room feels flat. Kind of tired. Like a hotel you wouldn’t book twice.

So you start running the usual list in your head. Maybe I’ll repaint. Maybe the curtains are off. Maybe I should hang a bigger piece on that wall. You pull up a shopping cart. You tell yourself the room needs a refresh, and a refresh means buying things.

Turns out, three interior designers were recently asked where a bedroom actually goes wrong, and all three of them pointed at the same thing. It wasn’t the walls. It wasn’t the art. It wasn’t the curtains. And one half of the fix won’t cost you a dime.

The mistake almost everyone makes

Most people treat a bedroom like a gallery. When it feels off, we try to fix it with the decor. A new throw. A new print. A fresh coat of paint on one wall. We figure the problem is how the room looks, so the fix must be something to buy or hang.

That’s why so many refreshes don’t really land. You spend a weekend and some money, and a week later the room still feels off. The real problem never got touched.

When The Spruce asked three designers, Alina Mehrle of Asthetique, Jasmine Artis of J’Miracle Designs, and Barrett Oswald of Barrett Oswald Designs, what they’d fix first in a bedroom that feels off, none of them talked about paint or prints. They all pointed at something more basic.

The matching-set trap

Before we get to the fix, it helps to understand why so many bedrooms feel flat even when nothing’s really wrong with them.

Mehrle says it plain: “Everything the same height and from the same set feels like a hotel room, not a sanctuary.”

That one line explains a lot. When you buy a bedroom in a box, the matching headboard, nightstands, dresser, and mirror all from one set, the room ends up perfectly matched and totally lifeless. Same wood, same height, same finish. Your eye has nowhere to land. It looks like a showroom instead of a place you live.

Her advice? The opposite of what the furniture store sold you. “Mix periods, textures, and scales fearlessly,” she says. One tall piece next to a short one. A warm wood against a cool metal. An old lamp on a modern table.

The lighting’s working against you too

Most houses come with one small ceiling light and maybe matching lamps on the nightstands. That’s a room lit for a hallway, not for sleep.

Mehrle says to layer light at different heights. “Light should feel like jewelry in the room,” she says. Put the ceiling light on a dimmer, add a lamp or small wall light at a different height from your nightstand lamp, and skip the harsh white bulbs. The warmer, lower, mixed glow does more for how a bedroom feels than most things you can buy.

So what did the designers actually agree to change first?

Ready? When all three were asked what to fix first, they pointed at the same two things.

Your bedding, and where your bed is sitting.

That’s it. Not the walls. Not the art. The sheets you’ve been sleeping on, and the spot you shoved the bed into when you first moved in.

Start with the bedding. Go for fresh sheets with a bit of contrast and some texture you actually want to touch. Soft, natural fabrics like cotton or linen. Not another white-on-white set. If your current bedding has gone thin, pilly, or dingy, that alone is dragging the whole room down, because your bed takes up more space than anything else you own.

Then look at where your bed is. Mehrle is sharp about this one: “Your bed is the altar of the space; it deserves prominence. Center it on the most commanding wall, ideally with architectural symmetry. Flank it with substantial nightstands.”

Plainly: your bed should be the main thing you see when you walk in, centered on the longest or most important wall, with a real nightstand on each side instead of one nightstand and a pile of books. A bed shoved in a corner, or on the wrong wall, throws the whole room off. Moving it to the right wall costs nothing. Not a cent (or a euro). It’s the biggest single change on this whole list.

The other things worth fixing, in order

Once the bed’s sorted, the rest falls into place.

Hang bigger art. “Artwork that’s too small often reads as an afterthought,” says Oswald. Go a size bigger than feels right. A piece around 36 inches (about 90 cm) wide beats a 20-inch (50 cm) one over a bed.

Pick one color and stick with it. Artis says to start with one main color and layer softer versions in different fabrics. Calm but not boring.

Clear the clutter. A bench with storage, or baskets, and a set spot for the stuff that ends up on the floor.

Don’t forget the ceiling. “Beige carpet and white ceilings are missed opportunities,” Mehrle says. She calls the ceiling the “fifth wall” and says paint or wallpaper up there can change a room nobody ever looks up at.

The thread through all of it: your bedroom isn’t a gallery. It’s the one room where you’re most relaxed, and the fix almost always starts with the bed.

The post Designers agree: if your bedroom feels off, this is the first thing you should change appeared first on TheCoolist.

Where the idea comes from

A comparison of household appliances went viral in Europe this week. Based on usage estimates for a family of four, it crowned the electric stove as the most power-hungry appliance in the kitchen, far ahead of the fridge. That’s a European calculation, with European cooking habits. In the United States, the numbers point somewhere else.

The answer: the clothes dryer

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, a typical electric clothes dryer can consume as much energy as a new energy-efficient refrigerator, clothes washer and dishwasher combined. The NRDC estimates that Americans spend about $9 billion a year on electricity to run their dryers, and that up to $4 billion of it could be saved with more efficient machines.

How is that possible? A fridge uses little power, but all the time. A dryer works the opposite way: it heats air to high temperatures for close to an hour per load, several times a week. That’s a lot of electricity packed into a short time.

Heating and cooling still come first in American homes, along with water heating: according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, air conditioning, space heating and water heating are the three largest uses of home electricity. But among the appliances you plug in yourself, the dryer is the one to watch.

How to cut its consumption

• Clean the lint filter after every load. ENERGY STAR says it improves air circulation and efficiency, and it’s also a fire-safety measure. If you use dryer sheets, scrub the filter once a month, because their residue blocks airflow.
• Use the moisture sensor instead of a timed cycle: the dryer stops when the clothes are dry, not after an arbitrary hour.
• Dry loads back to back to use the heat already in the drum, and don’t overload it.
• Spin faster in the washer. The less water left in the clothes, the less work for the dryer.
• Air-dry when you can, even indoors: here’s the Japanese trick that dries laundry faster.

The limit

These figures are averages. A gas dryer, a compact model or a household that air-dries most of its laundry will see very different numbers, and a family with three kids will see bigger ones. If your dryer is old, the most effective fix is the replacement: ENERGY STAR says heat pump dryers use around 70% less energy than conventional dryers, and they don’t need an outside vent.

The kitchen has its own surprises, as we found when comparing the air fryer and the oven. And lighting is changing too, with the new tech replacing LED bulbs.

Not the fridge, not the washer: the dryer. That’s where the savings are.

The post Neither the fridge nor the washing machine: the appliance that can use as much electricity as both of them combined appeared first on TheCoolist.

Here’s the surprise. She didn’t call a cabinet company. She didn’t touch a single arched door.

She painted them. And the finished kitchen looks like it was built this way on purpose.

Where she started

Picture it the way she first saw it. The cabinets were the loudest thing in the room, and not in a fun way. Dark honey oak with that heavy orange-red tone so many of us lived with in the late 90s. Cathedral arches on every upper. Tiny bronze knobs that disappeared into the grain.

The counters were speckled brown laminate. The backsplash was a thin dark mosaic. The walls were chocolate brown. One room, three different browns, all fighting.

The walnut floor stayed. So did the layout, the sink spot, the window bay, and every cabinet she already owned.

What design advice gets wrong about honey oak

Type “honey oak kitchen” into any search bar. The verdict is always the same. Rip them out. The arches cannot be saved. Replace or live with it.

A full cabinet replacement for a kitchen this size runs $15,000 to $40,000. For most people, that’s a brick wall. So the kitchen sits there, year after year, and a small knot of embarrassment forms every time a glossy reno video rolls by.

Her kitchen is a quiet argument against all of that. The cabinets were never the real problem. The finish, the wall color, the hardware, and the lighting were. Every one of those is pocket change next to a tear-out.

The paint color that did the heavy lifting

She chose Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter (HC-172). It’s a warm greige that leans just enough beige to stay friendly with the walnut floors. In morning light it reads soft. By evening it reads cozy. It never slides into cold.

Look closely at the arched tops. Same doors. Same hinges. Same cathedral shape every teardown article says is beyond saving. Painted in Revere Pewter with a long bar pull across the panel, that old curve stops reading as dated and starts reading as a feature.

You will love these

TRENDING

They spray painted the honey-oak cabinets with a $10 gun: now the whole kitchen looks brand-new

JUST IN

He refused to replace his dated granite countertops: one Sherwin-Williams color changed the whole kitchen

The small swap that changes the whole door

The old hardware was tiny round knobs sitting in the middle of each door, leaving the arched top floating alone above. Your eye had nothing to grab.

The new pulls are long, matte black, and horizontal. That one straight line cuts across the curve of the cathedral top and resets the shape of the door. Suddenly your eye runs along the pull instead of climbing to the arch.

Counters and backsplash: calmer, softer, lighter

The laminate came out. In its place is a cream quartz with soft gray veining. It picks up the gray hiding inside the Revere Pewter and keeps your eye moving instead of parking it on the counter.

The dark mosaic backsplash came out too. The new tile is a hand-glazed off-white brick with a slightly wavy finish. It catches daylight instead of swallowing it, especially around the sink corner where the window pours light in all afternoon.

Lighting and wall color opened the ceiling

The old fixture was a dome with a dark trim band. It threw a yellow spotlight straight down and left the ceiling above it in shadow, which is a sneaky reason the whole room used to feel shorter.

The new lights are flat flush-mount LED discs. Clean white, even spread, no dark ring. The ceiling now reads actually white. The wall color above the backsplash is a soft warm neutral that lets the paint on the cabinets be the star.

The two-year timeline is the honest part

This is what makes it feel reachable instead of fantasy. She did not pull the trigger in one weekend. She spread it across two years, and the order she chose is worth copying.

Counters first. Then the backsplash. Then the ceiling lights. Then the wall color. The cabinet paint, the step every design account tells you to do first, was the very last step.

Each earlier change had to hold up against the honey oak still sitting in the room. Only once every other surface was already soft and current did the paint go on. The paint is what pulled the whole room together.

Everything she didn’t touch

Before you tell yourself your own kitchen needs a tear-out, read this list. Cabinet boxes, every door including the arched ones, every hinge, the floor, the layout, the sink spot, the window bay, the appliance footprint. All of it stayed.

That’s almost the entire structural kitchen. Only the surfaces changed. The whole room now reads brand new.

Steal her plan

Four moves, in her order. A cream quartz counter with soft gray veining. A hand-glazed off-white brick backsplash. Flush-mount LED ceiling discs. Then paint the cabinets Revere Pewter and swap every knob for a long matte black bar pull.

Leave the arched doors alone. They were never the problem.

What stopped you longest, the cost or the voice telling you the cabinets had to go?

The post She painted honey oak cabinets Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter: same arched doors, a new kitchen appeared first on TheCoolist.

What it’s for

The mix makes a soft cleaning paste for the kitchen. It’s mainly used on:

• Countertops, to remove grease film and dried spills.
• Pots and pans, especially stuck-on residue on the outside and the bottom.
• The cabinet under the sink, which collects drips and odors.
• Tiles and the backsplash, where cooking grease settles.

It can also be used in the bathroom, on the sink and tiles.

Why it works

Each ingredient has a job. Dish soap contains surfactants that break down grease and lift dirt. Baking soda is a mild alkaline powder that degreases, neutralizes odors and scrubs gently. Sugar adds a slight grit that helps scrub without scratching most surfaces. The result is a paste that clings where you put it, instead of running off like a spray.

Why so many people recommend it

First, the price: a batch costs a few cents, against several dollars for a bottle of kitchen spray. Then, the ingredients: there’s no strong smell, no harsh fumes and nothing you wouldn’t already have near food, which makes it popular for the areas where you cook. And it replaces several products at once, from the degreaser for the stovetop surround to the cream cleaner for the sink.

Some people add a few drops of essential oil for the scent. For hard water spots, white vinegar is sometimes suggested too, but keep it for a separate step: vinegar is an acid and baking soda is a base, so mixed together in the same bowl they simply cancel each other out.

How to make it

• In a small bowl, mix 2 tablespoons of liquid dish soap, 1 tablespoon of baking soda and 1 tablespoon of sugar.
• Stir until smooth. Too runny? Add a little baking soda. Too thick? A few drops of water.
• Apply with a damp sponge or soft brush, rub in small circles and let it sit for a few minutes on tough spots.
• Rinse with clean water and wipe dry. This step matters: sugar left on a surface turns sticky.

Make only what you need for one cleaning session: it costs a few cents, and a fresh batch works best.

The limit

It’s a gentle degreaser, not a disinfectant: for cutting boards that touched raw meat, follow food-safety advice with hot soapy water or a proper sanitizer. Be careful on delicate surfaces like untreated wood, polished marble or natural stone, and always test a hidden corner first. Don’t use it on non-stick coatings with an abrasive pad. And never mix homemade pastes with bleach or other cleaning products.

Baking soda has other well-known duos in the kitchen: coffee grounds and baking soda for a smelly sink, or hydrogen peroxide and baking soda for tougher stains.

Two tablespoons of soap, one of baking soda, one of sugar. That’s the trick.

The post Mixing baking soda with dish soap and sugar: what it’s for and why it’s recommended appeared first on TheCoolist.

This is not your fault. A cold floor feels like a missing-blanket problem, so covering it seems obvious. But the floor is cold because of what’s underneath it, and some of the most popular fixes trap moisture right where it can do the most damage.

The Fix That Backfires

The classic mistake is the crawlspace one: pushing fiberglass batts between the floor joists of a vented crawlspace. Building scientist Joseph Lstiburek examined exactly this kind of failure, with rotting wood under an insulated floor, and his verdict was blunt: “What caused this mess? The floor insulation.” The insulation keeps the house warm but makes the exposed wood below much colder. In humid months, outdoor air pulled into the crawlspace then meets surfaces colder than its dew point, and the moisture condenses on the joists.

The same logic applies on concrete. A slab or basement floor can give off moisture, and a cold surface invites condensation. Lay a thick rug or carpet with felt padding directly on it, and you’ve built a damp sandwich where mold grows unseen.

What Actually Helps

• On wood floors over heated rooms: area rugs are fine and really do warm your feet. Pick a rug pad that suits the floor, and lift the rug now and then to check underneath.
• On concrete, test first. Tape a 2-by-2-foot sheet of plastic to the floor for 24 to 72 hours. If moisture forms underneath, keep carpet and felt pads off that floor.
• If the slab passes: use a closed-cell foam or rubber underlayment, which resists water, rather than felt padding, which traps it. Carpet tiles are often the most practical choice for a basement.
• Control the air. The EPA advises keeping indoor humidity below 60 percent, ideally between 30 and 50 percent. A dehumidifier in a damp basement does more for comfort than another layer on the floor.
• For a crawlspace, insulate the walls, not the floor. The building-science answer is a sealed, conditioned crawlspace built like a mini-basement, with insulation on the perimeter. If the floor itself must be insulated, rigid foil-faced board under the framing or closed-cell spray foam at least 3 inches thick is the safer route.

And don’t forget the room itself. A floor feels colder in a room that loses heat in other ways, which is why the number on the thermostat rarely tells the full story.

When To Stop And Call A Pro

A musty smell that won’t go away, dark spots under a rug, soft or stained wood, or water on the crawlspace floor all mean moisture is already winning. Lift the rug, dry the area completely, and remember the EPA’s rule that water-damaged materials should be dried within 24 to 48 hours to prevent mold. Converting a crawlspace or fixing a wet basement is a job for a qualified contractor, not a weekend project.

Warm the floor from below the right way, test before you cover, and keep the air dry. That’s the trick.

The post Cold floors in winter: what actually helps and the fix that backfires appeared first on TheCoolist.

If your house went up between 2000 and 2010, this might be your kitchen too. Red cherry everywhere, black granite counters, a travertine backsplash in little diamonds, and small round silver knobs stuck in the middle of every door. For most of a decade, that was the “nice kitchen” package in American builder homes. Millions of houses got it. It aged in a hurry. By now it screams a date on the house.

The problem is what you’re told to do about it. Realtors say gut it. Contractors quote $25,000 to $45,000 just for new cabinets, before anyone has touched the counters or the backsplash. HGTV crews come in with sledgehammers. So most homeowners either eat the quote, live with the red for another decade, or buy a can of Behr Ultra White and watch their DIY job chip at every fingernail scrape while pink tannins bleed through in six months.

This homeowner did none of that.

Three days of paint, zero demo work

Two cans of Sherwin-Williams. One tin of lacquer bonding primer. A new set of long matte black bar pulls. That was the whole job.

The money move: keep the granite, change what’s touching it

Nobody tells you this, but the black granite was never actually the problem. It only looked tired because it was pinned between red cabinets above and red cabinets below. Put something quieter around it and the same slab suddenly looks like a decision somebody made, not a leftover.

The travertine backsplash stayed too, and that was the smart call. A cooler gray paint would have turned that beige stone yellow. Mega Greige is warm enough to pull the tile into the new story instead of leaving it stranded.

No tile saw. No new counters. No plumber. No electrician.

The oven wall: look at how little actually moved

The magnet on top of the oven is still there in both photos. Same magnet. Same oven. Same floor. Nothing has moved by an inch.

The one real swap, besides paint, is the hardware. And it does more than you expect. The old round knobs sat halfway up each door and made every cabinet feel short and squat. The long bar pulls run most of the door and drag your eye straight up. An eight-foot kitchen suddenly reads taller than it did last week.

And then one piece went in a totally different direction

This is where the whole project earns its payoff. The sink corner didn’t go Mega Greige with the rest. It went Tricorn Black.

If every cabinet in the house had been painted the same soft greige, the kitchen would still look nice. Polite. But flat. Like a slightly updated version of the same thing. The black is what gives the room a point of view. Your eye lands on it first, then relaxes across the greige. That is not an accident. That is the two-color plan.

The black does one more thing worth noticing. The cabinet fronts are busy, with raised panels and heavy bevels. In cherry, you see every curve. In Tricorn Black, those details disappear into one solid silhouette. The ornate 2004 fuss is still there under the paint. You just can’t see it anymore.

The pantry nook got the same love

The frosted film is the quietest move in the whole project. Ten bucks and an afternoon. It hides the plastic bins without taking the glass doors off, and it keeps your eye from skipping over the paint job to look at household supplies.

Why it stuck: one can of primer most people skip

Here is the one real secret, and it is not glamorous. The factory topcoat on cherry cabinets is slick on purpose. It is engineered to repel water and food. It also happens to repel paint. That is why nearly every DIY white-paint-over-cherry story ends the same way: peeling at the edges, pink bleed through the surface, do-over.

The pros skipped the hardware-store primer and used a lacquer bonding primer instead. It bites into that slick finish, locks the red tannins in so they can’t bleed through, and gives the topcoat something to grab. Everything after that is just a steady hand.

Three days. One primer. Two colors. New pulls. A kitchen you were told to tear out, saved.

Would you paint yours, or still rip it out?

The post He kept the black granite and painted cherry cabinets Mega Greige: now the kitchen looks custom appeared first on TheCoolist.

This is not your fault. Sandbags are the image everyone has of flood protection, but they were never a seal. And a recent set of laboratory tests found that a far cheaper item, already in most kitchen drawers, did a much better job at the door.

What The Tests Actually Showed

Researchers at the University of Hull ran the laboratory tests on modern wooden, vinyl and composite front doors, each installed by trade professionals. They raised the water in 2-inch steps up to 24 inches and measured every drop that leaked through. With no protection, the doors often let in thousands of liters an hour at full depth, which means hundreds of gallons.

A wall of 54 sandbags, with plastic sheeting between the door and the bags, cut that leakage by about 70 percent at best. Plain duct tape applied to the outside of the door cut it by 97 to 98 percent. A flexible synthetic rubber tape did slightly better still, at about 99 percent.

The difference comes down to where the water gets in. A door leaks through its gaps, around the frame and at the threshold. Sandbags hold back some of the water without sealing anything. Tape closes the gaps themselves.

How To Tape A Door Before A Flood

1. Buy the right roll now. Keep a roll of wide, strong duct tape, or a butyl-style flood putty tape, in the house before storm season. A roll costs about $10 or less.
2. Work from the outside. In the tests, tape on the outside of the door comfortably beat tape on the inside, so don’t do it from the hallway.
3. Cover every gap. Seal the joints between the door and the frame, and along the bottom where the door meets the threshold.
4. Give it 10 to 20 minutes per door. That’s how long one careful person needed in the lab. Do it before the water reaches the step, not as it arrives.

One more detail from the results: doors that open outward performed better than doors that open inward.

The Limits, Stated Honestly

These results describe one doorway in controlled conditions, up to 24 inches of water. They are not a promise that your home stays dry. Water can still enter through walls, floors, drains, vents and other openings that no tape can reach, and results depend on the condition of the door and frame and on how well the tape is applied. The lead researcher, Professor Stuart McLelland, is explicit: “Tape is not a substitute for permanent, professionally installed property flood resilience measures.”

So treat the roll as a cheap first line, not a plan. If officials call for evacuation, leave: no door seal is worth staying for rising water. And the same logic that makes a closed, sealed door so protective applies inside too, which is why fire experts say a closed bedroom door can buy precious time.

Skip the sandbag pile, tape the outside of the door, and know when to go. That’s the trick.

The post Lab tests found duct tape kept out more floodwater than sandbags appeared first on TheCoolist.

This is not your imagination, and it’s not a bad kettle. American kettles really are slower, and the reason has nothing to do with taste or tradition at first. It’s sitting right behind the plug, in the wall.

The Unexpected Reason: The Outlet

Most American homes run on about 120 volts, while much of the world uses 220 to 240. That difference sounds technical, but it decides how much power a kettle can draw. As ScienceABC puts it, “A US kettle on a 120-volt outlet tops out near 1,500 watts and takes nearly four minutes to boil a liter of water”. On 230 volts, a kettle can reach about 3,000 watts and boil the same liter in under two minutes.

The ceiling comes from the plug itself. The standard flat US wall plug is rated for 15 amps at 125 volts, which works out to roughly 1,800 watts. For a load that runs continuously, appliances shouldn’t pull more than about 80 percent of that rating, because the wires heat up. Eighty percent lands a little under 1,500 watts, which is exactly where American kettles stop.

The math is simple. Heating a liter, about a quart, from 59°F to a boil takes a fixed amount of energy, so half the power means roughly twice the wait. Even at perfect efficiency, a typical high-voltage kettle needs about 127 seconds, an American one about 237. That extra minute and a half, every single time, was enough to keep the stovetop kettle in its place.

Habit finished the job. Americans have long relied on the stovetop kettle that whistles when the water is ready, and in a country that drinks less tea, fewer people ever felt the need for faster hot water. One expat living in the US summed it up for Business Insider: the culture for it simply isn’t there.

When A Kettle Still Wins In A US Kitchen

Slower than its overseas cousins doesn’t mean slow. An electric kettle still earns its counter space here, especially when you look at efficiency instead of speed. Rough estimates from a National Renewable Energy Laboratory researcher put the options like this:

• Electric kettle: about 80 percent efficient, the best of the common choices.
• Electric stovetop: about 70 percent, varying a lot with the pot.
• Gas stove: around 70 percent, with much of the flame’s heat lost to the air.
• Microwave: about 50 percent.
• Induction: about 85 percent, the only option that beats the kettle, but it needs magnetic cookware.

So if you heat water for tea, oatmeal, pour-over coffee or a hot water bottle, a kettle is the most efficient everyday tool most American kitchens have. And it fits right into a dedicated coffee bar next to the grinder and the mugs.

How To Get The Most Out Of It

The biggest speed boost is free: boil only what you need. Since time depends on the amount of water, filling a kettle with one mug’s worth instead of a full liter cuts the wait to a fraction.

The limit is the same wall that slows it down. A 1,500-watt kettle already uses most of a 15-amp circuit, so running it at the same moment as a toaster or microwave on that circuit can trip the breaker. Plug it straight into a wall outlet, keep the cord away from the sink, and don’t try to fix the speed with a kettle built for 230 volts: on a US outlet, its heating coil would make only about 820 watts, so it would be even slower.

Fill it light, plug it in alone, and let it do the job it’s best at. That’s the trick.

The post Why electric kettles never took off in America: the reason is unexpected appeared first on TheCoolist.

The owner of this one had reached the point most people reach eventually. Nothing was broken. The appliances worked. The granite was in good shape. She just could not look at it anymore.

The quote that changed her mind

So she did what most people do first. She called around for a remodel quote. You already know how that conversation went. Pull the backsplash, swap the granite, pry off the corbels, flat-panel the doors, modernize the hardware. Twenty-five, thirty, forty thousand before anyone touches a cabinet. If you have ever gotten a kitchen quote, you flinched when you read that number.

Instead, she grabbed a fan deck and started testing paint colors on an upper cabinet door. The teal swatches you can see here were her first attempts.

Those teals were a trap. Cool blue against warm beige backsplash is two kitchens arguing with each other. She called Duart Painting instead of a contractor, and together they landed on Sherwin-Williams Clary Sage.

What actually happened

Every cabinet got sprayed sage. The cup pulls got swapped for long brushed champagne bar pulls. That was the whole job. Three days of work, a weekend to dry, and done.

Look at the two walls side by side. Same cabinets. Same doors. Same molding. Same appliances. Same floor underneath. The sage pulled the whole room into one story the cream was never telling.

Why keeping the dated stuff was the smart move

This is the part worth paying attention to if you have a kitchen like this and you have been told to tear it out.

Clary Sage has enough gray in it to feel grown up and enough green to feel warm. The warm beige in the diamond backsplash finally has something friendly to sit next to, so it stops looking like leftovers from 2008 and starts reading like a French pantry. The speckled black granite stops looking heavy against sage the way it looked heavy against cream, and quietly becomes the kind of counter people now pay a premium for because it reads like soapstone. The dark walnut floor warms the whole thing up from below.

None of that was true before the paint. The exact same materials were in the room. Nothing about them changed. The color they were sitting next to changed, so what they read as changed.

Same deal with the raised panels and the rope molding on the crown. Under cream glaze, that trim looked fussy. Under sage, it looks like someone paid extra for it, because once upon a time someone did.

You will love these

TRENDING

They spray painted the honey-oak cabinets with a $10 gun: now the whole kitchen looks brand-new

JUST IN

He refused to replace his dated granite countertops: one Sherwin-Williams color changed the whole kitchen

The corbels everyone would have pried off

The kitchen has carved corbels in a few places, but the showstoppers are the big acanthus-leaf ones on the peninsula. Three of them, swirling, Victorian-looking, mounted above fluted half-columns. In an all-cream kitchen they screamed grandmother. During prep the painter even masked a smaller decorative corbel elsewhere in the room, which is where that blue tape came from.

Sprayed sage, the big peninsula corbels read differently. Not dated. Not grandmother. They read English country manor. They read the kind of cabinet shop you have to drive to a different town to find. If you tried to add corbels and fluted columns like these to a brand new kitchen today, you would be writing a check with a lot of zeros to a custom millwork guy. The homeowner already owned them. She just could not see them under the glaze.

The peninsula pulls it all together

Walk through any new-build subdivision this weekend. You will see flat-panel shaker cabinets, a plain waterfall island, and a slab backsplash in every single kitchen. All perfectly nice. None of it looks like a human chose it. This kitchen looks like a human chose it.

What you should know if you are tempted

Honest numbers. A professional spray job on a kitchen this size runs roughly $3,000 to $6,000, plus another couple hundred for hardware. Factor in a stain-blocking primer if your cabinets have been through anything greasy, which they have.

Expect to live without most of your kitchen for about a week. Expect fingernails and dog claws to find the finish eventually, because paint is still paint. And know that color choice is the whole game. The wrong sage would have made this room look like a mint. The right sage made it look like a plan.

The post She kept every carved Tuscan cabinet and sprayed it Sherwin-Williams Clary Sage: now it looks custom appeared first on TheCoolist.

This is not your fault. Cameras ship with wide lenses and audio switched on, and the box never explains where the law draws the line. The mistake is simple: recording more than you need, in places, and with sound, that the law protects.

Where The Legal Line Actually Sits

Video of public areas, like the street and the sidewalk, is generally allowed. Trouble starts where someone has a reasonable expectation of privacy. Footage aimed into a neighbor’s bedroom, bathroom or child’s room is far more likely to be treated as an invasion of privacy than a clip of your own front door. Camera maker Arlo’s advice for homeowners is direct: “Install them in a way that avoids pointing at private areas of their home.”

Audio is the bigger trap. Recording sound without consent can trigger wiretapping or eavesdropping laws, separate from any camera rules. Most states let you record a conversation if one party knows, but about 11 states primarily require all parties to consent: California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington. A camera at the front door quietly picking up passersby and neighbors talking can cross that line.

The Placement Rules That Keep Footage Useful And Legal

• Aim at your own entry points. Doors, the driveway, the side gate. Tilt the lens down until the frame stops at your property and the public street, and use privacy zones if your app offers them.
• Switch off audio unless you’re sure. Silent video avoids the consent question entirely, and it can be easier to use as evidence later.
• Never cover private spaces. Keep neighbors’ windows, backyards and anything resembling a bedroom or bathroom out of frame.
• Think before you post. Even a lawful clip can lead to a defamation claim if the person shown is misidentified or wrongly labeled a thief, and repeated posting can tip into harassment.

When To Get Advice

Rules on recording vary by state, and some details, like how footage can be used in a custody case or a dispute, depend on whether it was obtained legally in the first place. Keep in mind that footage doesn’t always stay private either: police can obtain home security video with your consent, with a warrant, or from the company that stores it. If a neighbor objects to your camera, talk first and adjust the angle. If it escalates, or if you want to keep audio on in an all-party state, ask a local attorney before you hit record. This article is general information, not legal advice.

Point at your doors, not their windows, and leave the mic off. That’s the trick.

The post The common mistake with home security cameras that can cost you dearly appeared first on TheCoolist.

What the foil is for

Damp walls usually have one of two causes, and they call for completely different fixes.

The first is condensation. Warm, humid indoor air from cooking, showers, drying laundry and simply breathing hits a cold wall and turns back into water. It is the most common problem in fall and winter, when windows stay closed and exterior walls get colder.

The second is water coming through the wall itself: a plumbing leak, a gutter overflowing against the siding, poor drainage near the foundation, or a crack that lets rain in. That one does not go away with a dehumidifier.

The foil test tells you which one you are dealing with. Because aluminum foil is waterproof, it acts as a barrier: moisture coming from the room collects on one side, moisture coming from the wall collects on the other. The method has been described in building research as a simple first diagnostic and has been widely shared by architects, as ECOticias reported.

How and when to do it

The best time is now, at the start of the heating season, and ideally after a few days of normal life in the room:

• Dry the spot with a towel. Do not wet it.
• Tape a square of foil, about 12 inches across, over the damp area.
• Seal all four edges with tape so no air can get underneath.
• Wait 24 to 48 hours without touching it, then peel it off carefully and look at both sides.

How to read the result

• Droplets on the room side: it is condensation. The air in the room is too humid for the temperature of the wall.
• Moisture on the wall side: the water is coming through the wall. Think leak, seepage or rising damp.
• Both sides wet: you may have both problems at once.
• Both sides dry, but the stain keeps coming back: repeat the test after a rainy spell or a week of heavy cooking and showers.

A chalky white powder on masonry, called efflorescence, is another sign that water is traveling through the wall.

What to do next

If it is condensation, the fix is ventilation. The EPA recommends keeping indoor humidity below 60 percent, ideally between 30 and 50 percent. Run the bathroom and kitchen fans longer, air out rooms briefly, keep furniture a few inches away from cold exterior walls and use a dehumidifier in stubborn rooms. Small habits count too, like how you handle the bedroom window at night.

If the wall itself is wet, treat it as a leak. Check plumbing, gutters and the ground along the foundation, where even decorative stone can be a culprit: white pebbles around the foundation can trap moisture against the walls. If the stain spreads, the paint bubbles or a musty smell persists, call a home inspector or a moisture specialist. The test is a clue, not a final diagnosis.

Foil is good at more than cooking, by the way: here is why people put it on their refrigerator shelves.

One square of foil, four strips of tape, two days. The wall tells you where the water comes from. That’s the trick.

The post Sticking aluminum foil on the walls of your house: why it’s recommended and when to do it appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• Small foil balls go in the corners, and sheets of foil can line the floor or walls of a clean freezer.
• The idea: frost forms on the foil, which you lift out instead of scraping the appliance.
• Frost comes from warm, humid air: door openings, a worn seal, warm or unsealed food.
• Never chip ice with a knife, and defrost once frost reaches about 1/4 inch.

What it’s for

The tip, described by the German news site Ludwigshafen24, has also been widely shared by Spanish and Hungarian media. The method has two parts:

• Form several small balls of aluminum foil and place them in the corners of the freezer or near the back wall.
• After cleaning, line the floor or the walls of a compartment with a sheet of foil.

When ice builds up, the article explains, you remove the foil along with the ice instead of scraping the inside of the appliance. Smooth aluminum is said to let ice “adhere less well,” so it comes away more easily.

Where the ice really comes from

Foil doesn’t stop frost from forming. To understand why ice keeps coming back, you have to look at the moisture. Whirlpool lists the three usual causes: opening the door or lid often, which lets warm air in; a seal that no longer closes tightly, which causes condensation; and food stored while still warm or poorly wrapped. Every time humid air touches the cold walls, a thin layer of frost forms, and the layers add up.

How to use it, and what to do first

• Start with a clean freezer. Whirlpool recommends defrosting when frost reaches about 1/4 inch, and at least once a year.
• Line, don’t cover. A sheet on the floor or a shelf is enough. Leave vents, the drain and the door seal completely free.
• Keep the balls small and out of the way of fans and drawers.
• Fix the cause: check the seal, let leftovers cool before freezing them, and wrap food well.

The limit

Don’t expect miracles from the balls themselves. Ludwigshafen24 cites no test, and its explanation that foil “insulates” doesn’t hold up: aluminum conducts cold very well. The real benefit is mechanical, ice that peels off with the sheet. The trick mainly concerns manual-defrost models and chest freezers, since frost-free freezers clear their own frost. And whatever happens, Whirlpool is clear: never use “an ice pick, knife, or other sharp-pointed tool,” and never a hair dryer or heater to speed things up. Use a plastic or wooden spatula.

Foil has other clever uses at home, starting with lining kitchen drawers. And while you’re rethinking your kitchen, see the appliance more and more kitchens are using instead of the microwave, or the two glasses of water that steam an oven clean.

A clean freezer, a sheet of foil, a door that seals. That’s the trick.

The post Putting balls of aluminum foil in the freezer: what it’s for and why it’s recommended appeared first on TheCoolist.

Which is why the past few years at Swedish auction houses have gotten so strange.

Pieces that once sold in regular IKEA stores for pocket change (the kind of thing a college kid buys for a first apartment) are now selling for the price of a used car. Collectors who used to chase big-name classic designers are quietly sorting through IKEA. People are showing up to these sales with chairs their parents bought decades ago and walking out with four- or five-figure checks.

In 2026, this isn’t a cute one-off. It’s a real market, tracked by the big auction sites, written up by design publications, and (as of this year) backed by IKEA itself expanding its own design museum in Älmhult, Sweden.

If you have older IKEA pieces in a garage, a basement, or your parents’ attic, there’s a real (small, but real) chance one of them is worth serious money. And auction houses, including the IKEA Museum, say a lot of these pieces are still floating around unidentified, mixed in with regular secondhand stuff, dropped off at thrift stores for a few bucks, or sitting on curbs with “FREE” signs.

So which pieces exactly? And why would anyone pay four figures for something designed from day one to be cheap?

The twist nobody expects

The IKEA pieces hitting the biggest prices aren’t the ones that sold well. They’re the ones that failed.

Pontus Silfverstolpe, co-founder of Barnebys (the auction tracking site that follows these sales worldwide), has said it plainly: the most expensive vintage IKEA pieces at auction are almost always IKEA’s flops. Chairs pulled off store floors after a season because shoppers didn’t like them. Short runs that cost too much to make. Early designer collaborations IKEA quietly gave up on. The stuff IKEA shoppers rejected in 1972 or 1993 is exactly what collectors are fighting over now.

The headline sale (the one everyone writes about) is a chair called the CAVELLI, designed in 1959 by Bengt Ruda. According to the IKEA Museum, only five of them were ever made. In May 2022, one sold at Swedish auction house Bukowskis for about $18,900 (190,000 Swedish kroner).

Other names collectors chase, called out in a January 2026 Homes & Gardens feature built with the IKEA Museum and 1stDibs:

• IMPALA chair (1972, by Gillis Lundgren, the designer behind the famous BILLY bookshelf). Sold new for about $40 (€37). A pair recently went for roughly $2,500 (€2,300).
• VILBERT chair (1993, by Verner Panton). Four flat panels bolted together. Sold new for about $22 (€20), flopped, got pulled fast. One sold at Catawiki in 2021 for about $1,400 (€1,300).
• DIANA chair (1972) and SKYE lounge chair (1970s), by Karin Mobring and Tord Björklund.

So if these pieces are sitting in regular houses, how do you tell if yours is one of them?

Five quick checks before you donate or toss anything

• Flip it over and look for the tag. Old IKEA pieces have a printed sticker or stamp underneath, usually with a model name (CAVELLI, IMPALA, DIANA, VILBERT), a four-digit code, a year, and the word “Älmhult, Sweden.” A clean tag is what auction houses need to confirm it.
• Check the designer name. The names worth knowing: Bengt Ruda, Gillis Lundgren, Karin Mobring, Verner Panton, Tord Björklund, Niels Gammelgaard. If any of those is on the tag or tied to the model online, dig deeper.
• Check the year. The sweet spot runs from the late 1950s to the early 1990s. Anything flat-pack and plain from after about 1995 is almost never worth real money. One newer exception is the Virgil Abloh MARKERAD collection from 2019.
• Check if it’s ever been taken apart. Collectors pay extra for pieces that still have the original screws and the original fabric, even if the fabric is faded.
• Look it up in the IKEA Museum online archive. It’s free, searchable by model name, and tells you the year and the designer. If your piece shows up, snap a photo and send it to a vintage dealer before you drop it off at Goodwill.

One honest heads-up: most used IKEA furniture is still worth basically nothing. A beat-up POÄNG is a beat-up POÄNG. But the five minutes it takes to flip something over and read a tag is the difference between a donation pile and a real surprise.

The joke used to be that IKEA was disposable. The auction results are saying the opposite out loud.

Sources: (1) Barnebys: Record for the Most Expensive Piece of Ikea Furniture; (2) Homes & Gardens: The 5 Rare Vintage IKEA Pieces That Are Now Worth Thousands and Where to Look for Them in 2026; (3) IKEA Museum: IMPALA easy chair, 1972; (4) Inter IKEA Group: Museum of Furniture Studies Stockholm moves to Älmhult, 24 September 2026; (5) Camille Styles with Household Quotes UK: 10 Vintage IKEA Pieces That Are Now Worth Thousands.

The post Old IKEA furniture is selling for real money: the pieces collectors are hunting down appeared first on TheCoolist.

What she actually did is almost embarrassingly small, and it’s the whole reason the kitchen reads as custom-built now.

The kitchen she started with

This is a textbook late-2000s Tuscan kitchen, the look that showed up in half of American builder spec homes between 2005 and 2012. Buttery yellow glazed cabinets. A burgundy accent wall behind the range. Ornate raised-panel doors with chamfered edges. Gold-veined green granite counters. A huge tropical ceiling fan with woven bamboo blades. Globe pendants on wrought-iron chains. Yellow-painted window trim. A cherry-stained pantry tower stacked next to a black Samsung fridge. A beadboard island with heavy carved corbels and a dark bronze foot rail.

None of these pieces were picked at random. They were sold together as one coordinated package. That’s what makes a Tuscan kitchen so sticky to date-stamp. Every element props up every other element.

Swap the backsplash and the yellow still ages the room. Swap the fan and the burgundy still ages it. Swap the doors and the granite still ages it. That’s why so many homeowners get stuck in half-fixes for years. They attack one piece at a time, and the Tuscan story just keeps pulling the room back.

What she actually changed

A short list. Cabinets, walls, and lights. That’s it.

She painted every perimeter and pantry cabinet in Benjamin Moore Providence Blue, a deep cool slate blue that sits almost directly opposite warm Tuscan yellow on the color wheel. She painted the burgundy accent wall and the yellow window trim out in a clean neutral. And she pulled down the tropical bamboo fan and the globe pendants and put up small terracotta dome ceiling lights instead.

Everything else stayed. Same raised-panel doors. Same ornate hood with its corbels and crown molding. Same cherry island with the beadboard sides and heavy carved legs. Same green granite with the gold veining. Same honey hardwood floors. Same bronze cabinet pulls. Same Samsung fridge. Same layout, down to the inch.

You will love these

TRENDING

They spray painted the honey-oak cabinets with a $10 gun: now the whole kitchen looks brand-new

JUST IN

He refused to replace his dated granite countertops: one Sherwin-Williams color changed the whole kitchen

Why it suddenly looks custom

Here is the part most people miss. The second the yellow and the burgundy both go away, the whole warm-palette conspiracy collapses.

The granite stops reading as “Tuscan earth tones” and starts reading as geological and moody. The dark bronze hardware stops reading as rustic Mediterranean and starts reading as modern matte black. The raised panels, the exact doors every HGTV reno guide says to replace with flat shaker fronts, now read as deep traditional, almost English pub. The hood, with its carved corbels and crown molding, suddenly looks custom instead of fussy.

Even the hardwood floor looks different. In the before, it reads orange and dated because the yellow was pulling the warm tones out of it. In the after, with cool cabinets above it, the same floor reads rich and intentional.

The small terracotta ceiling lights do real work too. They add the one calibrated point of warmth the cool blue needed to keep the room from going cold, and because they’re flush-mount domes instead of a giant fan, they stop fighting the ceiling plane for attention. The whole room reads taller.

What the Reddit comments missed

Scroll her thread and you see the same pattern that haunts kitchen remodel advice. Commenters kept pointing at structure (replace the island, fix the dishwasher clearance, get a counter-depth fridge) or at style surface (swap the doors, go flat panel, paint it white). All of those are standard renovation prescriptions. All of them cost thousands of dollars.

The paint-only phase one is a quiet counter-argument to all of it. She bought herself years of modern-feeling kitchen for a few gallons of paint and new ceiling fixtures.

The island replacement she has planned for phase two (she wants a usable rectangular island with 48 inches of clearance) and the counter-depth fridge she’s eyeing are functional upgrades, not aesthetic rescues. The kitchen already looks current.

Her brown island, which commenters begged her to sand and restain, now reads as a deliberate warm-wood accent against the cool cabinets. It’s the same island. The context around it changed, and that was enough.

The pantry tower got painted blue too, so the fridge wall finally reads as one continuous bank of cabinets instead of a yellow section awkwardly bolted to a cherry section. Nothing structural moved. The illusion of a custom built-in came from matching the color.

The real takeaway

Dated-looking traditional kitchens are almost always a color problem pretending to be a cabinet problem. The ornate raised panels aren’t the villain. The yellow glaze and the burgundy wall coordinating the whole dated story are.

She picked the paint color that pulled hardest in the opposite direction (Benjamin Moore Providence Blue), neutralized the burgundy wall, swapped two dated ceiling fixtures for small warm-toned domes, and left everything else alone.

Which room in your kitchen would collapse first if you took the warm color out of it?

The post She painted her yellow Tuscan cabinets Providence Blue: same granite, but now the kitchen looks custom appeared first on TheCoolist.

Your plan is simple. One weekend, a little sanding, two coats of chalk paint, maybe new knobs.

Put the sandpaper down.

A few weeks ago, a short, plain-looking painted dresser sat under the lights at a Pennsylvania auction. It sold for $180,000. The auction house had guessed a lot less. Seven serious bidders fought over it. What made it worth that kind of money wasn’t the shape. Wasn’t the wood. Wasn’t even how old it was.

It was the exact part a weekend DIYer would’ve been dying to cover up.

It wasn’t a one-off. About six weeks earlier in Maine, another old painted chest opened at bids in the five figures, even with chips on top and a swapped-out hinge. At the same Pennsylvania sale, another old chest with newer feet still pulled over $24,000, because of what was on top.

Two sales. Two states. Same lesson. Something very specific about these old painted pieces makes serious buyers reach for serious money. One small thing a normal shopper would never think to protect, which is why worth-something dressers get killed in garages every weekend.

The sad part: the exact move most people make, grab the sandpaper and the fresh paint, erases almost all the value in one afternoon. Not just a little. Almost all.

So what are these buyers chasing? And how do you check, in about a minute (60 seconds), whether that sad-looking dresser in your garage might be the kind they want, before you make it worthless?

What the big-money buyers are really after

They aren’t paying for the wood. Or the shape, the drawers, the hardware, or the age. All of that is a bonus. The real price is paid for one thing, and once it’s gone, no money or skill can bring it back.

It has a name: the original finish.

That doesn’t just mean old paint. It means the exact coat of paint, varnish, or stain the maker put on it a hundred-plus years ago, that’s been aging and softening in place ever since. That old surface is treated as part of the dresser itself, not a layer you can scrape off and redo.

The Canadian Conservation Institute, Canada’s government body that advises museums on this exact thing, puts it in one line in its public care guide: original furniture finishes have real history, beauty, and money value, and should be left alone.

The $180,000 dresser proves why. Per Antiques and The Arts Weekly’s reporting, it was signed in pencil by its maker (John Mayer), dated January 1829, with painted designs tied to a known country artist of the era. It’s the only known signed and dated piece from that part of rural Pennsylvania. All that proof lives inside the paint itself. Sand it off and you erase the signature, the date, the artwork, and the whole reason it’s worth that much.

The 60-second check before you touch anything

Before you buy a single sheet of sandpaper, do this walk-around.

1. Look for hand-painted designs. Flowers, hearts, tulips, fake-wood-grain patterns in colored paint, stencils, dates, initials, or signatures anywhere on it. If you spot any of that under the dust, stop.
2. Pull every drawer out and flip it over. Check the back and bottom for chalk writing, pencil marks, maker labels, or stamps. Old makers signed in weird spots.
3. Check the knobs and pulls. Hand-turned wood or lumpy old iron and brass? Good sign. Perfectly matched factory hardware is a red flag that it’s been “updated.”
4. Peek inside the lid and under the top. Painted designs inside, or colors that don’t match the outside, often mean folk-art origins.
5. Take photos of everything. Front, back, sides, drawer bottoms, inside the lid.
6. Email the photos to a regional antiques auction house. Pook & Pook, Thomaston Place, Garth’s, and Freeman’s Hindman all give free photo appraisals. One email could save you from wiping out a few thousand dollars with a palm sander.

Straight talk: not every old dresser is a $180,000 dresser. Most aren’t close. These top prices are for rare, documented pieces from specific country traditions, not a 1950s pine piece from a department store. But the rule still works all the way down. A plain old painted country piece in honest, untouched shape is almost always worth more as-is than refinished.

The real risk isn’t missing a $180,000 payday. It’s spending a Saturday erasing the one thing that made your dresser worth more than firewood.

Before the sandpaper comes out, grab a soft cloth and a camera.

Sources: (1) Antiques and The Arts Weekly, “Fraktur, Chest Share Honors At Pook & Pook,” October 5, 2026; (2) Antiques and Auction News, “Pook & Pook Delivers Major Two-Day Auction,” October 23, 2026; (3) Pook & Pook Inc., Americana Session One lot catalog, October 1, 2026; (4) Thomaston Place Auction Galleries, Lot 1017, Queen Anne Paint Decorated Blanket Chest, August 2026; (5) Canadian Conservation Institute, CCI Note 7/2, Care of Furniture Finishes.

The post Before you paint that old wooden dresser: here’s the original finish collectors are paying five figures for appeared first on TheCoolist.

The detail has been shared across Europe as one of those small everyday discoveries that makes people check their own clothespins. It’s worth the thirty seconds.

What each opening is for

The smaller opening, closer to the middle, is meant to grip the clothesline or the rail of a drying rack. The larger opening at the outer end is meant to hold the fabric. Clip the pin so the line sits in the small hole and the garment in the large one, and the pressure is spread where it should be: firmly on the line, gently on the fabric.

Do it the other way, or squeeze fabric and line together at the tip, and the pin presses hard on a small area of cloth. That’s what leaves the dents, ridges and creases that then have to be ironed out.

Why the design looks the way it does

There’s also a manufacturing logic. The cut-outs save material and weight, which matters for the millions of plastic pins made each year, and they make the pin flex more easily and spring back better. On wooden pins, traditionally made from birch because it doesn’t split or leak resin onto laundry, the openings help the wood cope with repeated soaking and drying.

Where to clip, garment by garment

Using the right opening is half of it. Where you clip is the other half:

• T-shirts and light tops: by the hem, not the shoulders, which stretch and dent.
• Pants and jeans: by the leg hems, hanging upside down.
• Dresses and skirts: at the waistband or sturdy side seams.
• Socks and underwear: by the elastic.

A few more habits help. Shake each piece out before hanging it, so it dries flat instead of in the shape it came out of the drum. Hang dark colors in the shade, since strong sun fades them. And bring pins indoors when the washing is done: left on the line through rain and sun, wooden pins turn gray and can mark light fabrics, and plastic ones grow brittle and snap.

There’s a bonus. When clothes hang from the fabric rather than being pressed flat against the line, air circulates better around them, so they dry faster and more evenly, especially thick items like towels and jeans.

Line-drying is also one of the gentlest things you can do for your clothes, along with choosing the right washing machine cycle in the first place.

Small hole on the line, big hole on the fabric, clip by the hem. Fewer marks, less ironing, faster drying. That’s the trick.

The post Few people know what the two holes in clothespins are for, and how to use them properly appeared first on TheCoolist.

If you flick between the two sides of that photo, your eyes do a strange thing. They keep looking for the thing that moved. A different backsplash. A new range. Fresh counters. A rebuilt wall somewhere. Nothing moved. The painter even left the little HOME letters hanging on the wall by the door. The only reason the two sides look like different kitchens is a different finish on the cabinets, and that one change kept the owners from spending anywhere between $10,500 and $20,000 (£8,000 to £15,000).

That gap, between what the job cost and what it would have cost, is why the post is worth sitting with. The mistake the owners almost made is the same one most people make when a kitchen starts to feel dated. They assume the fix is a whole new kitchen. They get quotes, flinch, then either live with it another five years or hand over serious money. Neither option turns out to have been necessary here, and the reason why starts with a question nobody thought to ask them.

A kitchen that looked older than it was

The owners had been cooking in a 15-year-old walnut Shaker kitchen. Back when it was installed, around 2005, walnut was the finish people picked when they wanted their kitchen to feel like a real upgrade. Same story in US homes from that era, where cherry, dark maple, and espresso-stained wood ruled the showroom floor. By 2018, those finishes had all turned into the quickest way to date a room. Buyers walked in and knocked years off their offer. Nothing about the kitchen was actually broken. It just looked tired in a way that felt like it needed serious money thrown at it.

The quiet question that saved the kitchen

Contractors came out and quoted the rip-and-replace. Pull the cabinets, pull the counters, start from scratch. The numbers landed between $10,500 and $20,000 (£8,000 to £15,000), and that was before anyone touched the floor or the appliances. For context, a typical US kitchen remodel in 2026 runs $25,000 to $50,000 for a project of this scope, so the gap only gets wider on American soil. The owners sat with the quotes for a while, then started asking a different question. Not “what should we replace?” but “what in here actually looks old?”

The honest answer caught them off guard. The granite still looked expensive. The Shaker door profile was a 200-year-old design, so it wasn’t going to date. The slate-style porcelain floor was fine. The brushed steel handles were fine. The layout worked. The mosaic strip in the backsplash was neutral enough to live with. Only one thing in the room had actually gone out of style, and it was the wood tone itself.

Why they called a sprayer, not a contractor

This is where the money story shifts. Instead of calling another kitchen contractor, they called a cabinet sprayer. The two trades do different things. A contractor rips the kitchen out and starts again. A sprayer treats your cabinets the way an auto body shop treats a car. He takes the doors off, sprays them on racks, masks the cabinet boxes in place, sprays those too, and rehangs everything. The kitchen is back in use inside a long weekend, and the bill comes in at a fraction of a full replacement. Cabinet painting services exist in every major US metro now, usually marketed as “cabinet refinishing” or “cabinet spraying,” and most will quote a job this size inside a day.

You will love these

TRENDING

They spray painted the honey-oak cabinets with a $10 gun: now the whole kitchen looks brand-new

JUST IN

He refused to replace his dated granite countertops: one Sherwin-Williams color changed the whole kitchen

Behind the plastic sheeting

The prep photo is the part most people don’t see. Plastic over the counters. Masking paper taped across the floor and ceiling edges. A respirator sitting on the windowsill. Every tile line, socket, and hinge covered. This is the invisible work that separates a professional spray job from a paint-the-doors-yourself weekend. If the masking is sloppy, overspray gets everywhere and the finish looks amateur. If the masking is tight, the paint lays down like it came from a factory.

The color was doing all the work

They picked Farrow & Ball Manor House Grey 265 in a gloss finish. The color choice is doing more heavy lifting than it looks. Manor House Grey is a mid-tone gray with a warm undertone, which means it sits comfortably next to a black granite counter instead of fighting it the way a colder, bluer gray would. US readers can grab the exact same color at any Farrow & Ball stockist, or match it closely with Benjamin Moore Chelsea Gray HC-168 or Sherwin-Williams Dovetail SW 7018. The gloss finish is the detail most people get wrong. The usual advice for Shaker cabinets is eggshell or satin, but gloss catches light along the panel edges and gives the doors a crisper, more designed look. It is the finish that fools the eye into reading the whole kitchen as new.

What the reveal shot proves

The second comparison is the one worth sitting with. Same cabinets. Same mosaic backsplash. Same granite. Same hardware. Same floor. Even the same pro-style range. The only variable that changed is the color on the doors, and suddenly the room reads as one coordinated color story instead of three competing finishes. The granite looks more expensive against gray than it ever did against walnut. The backsplash, which felt a bit dated in the before shot, now reads as warm and intentional.

Pulled back to the full L-shape, the room feels bigger. Gray throws light around in a way walnut absorbs. The window on the right, which was there the whole time, suddenly has somewhere to send its daylight.

Up close, the gloss is where the money shows. The light catches the frame of each Shaker panel and gives the doors depth that walnut was flattening out.

What one weekend actually cost them

For a kitchen this size in 2018, this professional spray job landed somewhere between $2,000 and $4,500 (£1,500 to £3,500). The lowest replacement quote they had been looking at was more than double that, and that was before new counters, new floor, or new appliances.

In today’s US market, expect roughly $2,500 to $6,000 for a comparable cabinet spraying job, still a fraction of what Home Depot or Lowe’s would quote you for a full install. They kept everything they already owned, lost no storage, lost no counter space, and woke up Tuesday morning to a kitchen their visitors assumed had been installed that year.

If your own kitchen feels dated, that is the quiet question worth asking first. What in this room has actually gone out of style? Nine times out of ten the answer is a finish, not a kitchen. And a finish is a weekend of masking and spraying, not a month of contractors in your house.

The post They sprayed walnut Shaker cabinets Farrow & Ball Manor House Grey: same black granite, a new kitchen appeared first on TheCoolist.

This is not your fault, and you don’t own too many clothes. Most closets give you one rod and a lot of wasted height, and the fix for that costs exactly nothing. It’s sitting on top of the soda can you just finished.

Why The Rod Fills Up Before The Closet Does

A hanging closet runs out of room sideways, not vertically. Every shirt and blazer takes its slice of rod width, but hangs only halfway to the floor, so the space below it stays empty. A soda can tab turns that empty band into a second level: one hanger hooks onto the tab, and the tab hangs from the hanger above. Same rod width, twice the clothes.

The 5-Second Gesture, Done Right

1. Collect clean tabs. Rinse the can first. A can-cover opener lifts tabs off without bending them, so they slide onto hangers easily.
2. Thread the first hanger. Slip one hole of the tab over the hook of your first hanger, so it rests at the neck.
3. Hang the second one. Feed the hook of the second hanger through the other, open hole. The second garment now hangs just below the first.
4. Choose the right hangers. PureWow’s version of the trick calls for hangers with skinny hooks, not the chunky plastic kind, since thick hooks won’t fit through the tab. Velvet hangers help stop clothes from slipping.
5. Go a level further if you like. Add another tab below the second hanger for a third tier.

Stick to what the trick handles well: shirts, blouses, blazers and dresses that aren’t too long. A Homes & Gardens editor who tested it in a tiny closet found it doubled her storage and made it easier to plan outfits in advance, since a top and its matching piece can hang together as one set.

Where The Tab Reaches Its Limit

None of the guides sharing this trick give a weight limit, so treat a tab as a light-duty link. Keep heavy coats, wet garments and anything bulky on their own hangers, and check the edges of each tab before use. Pre-packaged hanger tabs, sold with no sharp edges, are an easy alternative. If a tab starts to bend open, replace it before it lets go.

When you need more than a few stacked pairs, step up a level. Cascading hangers, which hold at least six hangers in one vertical space, sell for about $30 for a pack of 24. And for a whole closet, a $20 hook-on double rod adds a full second rail without tools.

Keep the tab, hook the hanger, hang the second piece below. That’s the trick.

The post Don’t throw away soda can tabs: taken to the closet, they double the hanging space appeared first on TheCoolist.

The advice has become one of the most shared bird tips in Europe, where it’s written about the tits that fill gardens there. Their American cousins, the black-capped and Carolina chickadees, face exactly the same winter.

How a bird the weight of two quarters survives a freezing night

A chickadee weighs about as much as a couple of quarters, and it has almost no fat reserve to spare. To get through a long, freezing night, it relies on a remarkable set of tricks: it fluffs its feathers to trap air, shivers to generate heat, and can lower its own body temperature overnight to save energy, a controlled drop that biologists call regulated hypothermia. It also spends the night tucked into a cavity or dense shelter out of the wind.

All of that burns energy. By morning, a chickadee may have used up most of the fat it gained the day before, which is why the first hours of daylight are a race to eat.

What actually kills them

Cold is rarely the direct cause. The danger comes when the energy doesn’t get replaced: snow or ice covers natural food, a cold snap lasts several days, or every water source is frozen solid. Water matters more than most people realize. Birds need it to drink, and they need it to keep their feathers clean, because dirty, matted plumage traps far less warm air.

The one gesture, and why to start now

The simplest, most effective help is water that doesn’t freeze. A heated birdbath, or a shallow dish refilled with fresh water every morning on freezing days, gives birds something that becomes almost impossible to find in deep winter. Place it near shrubs or trees so they have cover, and keep it clean.

Two things make that gesture work even better:

• High-energy food: black-oil sunflower seed, suet and unsalted peanuts are what chickadees need to rebuild their reserves each day.
• Shelter: leave nest boxes up over winter. Empty boxes become roosts on freezing nights, sometimes for several birds at once.

Starting in fall matters. Birds map out their winter food and water sources before the cold arrives, and a garden that offers them consistently now is one they’ll rely on in January. And if you still have a box to prepare, this is also the moment to clean out the nest box so it’s ready to serve as a winter roost.

A dish of fresh water every frosty morning. It sounds like nothing, and for a bird that weighs half an ounce, it can be everything. That’s the trick.

The post Every winter, chickadees die of cold: here’s how to protect them with one simple gesture appeared first on TheCoolist.

This is not a waste problem you created, and it isn’t your fault. A pillowcase is simply undervalued: it’s a soft, breathable cotton sack with one open end, and that shape is exactly what several household jobs need. Used whole, it does far more than it ever will as a rag.

Why A Pillowcase Beats Plastic

The secret is the fabric. Plastic bags and bins trap moisture, which is why sweaters stored in plastic over a season can come out smelling musty. Cotton keeps dust off while letting the contents breathe. And because a pillowcase is already a bag, it needs no sewing to become a duster, a laundry bag or a cover.

The 4 Uses That Actually Hold Up

1. The ceiling fan duster. With the fan off, slip a pillowcase over one blade so the fabric surrounds it, press lightly, and slowly pull it back toward you. The dust stays inside the case instead of raining onto the bed or couch. Shake it outside, repeat on each blade, then wash it.
2. The delicates wash bag. Put lingerie, tights or anything fragile inside, close the top tightly with string or a rubber band, and wash on the delicate cycle with your usual soap. The fabric shields items from a rough spin. Let them air dry afterward.
3. The garment and storage cover. Cut a small hole in the closed end, slip it over a hanger, and you have a breathable cover for a dress or jacket. Unhung, it stores seasonal sweaters, leather purses or suede shoes, so they come out clean when you need them.
4. The sheet set keeper. Fold freshly washed sheets and tuck them inside their matching pillowcase before they go in the closet. No more digging through a stack for the fitted sheet that goes with the flat one.

Reader’s Digest lists these among its clever uses for pillowcases, along with gift wrap for awkward shapes and a travel laundry bag that goes straight into the washer with its contents.

Which Ones Don’t Make The Cut

Not every pillowcase qualifies for every job. A case with a torn seam or fabric worn thin won’t survive the washing machine as a delicates bag: items can escape and snag. Keep those for the fan duster or the rag pile. For washing, pick a sturdy case and tie it tight, since a loose top lets small items slip out mid-cycle.

When a pillowcase is truly finished, it can still join the cloth pile alongside other worn linens, the same way scratchy old towels become cleaning cloths. Hunker’s list of pillowcase reuse ideas has more for the crafty.

Use it whole, as a bag, before you ever cut it up. That’s the trick.

The post Old pillowcases in the closet? 4 uses most people never think of appeared first on TheCoolist.

That’s the whole trick. The before shots and the after shots are the exact same room, same cabinets, same counters, same appliances, same floors. The only reason your brain reads it as a renovation is that paint can lie to you convincingly when it’s done right.

This is where most oak owners give up

Pure late-nineties builder-grade. Golden oak boxes, raised panel doors, round brass knobs, beveled formica, a chunky wood vent hood over the range, double-hung windows looking out at the pines, a black Whirlpool dishwasher, and the very specific “wine o’clock” sign that only turns up on windowsills in kitchens the owner has stopped loving.

If you’ve got a kitchen like this, you already know the script. Three contractors come out with tape measures and give you the same quote range: around $32K on the low end, closer to $45K if anything is hiding behind the drywall. Rip the cabinets, new quartz, new appliances, maybe knock out a wall. No shortcuts.

What she did instead

She brought in a Raleigh outfit called @myrenewedcabinets, a family-run and female-owned shop that does one job and does it well. They pulled the cabinet doors off the hinges, scuff-sanded the raised panels, hit everything with a stain-blocking primer (critical on oak, because the tannins will bleed orange through any cheap paint and ruin the finish), and sprayed two coats of satin white cabinet enamel. The following weekend, a tiler ran a basic 3×6 inch white subway tile from counter to upper cabinet. The round brass knobs got swapped for satin-nickel bar pulls at about three bucks each from Home Depot. Someone added a dark wood edge band on top of the formica counter, around $40 at Lowe’s and twenty minutes with construction adhesive.

That is the full project list for the sink wall.

Look at the sink wall now. The sink is the same stainless double basin. The faucet is the same faucet. The dishwasher is the exact same black Whirlpool, dents and all. The counter underneath is the same formica with the same beveled edge, just with a wood band glued on top. Even the window trim is the same oak profile, repainted.

Side by side, it clicks. Same windows. Same sink. Same dishwasher. Same formica. Paint, tile, pulls, counter band. That is everything new on the right panel.

You will love these

TRENDING

They spray painted the honey-oak cabinets with a $10 gun: now the whole kitchen looks brand-new

JUST IN

He refused to replace his dated granite countertops: one Sherwin-Williams color changed the whole kitchen

The fridge wall was the harder half

[IMAGE: honey-oak-fridge-microwave-nook-before.jpg] Honey Oak Fridge and Microwave Nook With Open Shelving (Before) | Credit: @myrenewedcabinets Alt: Dated kitchen corner with a black side-by-side fridge, honey oak upper cabinets, a honey oak bookshelf column with three open shelves holding water bottles and canisters, a black Panasonic microwave in a counter nook, and a stainless toaster.

Every surface in this corner except the fridge is oak. Upper cabinets, bookshelf column, lower cabinets, the sides of the microwave nook. It’s oak-on-oak-on-oak with a bit of oak in the middle. Painting a corner this heavy on cabinetry is where most people chicken out, because the fear is that white will flatten the whole thing into one blocky unit.

The shelf trick that saved this corner

The save here is the shelves. Instead of painting the open bookshelf solid white too, she sanded the shelf tops down to raw wood and re-stained them a darker walnut tone. That one decision keeps the corner from flattening and gives your eye a resting point. It also ties this wall back to the wood edge band on the sink counter across the room, so the whole kitchen reads as one considered room instead of two separate paint jobs. The canisters moved out of the shelves and onto the counter. The microwave got swapped for a stainless Panasonic (about $90 on Amazon). The fridge is still the same black side-by-side, same ice dispenser, same door handle.

The full cost, line by line

Cabinet spray job: around $3,800 (local quotes for a kitchen this size in central North Carolina run $2,800 to $4,500). Subway tile and thinset: around $600 and a weekend. Hardware: $140 for the whole kitchen. A quart of walnut stain for the shelves: $18. Wood counter band plus adhesive: around $45. New microwave: $90. All in, under $4,700.

Why your contractor won’t suggest paint

Painting a kitchen pays a small crew four grand. Gutting and rebuilding pays a general contractor thirty-five grand plus permits. The paint path does not fund marketing budgets. The gut path does. That is the whole reason “unsalvageable” keeps getting slapped on oak cabinets that are perfectly solid.

How to actually do this yourself

Pull every door off and label the hinges with painter’s tape so you know which door came off where. Degrease with TSP substitute. Scuff-sand with 220 grit, just enough to kill the sheen. Prime with INSL-X Cabinet Coat or BIN shellac (do not skip this on oak). Roll two topcoats of Benjamin Moore Advance or Sherwin Williams Emerald Urethane in satin, 16 hours between coats. A long weekend plus two drying days gets you the right side of the photos above.

Your counters can wait. Your appliances can wait. Your floors can wait. The whole look of your kitchen is sitting on the surface of the wood you already own.

If this was your kitchen, would you paint the oak or hold out for the full gut remodel?

Credit for this transformation goes to @myrenewedcabinets on Instagram, a family-run, female-owned cabinet painting shop serving the Raleigh, Cary, and Holly Springs area of North Carolina.

The post She kept every honey oak cabinet and sprayed them white: same formica counters, a farmhouse kitchen appeared first on TheCoolist.

Nothing, and it is not your fault. At room temperature, a lot of bar soap is soft enough to smear under pressure. French-milled and triple-milled bars are naturally harder; many everyday and handmade bars are not. That is exactly what the old trick of a short stay in the freezer was for: not to change the soap, but to firm it up before you work with it.

What The Cold Actually Does

Soap is a solid, and it stays solid in the freezer. It just gets much harder. One home experimenter on a long-running science forum reported that a bar left in the freezer for about three hours came out rock hard. Soapmakers use the same effect on purpose: one soapmaking guide describes freezing a fresh, soft batch for two to three hours, then letting it thaw slightly before cutting it into bars.

The 30 minutes the trick calls for aims for firm, not frozen solid. A firmer bar grates into dry flakes instead of gummy strings, and a knife cuts it cleanly instead of tearing it.

When It’s Worth Doing

1. Grating soap for DIY projects. Chill the bar for 30 minutes, then grate it right away. A cheese grater or a Microplane gives fine shavings, a vegetable peeler gives thicker ones. Grate in a well-ventilated spot, since soap dust can irritate the lungs.
2. Cutting a big bar in half. Splitting one large bar into two is an easy way to make it last, and a chilled bar gives you a clean cut. Use one half, store the other.
3. Wiping it dry once it’s out. Cold objects pull moisture from the air, and a frozen bar can turn wet and slimy on the surface as frost melts. Dry it with a towel before you grate or store it.
4. Storing what you made. Keep grated soap in an airtight container in a cool, dry place, where it keeps for several months.

Plan B if the bar comes out too hard to grate: let it sit at room temperature for a few minutes, or soften it in the microwave for just a few seconds.

What The Freezer Won’t Do

Here’s the part the trick usually gets wrong: chilling a bar does not make it last longer in the shower. What dissolves soap is water sitting on it. Bar soap lasts longest on a dish with slits, ridges or a wire design so water drains off, out of the direct shower stream. Dove warns that solid, flat dishes are the worst offenders for mushy soap.

Two more habits do what the freezer can’t. Rotate two bars so each one dries completely between uses, since circulating air is what dries a bar thoroughly. And let new bars harden before you start using them: one approach is to store unused soap between two sheets of linen in a dark drawer for at least a week.

One honest limit: the freezer only changes the texture, not the soap. It won’t fix a bar that is already cracked or crumbling, and it won’t remove the dust that grating makes, so keep the window open and consider safety glasses if you grate a lot at once.

Chill it to cut it, dry it to keep it. That’s the trick.

The post Putting a bar of soap in the freezer for 30 minutes: what it’s for appeared first on TheCoolist.

This is not your fault, and the wood probably isn’t defective. Most winter deck damage starts with something small that was left in place in October: the thin line of leaves, needles and dirt packed into the gaps between the boards.

Why Those Gaps Decide Everything

The spaces between deck boards exist so water can drain straight through and air can reach the wood. When debris fills them, water has nowhere to go and sits on the deck. Western Red Cedar, the lumber group, warns that packed dirt and leaves can cause standing water on top of the deck instead of letting it drain, and in winter that debris gives snow and ice a better grip to lock in moisture for months.

Cupping is what that trapped moisture looks like. Andy Engel, editor of Professional Deck Builder, explains that the underside of the board swells with moisture while the sun-dried top shrinks: “The combination of the swelling below and the shrinking on top causes the cupping.” Anything that keeps one face wet and blocks airflow makes it worse.

The Pre-Snow Routine

1. Clear every gap. Sweep or blow the leaves off, then run a thin tool or a deck gap cleaner down each joint until you can see daylight. This is the one thing that matters most.
2. Kill mildew now, not in spring. Mix 3 quarts of water, 1 quart of oxygen bleach and 1/4 cup of ammonia-free liquid dishwasher detergent. Spray it on, wait 10 to 15 minutes, scrub stubborn spots with a soft brush, and rinse well.
3. Lift what sits on the boards. Raise planters and storage boxes on 2×2 stand-offs so air flows underneath, and move furniture into the shed or garage if you have room.
4. Let it breathe. Skip the full tarp unless nobody will use the deck all winter, since tarps can trap moisture. Keep the space under the deck open and clear too.

Once the snow comes, sweep light snowfalls with a broom. Past about four inches, use a plastic shovel and push in the same direction as the boards. Skip rock salt: it rusts fasteners and joist hangers. Most decks can handle around three feet of snowfall before the load becomes a structural concern.

When It’s More Than Maintenance

Clearing the gaps prevents damage. It can’t undo it. In spring, probe any dark or soft areas with a thin screwdriver: if the wood gives way easily, it’s rotting, and a deck builder should take a look before someone’s foot goes through. A deck that hasn’t been sealed in years also needs attention, since sealing or staining every 2 to 3 years keeps water out of the wood, but wait for a dry spell that meets the product’s low-temperature limits, not a cold, damp November weekend.

Clear the gaps, lift the pots, let the wood breathe. That’s the trick.

The post Carpenters do one thing to the deck before the first snow: spring proves them right appeared first on TheCoolist.

Then you get to the after shots. The counters never moved. Neither did the floor. The backsplash is the same backsplash. The stainless appliances are the same stainless appliances. Even those cathedral arch cabinets, the detail a flipper would have ripped out first, are still right where they always were. One can of paint did the whole thing.

Stand inside that first photo for a second. Where does your eye go? Probably straight to the floor. Then the busy backsplash. Then those heavy dark counters. If you were planning a refresh, that is your shopping list. New flooring, new counters, new tile. A quick tally gets you to around $20,000 before you have even paid a contractor, and that is where most of these projects quietly die on a notepad.

None of those things were actually the problem.

The oak was the loudest voice in the room

Here is the thing nobody tells you about a kitchen that reads as “dated.” The finishes have to agree on a temperature. Everything in the before shots was cool: slate-looking tile, near-black counters, icy mosaic, silver stainless. One surface was pulling in the opposite direction, and it happened to be the biggest surface in the room by square footage. Honey oak has an orange-amber tone that just takes over. It will not sit quietly.

You will love these

TRENDING

They spray painted the honey-oak cabinets with a $10 gun: now the whole kitchen looks brand-new

JUST IN

He refused to replace his dated granite countertops: one Sherwin-Williams color changed the whole kitchen

This is why the “I replaced my counters and the kitchen still feels tired” posts keep multiplying on Reddit. People spend thousands trying to quiet the softest instrument in the band while the loudest one keeps playing. Paint over the oak and every other finish stops competing. The whole room exhales.

Same room, read completely differently

The after shot feels like a different kitchen. It is not. Walk through what actually changed on this project and the list is embarrassingly short: cabinet color. That is it. The crown molding is where it was. The bronze flush-mount lights are the same bronze flush-mount lights. The brushed nickel bar pulls kept their original screw holes. The microwave never got unplugged.

What changed is how your eye moves through the space. The gray floor suddenly reads like a chosen color, not an afterthought. The dark counters calm down against the white above them. The mosaic tile reads current instead of early-2010s. And those cathedral arches, the thing most renovation accounts would have told the owner to flat-panel over, actually look pretty with Gypsum on them. Soft French-country quiet, not 90s builder-grade loud.

The pantry wall is the proof

If you only trust one shot, trust this one. Same cabinet. Same cathedral doors. Same brushed nickel pulls in the exact same spots. In the oak version, that tall column looks heavy, almost like it is leaning into the fridge. In the Gypsum version, the exact same cabinet reads as a crisp built-in that frames the fridge instead of crowding it. Nothing moved. Only the color.

Up close, the details hold

Painted-oak projects usually fall apart the second you walk right up to them. You start seeing brush drag, dust in the finish, hinges that no longer sit flush, caulk lines that drifted. None of that is happening on this one. The paint laid down cleanly across the arched tops and the raised panels. The brushed nickel bar pulls, which basically vanished into the oak before, finally have the contrast they were designed for.

Why Gypsum specifically

Gypsum is not a hospital white. It has a faint warm undertone that keeps the room from feeling sterile. A cold bright white like Pure White or Extra White would have fought those dark counters from the opposite direction, which is exactly the mistake the oak was making before. Gypsum lands in the middle. Clean enough to feel modern, soft enough to still feel like a kitchen you want to cook in. It also holds up under amateur cell phone lighting without going blue in the shadows, which is probably why the after shots photograph as well as they do.

If this is sitting in your own kitchen right now

Honey oak uppers, grayish counters, grayish floor, grayish tile, stainless appliances. That exact stack is in a few million American homes. If anyone has told you the floor has to go or the counters have to be replaced to make the room feel current, you got a very expensive misdiagnosis.

The cheapest fix is also the right one. Clean and prep the oak properly, prime it, roll on two coats of Gypsum (or any warm off-white in the same family), rehang the same doors with the same hardware, and give it a day to settle. The $20,000 quote shrinks to a long weekend and a few hundred dollars at the paint counter.

The post They kept every arched oak cabinet and painted them Sherwin-Williams Gypsum: now the kitchen looks brand-new appeared first on TheCoolist.

That is where she started. Every piece of wood on the stair matches the same warm honey tone. The wainscoting around it is clean. The chandelier is modern. The dining furniture is not the problem. The stair alone kills the room.

The honey oak problem almost nobody solves right

Builders put this exact railing in millions of American homes between the 1980s and the early 2000s. It was cheap, strong, and warm looking at the time. Thirty years later the rest of the house has moved on and the stair stayed stuck in 1994.

From this angle you can see why it dominates. The railing sits at eye level and runs the length of the room. Whatever color it is doing, that is what your brain reads first every time you walk in.

Why the usual fixes land flat

Most homeowners try one of two things, and both of them disappoint.

The first move is painting the whole railing white to match the spindles and the trim. For about a week it feels fresh. Then the stair blends straight into the wall, the room loses its weight, and the whole thing starts to feel builder-grade instead of upgraded.

The second move is grabbing a single can of Dark Walnut or Jacobean, brushing it on, and calling it done. The catch is that both of those stains are warm on their own. You just spent a Saturday sanding, and you traded orange oak for a slightly browner version of orange oak. If your floors lean gray, smoky, or cool at all, the fight is still there.

What she actually did with the railing

She picked a harder path and the result shows it.

The spindles got Sherwin Williams Pure White, which is the standard playbook. The real work was on the railing itself. She did not scuff sand and brush over. She stripped the entire handrail down to raw wood. Stain only reads true on fresh grain. Put it over an old orange finish and the warmth bleeds through everything you add on top.

Then came the move almost no DIYer thinks to make: she mixed her own stain. Three cans of Minwax, blended on a scrap piece of oak until the shade matched her new flooring exactly. The recipe was Dark Walnut for depth, Phantom Gray to pull the warm orange out of the mix, and True Black to push the finish into the same smoky range as the floor. That shade is not on any store shelf. It only exists in her house.

You will love these

TRENDING

They spray painted the honey-oak cabinets with a $10 gun: now the whole kitchen looks brand-new

JUST IN

He refused to replace his dated granite countertops: one Sherwin-Williams color changed the whole kitchen

The quiet rule designers follow with railings

In any room with a staircase, your eye tracks two long horizontal lines: the floor line and the handrail line. When those two tones agree, the whole room reads intentional. When they argue, the space feels unfinished no matter how good the kitchen, the paint, or the lighting is.

That is the quiet trick happening in this shot. The handrail and the floor now hold the same cool, smoky tone. They read as one dark line that frames the whole first floor, instead of two mismatched pieces fighting for attention.

Side by side, you can see what shifted

Same stair. Same spindles. Same wainscoting. Same room. Only the color on two surfaces changed, and the whole house grew up by about a decade.

The grain is where you can tell it was mixed

Up close the three-can blend proves itself. The grain still moves through the finish. There is depth, not flatness. A single can of Dark Walnut alone would have landed muddy brown. This one looks custom because it is custom.

Watch what happens when the handrail and the floor sit in the same frame. The two tones are nearly identical. That is not luck. That is the whole point of the blend.

Even the side profile lands clean. The sheen is subtle, the color is deep without going black, and the whole railing feels like it belongs with the floor underneath it.

From the dining room the staircase finally feels like a feature. The two-tone contrast gives the room a backbone it did not have before. The eye bounces between the white spindles, the dark cap, and the floor, instead of locking onto a slab of orange.

If your railing looks the same, start here

The lesson is not about which stain color to buy. It is about the method.

Strip the handrail all the way down to raw wood. Pull two or three Minwax cans that match the dominant tones in your floor. Mix a sample on a scrap piece of oak before you touch the real thing. A single stock color almost always misses. A quick blend is how finishers hit the shade a designer would actually specify.

Spend one more afternoon on the sample board and the stair stops costing you the whole room.

The post She stripped her orange oak railing and mixed 3 Minwax stains: now the staircase looks designer-made appeared first on TheCoolist.

You won’t find a dining table either. Or a desk. The kitchen is in there somewhere, but it sits so quietly along one wall that you’ll almost miss it on your first look around.

The whole place is 340 square feet (about 32 square meters). Smaller than most hotel rooms. One rectangle, one window wall, no second room, no sleeping nook, no loft.

And yet the guy who lives there sleeps in it every night. He cooks real meals. He works from home. He has friends over for dinner. He’s not crashing on the couch, and he’s not stepping over his own stuff.

Most tiny New York studios give the game away the second you walk in. A bed shoved against a wall. A folding chair pretending to be a dining setup. Suitcases stacked where a couch should go. You can tell someone made peace with less.

This place doesn’t look like that. It looks like a calm, grown-up living room where a real adult lives a full life. No bed in sight. No table in sight. No clutter.

So where’s it all gone? He didn’t shrink anything. The bed is full-size. The kitchen is a real kitchen. The dining table seats people. The storage is almost silly for a place this small.

The guy who lives there, and the one rule he lived by

The apartment belongs to Ben Riskin, inside Tudor City, a quiet pocket of 1920s brick buildings in Midtown Manhattan. Ben teamed up with Andrew Magnes, a licensed New York architect based in Brooklyn. According to Architectural Digest, which filmed a full walk-through of the finished place, the two of them ripped the apartment down to the bare walls and rebuilt it from scratch.

They started with one rule, and the whole place runs on it: every single inch has to earn its spot. If a piece of furniture only does one job, it doesn’t belong here. If it sits out all day for a job it only does a few hours a night, it really doesn’t belong.

Easy to say. Hard to pull off when the room is this small and you still want a real bed and a real dinner table.

The quiet wall that’s doing all the work

Most people watching the tour miss it on the first pass. Almost everything in the apartment is tucked inside one long wall of custom-built cabinets. One run of smooth white panels from floor to ceiling, so clean and even that your eyes read it as a plain wall, not as storage.

Behind those panels, the apartment lives a whole second life.

A bed that lifts up into the wall

The star of the show is a Murphy bed, which is just a full-size bed on a hinge that folds straight up into the wall when you’re not using it. In the morning it tips up and vanishes, and the floor turns right back into living room. At night it tips back down. Ben’s bed is built into the custom cabinets, so when it’s folded away, the wall just looks like a wall.

A dining table that slides out of the cabinets

The next trick is a built-in dining table that pulls right out of that same wall. When Ben wants to eat or work, out it comes. One piece of furniture doing three jobs: table, desk, and workbench.

A kitchen borrowed from a houseboat

Ben and Andrew set up the kitchen the way you would on a houseboat or in a tiny home. Every drawer has a job. Every shelf is cut to fit what sits on it. Real appliances pulled tight against the wall, surrounded by cabinets built just for this room.

An office that used to be a closet

Andrew turned a plain closet into a tiny office. Shut the door, no office. Open it, there’s a desk and a work setup ready to go. No office stuff eating up living room floor.

What you can steal for your own place

1. Put your biggest piece of furniture on the wall, not the floor. A fold-up Murphy bed clears your floor every single day.
2. Make one piece do more than one job. A built-in table that doubles as a desk takes a whole second piece out of the room.
3. Steal from boats and tiny homes. Their drawer sizes and pull-out parts are often smarter than what a regular furniture store sells.
4. Treat a closet as a possible room. A shallow desk, a shelf, and a lamp inside one turns it into an office you can shut away at night.

Ben’s place stops you scrolling because it refuses to apologize for being small.

Sources: (1) Architectural Digest video tour on YouTube; (2) Architectural Digest feature summary via Viewing NYC; (3) Architectural Digest written interview via Yahoo Lifestyle; (4) Andrew Magnes Architecture, official firm page; (5) Tudor City studio renovation listing, Raveis Real Estate.

The post No separate bedroom, barely any floor space: how a New York apartment hides its biggest furniture appeared first on TheCoolist.

Then, quietly, the people who set the trends started doing the opposite. The sofas in the glossiest 2026 room reveals have no visible legs at all. The fabric drops straight to the floor. The whole thing looks grounded, soft, and expensive in a way the exposed-leg sofa never quite managed.

If you look at your own living room and see spindly legs poking out from under your couch, you’re where almost every American homeowner is. But designers are reversing course, and there’s one specific reason most people haven’t caught yet.

This is not a small shift

It would be easy to write this off as one designer’s opinion. It isn’t.

In the 2026 Interior Designer Trends Survey from 1stDibs, a poll of 468 design professionals worldwide, skirted seating was named by 24% of designers as a top-five furniture trend for 2026, brand new to the survey this year. One in four designers independently flagging the same detail, after a decade of pushing the opposite look.

Homes & Gardens got the same signal from its own network. One designer said the skirted sofa is coming back in a much more tailored, intentional way, and that it softens a room and grounds the seating in a way that feels timeless instead of trendy.

House Beautiful’s 2026 living room forecast echoes it. Laura Lubin of Ellerslie Interiors said clients are leaning into tailored skirts, bullion fringe, and shapely arms that feel collected, not dated.

Even Elle Decor flagged it, noting that after years of TikTok worshipping exposed frames, the platform has swung hard toward skirted sofas and pieces that puddle fabric right down to the floor.

So the shift is real and documented. Which raises the obvious question.

Why would designers suddenly reverse themselves?

The words that used to sell a room, airy and bright and clean, are getting quietly replaced. The words that sell a room in 2026 are warm, grounded, and lived-in.

A sofa floating six inches off the floor on skinny legs stops matching that mood. It feels like showroom furniture. Not home.

That’s half the answer. The other half is the quiet reason most people miss.

A skirted sofa doesn’t just look softer. It looks more expensive. And it looks more expensive because of a trick high-end upholstery has used for a hundred years.

When a sofa has exposed legs, the eye grades those legs. If the leg is cheap plastic, chrome, or thin stained pine, the whole couch instantly reads cheap, no matter how nice the cushions are. One ugly leg can drop the perceived price of a sofa by a thousand dollars.

A skirt hides all of that. Cover the leg and the eye has nothing to grade except the fabric. A mid-priced sofa suddenly reads custom. It’s why upholsterers have quietly favored skirted bases on their highest-end pieces for decades. As Shea McGee told Parade Home & Garden this year, the drape on the floor “acts like a dress for the furniture.”

You don’t need a new sofa

Here’s the useful part. You can get the look for a fraction of a new sofa.

A well-fitted slipcover with a tailored skirt turns almost any exposed-leg sofa into the grounded, expensive-looking version. The look depends on four details, and getting any wrong is what makes slipcovers look sad instead of custom:

1. Tight fit at the arms. Baggy fabric is the biggest giveaway. Brands like Bemz and Comfort Works make custom-cut slipcovers for IKEA, Pottery Barn, West Elm, and Crate & Barrel frames, which solves this almost entirely.
2. Mid-weight fabric, not thin cotton. Linen blends, performance velvets, boucle, and heavy slubby cottons hold a tailored shape. Thin cotton drapes limply and looks cheap no matter how well it fits.
3. Skirt length right at the floor. The hem should just kiss the floor, not float above it and not pool on it. An inch of visible leg kills the whole effect.
4. Kick pleats at the corners, not ruffles. This is the one detail that separates the modern 2026 look from the 1990s dust-ruffle version. Clean corner pleats read tailored. Gathers read as grandma’s parlor.

Pick a slipcover with those four details, pull it tight over your current sofa, and you have the silhouette the magazines are shooting for their 2026 spreads.

The exposed-leg sofa isn’t ugly. It just stopped being the look. The detail everyone spent a decade removing turns out to be the one that makes a room feel finished and expensive without buying anything new.

Sources: (1) 1stDibs 2026 Interior Designer Trends Survey; (2) Homes & Gardens, Sofa Trends for 2026; (3) House Beautiful, 10 Living Room Trends for 2026; (4) Elle Decor, TikTok Design Trends Taking Over 2026; (5) Parade Home & Garden, Shea McGee on Skirted Furniture.

The post The sofa detail people spent decades removing: why designers are bringing it back everywhere appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• The photo shows a male gharial, a crocodile species from India, carrying more than 100 hatchlings.
• It was taken by Indian photographer Dhritiman Mukherjee in the National Chambal Sanctuary.
• The father had mated with seven or eight different females.
• The species is critically endangered, with an estimated 650 adults left.

The photo

The image was taken by India-based photographer Dhritiman Mukherjee in northern India’s National Chambal Sanctuary, as Live Science reported. On it, more than 100 month-old hatchlings cling to the head and back of a large male gharial. According to Live Science, this father had mated with seven or eight different females, which explains the size of his “family.”

Why he carries them on his back

Gharials look different from other crocodiles: they have a very long, thin snout. Most crocodiles carry their young in their mouths, but the gharial’s unusual snout prevents that. Instead, the young “cling to the head and back for that close connection and protection,” Live Science explained. For the hatchlings, the adult’s back is the safest place in the river.

Fathers that protect their young aren’t what most people expect from a crocodile, yet the image shows exactly that. In the photo, the hatchlings cover their father’s head and back. It’s that density, more than a hundred small bodies on a single adult, that makes the picture so striking, and so hard to forget once you’ve seen it.

A giant on the brink

Adult gharials can reach up to 15 feet (4.5 meters) long. But the species is critically endangered: there are an estimated 650 adults left in the rivers of India and Nepal, according to the Natural History Museum figure cited by Live Science. Each of the babies on this father’s back matters for the species’ future.

Why this picture went viral

The photo combines everything that makes an image travel: a surprising scene, an animal people think they know, and a gesture people recognize as tenderness. It’s the same feeling behind other wildlife moments, like the cheetah that fell asleep against a photographer or the gorilla that carried a little boy to safety in 1996.

The limit

The image is real, but it captures a single moment: the hatchlings don’t spend all their time on their father’s back, and many won’t survive to adulthood, as is often the case in the wild. Calling it “tenderness” is our human reading of the scene. Biologists speak more simply of protection. And the photo has been shared widely since it was first published, so you may have seen versions with different captions online.

That’s the story.

The post The picture of a crocodile dad carrying 100 babies on his back has captivated the world appeared first on TheCoolist.

This is not your fault, and it isn’t a disease you missed. The damage happened on a sunny day in the middle of winter, and that white paint is the simplest way to stop it.

What The White Coat Actually Does

The injury is called sunscald, or southwest injury. On a bright winter afternoon, the sun warms the bark on the south and southwest side of the trunk, and the cells underneath wake up. When the sun sets and the temperature plunges, that warmed tissue freezes and dies. Research on peach trees in Georgia found the southwest side of a trunk can be 40 degrees warmer than the shaded bark. Young trees and thin-barked fruit trees are at greatest risk.

White paint reflects that light and heat, so the bark swings far less between day and night. The extension guides that recommend it present it as a sunscald fix, not as a borer treatment. What they do point out is that sunscald wounds heal slowly and give insects and diseases a way in, so preventing them protects the tree indirectly.

The Right Moment And The Method

Timing is simple: University of Kentucky specialists recommend painting in late fall, before the hard, sunny days of winter. The University of Idaho also allows fall or spring, and adds that fruit trees can stay painted throughout their lives.

1. Buy the right paint. The rule from the University of Idaho is blunt: “Use only interior white latex paint.” Enamel and exterior paints may contain chemicals that injure plants.
2. Dilute it 1 to 1. Kansas State University Extension recommends one part white interior latex paint to one part water.
3. Paint from the ground up to the first branches, with a wide brush, covering the trunk and the major limbs that face south or west. Leave small branches and twigs alone.
4. Let it dry on a mild, dry afternoon, and touch up any bare spots next fall.

Plan B if painting doesn’t appeal: wrap the trunk of young trees from the ground to the first branches with a light-colored tree wrap, starting in November and removing it in March. Leaving a wrap on all year can hide pests and damage.

What It Won’t Do, And One Bonus

Whitewash isn’t a fix for a tree already scarred. A damaged trunk mostly needs time and steady watering in dry spells, since part of its water transport system is gone. And if large patches of bark are dead or cankers are spreading, have a certified arborist look at it.

The bonus: painted trunks may delay budbreak by a few days, which in some plantings can reduce losses to a late spring frost. While you’re out there, the branches you prune off later in winter can become free mulch instead of a trip to the dump.

Interior latex, half water, south side first, before winter sets in. That’s the trick.

The post Should fruit trees be whitewashed in fall: what it does and the right moment appeared first on TheCoolist.

The Moroccan-style strip ran straight across the backsplash in navy and gray. Set against orange cherry cabinets, it looked random. It fought the warm wood. It fought the black appliances. It even fought the white quartz counters. Any renovation advice would have started with ripping it out.

They didn’t touch it. They didn’t replace a single door, a single appliance, a single tile, or a single piece of flooring. They opened two cans of Sherwin-Williams paint, and the “ugly” tile suddenly looked like the whole plan.

Here’s how it happened.

The kitchen everyone wanted to change

The bones were good. Solid wood cabinet boxes with arched raised-panel doors. Fresh white speckled quartz counters. Clean light oak LVP floors. A big island built for four stools and family breakfasts.

But everything got dragged down by one thing: the orange cherry stain on every cabinet surface. The warm wood tone fought the cool quartz. It fought the black appliances. It made the floor look like it belonged in a different house. And it made the Moroccan tile strip on the backsplash look like a mistake nobody had the budget to fix.

The problem wasn’t the tile

Look at that wall. Navy pattern on the tile. Black stove. Stainless microwave. White countertop. The elements didn’t match because the cherry wood was the loudest voice in the room, and it drowned out every chance those other pieces had to work together.

The homeowners could see something most people couldn’t: the tile wasn’t broken. It just didn’t have a partner. Nothing in the room was echoing that navy pattern, so it floated there with no reason to exist.

One decision changed everything

Instead of ripping out tile, the plan went the other way. The tile would stay. Everything else would be rebuilt around it with two paint colors.

Sherwin-Williams Pure White on the perimeter cabinets. Sherwin-Williams Indigo Batik on the island. Both in a 20 sheen satin finish. That was the entire renovation.

Mid-project proof it was working

This is a quick peek mid-project. The island was still cherry wood. The cabinet right beside it had already been painted Pure White. You can see on this one angle how different the room would feel once the warm orange was out of the picture.

That contrast was the whole bet. Pure White on the perimeter would brighten everything, and the island needed to anchor the room without going too dark. Indigo Batik is a deep, slightly dusty navy that reads as calm instead of heavy.

The before and after of that stove wall

Same tile. Same stove. Same microwave. Same counters. The only thing that changed was the cabinet color, and suddenly the navy pattern reads as the thesis of the room instead of a mismatch.

You will love these

TRENDING

They spray painted the honey-oak cabinets with a $10 gun: now the whole kitchen looks brand-new

JUST IN

He refused to replace his dated granite countertops: one Sherwin-Williams color changed the whole kitchen

The island reveal

The island went from fighting the room to leading it. The dusty navy picks up the exact tone in the Moroccan tile, so your eye finally has a reason to travel from the backsplash down to the island and back up again. The ceramic knobs, which looked random on cherry wood, now read as intentional detail against the dark paint.

White on the perimeter did the heavy lifting

Pure White let every other piece in the room breathe. The black appliances stopped reading as outdated and started reading as iron contrast, the kind you’d see in a coastal cottage with white millwork. The light oak floors finally looked like they belonged. Even the small blue and white ceramic knobs on the drawers, barely visible on cherry wood, became a real design detail.

The full new kitchen

Pull back and the room reads as one plan. White, navy, white quartz, black appliances, light oak floor, Moroccan tile strip. Every surface points at the next one. Nothing is fighting.

The view from the other angle

From this side, the color plan reads even clearer. The white pantry door blends into the wall. The island reads as a piece of furniture instead of a cabinet run. The ceiling feels taller because the cabinets stopped stealing the light.

The arches finally get noticed

One more thing worth pointing out. Those arched cabinet door tops were there the whole time, but on cherry wood they just looked dated. In Pure White, they read as architectural detail, like the kind of millwork you’d pay a cabinetmaker to add.

The takeaway

The owners didn’t follow the usual demo-first renovation playbook. They didn’t swap the “ugly” tile. They didn’t replace the black appliances. They didn’t touch the counters or the floor. They painted two things, and every element that looked like a problem turned into a plan.

If your kitchen has one piece you’ve been told to rip out, look at it again before you call a demo crew. It might not be the mistake. It might be the blueprint.

Paint colors used: Sherwin-Williams Pure White on the perimeter cabinets, Sherwin-Williams Indigo Batik on the island, both in a 20 sheen satin finish.

Credit: Transformation by Pezzotti Painting on Instagram

The post They painted cherry cabinets Sherwin-Williams Pure White and the island Indigo Batik: same tile, new look appeared first on TheCoolist.

Then the paint went on. The quartz quote sat unopened for two weeks. Then she deleted it.

Nothing in this kitchen was actually broken

That was the whole problem. The walnut shaker doors were in good shape. The counters hadn’t chipped. The LG fridge was practically new. On a checklist, every finish got a pass.

On the eye, though, the room was closing in. The dark walnut was eating all the light. The white range hood looked like somebody forgot to swap it out. And the warm wood floor was pulling in the exact same direction as the cabinets, so the whole kitchen read as one long brown blur with a stainless fridge stuck in the middle of it.

The sink wall is where it really hit. The lowers felt enormous. The counter blurred into the floor. Standing there at seven in the morning with the kettle on, your eye couldn’t find anywhere to rest.

The hutch was the saddest casualty. She’d styled it with pretty white china and framed family photos, and from six feet back you couldn’t see any of it. The dark doors swallowed the display whole. It looked less like a feature wall and more like a cabinet nobody had bothered to tidy up.

Why she picked a beige everyone told her was over

The color is Accessible Beige by Sherwin-Williams, SW 7036. If you’ve spent any time on design TikTok lately, you already know the reputation: tired, builder-grade, done, the paint color your mother-in-law would pick. There’s a whole little genre of videos burying it.

Here’s what those videos miss. Accessible Beige has a soft warm undertone with a touch of pink and yellow in it. Her warm wood floor has the same undertone. Her tan laminate counter has the same undertone. The three of them are finally reading from the same page.

A cool white would have made that counter look dirty. A trendy sage green would have picked a fight with the floor. The “boring” neutral turned out to be the one color that actually spoke to the finishes she already owned.

She didn’t touch the counters. Didn’t touch the floor. Didn’t touch the fridge, the stove, or the hood. The only other move was swapping the mixed silver pulls for matte black bar pulls from the hardware aisle, which ran about forty dollars for the whole kitchen.

That is the full project.

You will love these

TRENDING

They spray painted the honey-oak cabinets with a $10 gun: now the whole kitchen looks brand-new

JUST IN

He refused to replace his dated granite countertops: one Sherwin-Williams color changed the whole kitchen

Three side-by-sides that show what the paint actually did

Keep your eye on the range hood. In the before shot it looks like a leftover. In the after shot it looks like somebody picked it on purpose. The hood is the same hood. All that changed was the color of the wood around it, and that was enough to flip how your brain reads it.

This is the frame that killed the quartz quote. The tan counter looked tired against the walnut. Against the beige, it suddenly reads like warm stone. Same slab, no shopping, a brand new job.

The hutch is the giveaway that this is really a custom-looking kitchen now and not just a paint job. Empty beige shelves feel taller and lighter than loaded walnut ones. That lift is a trick stylists charge actual money for, and she got it from a can.

A few more angles so you can see for yourself

The reno order most people get backwards

Standard advice says to pick your hard finishes first, then paint around them. Paint is cheap and flexible, the thinking goes, so you save it for last.

She did the opposite. She painted first, with every hard finish untouched, and let the paint pull the hard finishes together.

If she’d done it the usual way, she’d have ordered white quartz, written a four-figure check, waited six weeks for install, and then still booked the painter after. Instead, she’s sitting in a kitchen that looks finished for the cost of one paint job and a bag of pulls.

The trend accounts aren’t wrong that Accessible Beige is safe and popular. They’re wrong that safe and popular means boring. When your floor is warm and your counters are warm, the “played out” warm neutral is the one color that makes everything you already own look like you chose it on purpose.

Try the paint before you order the quartz. If the paint does its job, the quartz quote can wait forever.

The post She painted walnut cabinets Sherwin-Williams Accessible Beige: same tan counters, a custom-looking kitchen appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• A study of 52 cats in Japan tested how cats react when their owner pets a fake cat.
• The cats reacted more intensely to the toy cat after their owner had petted it.
• Vets list resource guarding, swatting, attention seeking and scent marking among the signs.
• Scientists remain cautious: we can’t say for sure that cats feel jealousy the way we do.

What researchers tested

In a study published in 2020 in the journal Pet Behaviour Science, researchers including Kazuo Fujita of Kyoto University observed 52 cats from Japanese homes and cat cafés. Each cat watched its owner, then a stranger, pet either a realistic soft-toy cat, a potential rival, or a furry cushion.

The result: the cats, especially household pets, “reacted more intensely toward the soft-toy cat previously petted by their owner.” But they didn’t react differently depending on whether the owner or the stranger had done the petting.

So, is it jealousy?

The authors are careful. The absence of other jealousy-like behaviors seen in infants and dogs “precludes drawing firm conclusions.” In other words, cats clearly notice when attention goes elsewhere, but science can’t yet say they feel jealousy the way a person or a dog does.

The signs vets watch for

Veterinarian Lily Richards, interviewed by PetsRadar, puts it simply: “Jealousy may present as resource guarding, aggression, scratching and biting and also attention seeking.” She also lists:

• Scent marking around the house.
• Rubbing against the object of attention, or lying right on top of it.
• Stress signs: hiding, overgrooming, excessive meowing, destructive behavior, or peeing outside the litter box.

Those stress signs can also point to an illness, which is why a vet check is worth it if they appear suddenly. “They are very protective of my time and affection,” Dr. Richards says of her own cats. That’s why changes in the household, a new pet, a new partner or a baby, are often the moments when these behaviors appear.

How to reassure a “jealous” cat

Keep its routines: meals, play and cuddle time at the usual hours. Give each cat its own food bowl, litter box and resting spots, so nobody has to defend resources. When a new pet arrives, introduce it gradually. Cats are deeply attached to the people who respect them, which is why a cat’s favorite person is always the one who respects its limits.

The limit

One study of 52 cats, using a toy rather than a real rival, can’t settle the question. Every cat is different, and what looks like jealousy may be territorial stress, boredom or even pain. If behavior changes suddenly, start with the vet. And if you’re away a lot, remember that vets have put a number on how long a cat can be left alone.

That’s the story.

The post When a cat sees its owner cuddling another kitten, its reaction says a lot: vets explain what feline jealousy looks like appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• The small hole at the bottom of many padlocks is mainly a drainage hole.
• It lets water and moisture escape so the internal steel parts don’t rust.
• It’s also the easiest way to lubricate a stiff lock.
• Use a dry lubricant like graphite, not WD-40 or motor oil.

A hole to let the water out

Padlocks spend their lives outdoors: in the rain, the snow, the morning dew. Water inevitably gets inside through the keyhole and around the shackle. Without an exit, it would sit in the mechanism and rust the internal parts. According to House Digest, these holes are “primarily designed for drainage,” letting water and moisture escape before they cause damage.

It’s the same idea as many small details on everyday objects that look pointless until you know their job, like the two holes in clothespins or the hole in a frying pan handle.

The secret entrance for lubricant

The same hole has a second use: it’s a direct path to the mechanism. When a padlock gets stiff or stuck, a little lubricant through the bottom hole can free it up.

But not just any lubricant. House Digest advises avoiding wet lubricants like WD-40 or motor oil, which can attract dirt and gum up the lock over time. A dry lubricant such as graphite powder, or a PTFE-based lock lubricant, is the better choice. That’s one more case where WD-40 isn’t the right tool, as we explained in what WD-40 is actually meant to be used for.

How to keep a padlock working

• Clean it regularly: wipe it with a damp cloth, use a soft toothbrush and mild soapy water for grime, then blow out dust.
• Keep the hole clear: dirt that clogs it blocks the drainage.
• Lubricate with a dry product through the hole and the keyhole.
• Outdoors, choose a weatherproof lock, often brass or aluminum, which resist corrosion better than steel, though they’re less strong.
• Look for a rubber gasket between the shackle and the body, or use a padlock cover.

Before winter

Cold makes things worse: water trapped inside can freeze and lock the mechanism. House Digest even suggests wrapping an outdoor lock in an old sock to help keep it from freezing. If yours is already frozen, don’t force the key: forcing it can damage the mechanism.

The limit

Not every padlock has this hole, and some high-security models are designed differently. A rusted lock that’s been neglected for years may be past saving: in that case, replacing it costs less than fighting with it. And if your lock guards something valuable, its strength matters more than any maintenance trick.

That’s the trick.

The post Few people know what the tiny hole at the bottom of a padlock is for appeared first on TheCoolist.

This is not your fault. Most oven doors are built from two or more panes of glass with a gap between them, and that grime sits on the inside faces of the gap, where no sponge can reach. The good news is that many ovens leave a way in, no screwdriver required.

Where The Hidden Gap Opens

On many models, the bottom edge of the door has narrow vent holes or a slot that leads straight into the space between the panes. They’re hard to see from standing height, which is why most people never notice them. Pull out the storage drawer under the oven, kneel down, and look up under the closed door: if you see openings, you can reach the glass.

The tool is the trick. A bare coat hanger can scratch the glass, and a loose paper towel can come off and get stuck inside. GE’s own suggestion is to wrap a washcloth around the end of a wooden yardstick, and an old cotton sock pulled over the end does the same job with less fuss: it stays on, it’s soft, and it slides into the slot.

The Sock Method, Step By Step

1. Start cold. The oven must be off and completely cool.
2. Prepare the space. Remove the bottom drawer and lay an old towel on the floor to catch drips.
3. Dress the yardstick. Pull a clean sock over one end and secure it with a couple of rubber bands so it can’t slip off inside the door.
4. Dampen, don’t soak. Wet the sock with warm soapy water or a 1:1 mix of water and vinegar, then wring it out well.
5. Wipe in long strokes. Slide it into the slot and press it gently against the front pane, then the back pane. Don’t force it into the corners, and stay clear of the seals and gaskets.
6. Buff dry. Swap in a dry sock and repeat to remove streaks, then put the drawer back.

It’s the same kind of small, regular appliance habit as the one technicians keep repeating about opening the dishwasher after the cycle: two minutes now saves a much bigger job later.

What It Can’t Reach

Be realistic about the result. One appliance dealer manager put it plainly about poking a tool between the panes: “it’s going to be half a job.” You’ll clear most of the haze, but the far corners often stay out of reach. Not every oven has an opening, either, and manufacturers often discourage cleaning between the panes.

If your door has no slot, or the grime is baked on, the full fix means removing the door and unscrewing the panels, following the owner’s manual. Lift the door off by its sides, never by the handle, have a second person help, and keep track of every screw. If that sounds like too much, an appliance technician can do it. And skip harsh oven cleaners on a self-cleaning oven, which many manufacturers advise against.

Cold oven, drawer out, sock on a yardstick, gentle strokes. That’s the trick.

The post The sock trick that cleans between the oven door’s glass panels appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• Pumpkins left outside attract bears, deer, javelina and coyotes into neighborhoods.
• Deer drawn to pumpkins can, in turn, draw predators such as mountain lions.
• Rotting pumpkins gather animals that can spread disease, and painted pumpkins can be toxic.
• Plastic pumpkin buckets are another hidden danger for deer.

A treat that brings trouble

In Colorado, wildlife officials ask residents every year to properly dispose of their pumpkins rather than leave them out. “Bears are attracted to the pumpkins as they look to pile on calories during the last days before denning season,” Colorado Parks and Wildlife explains. That can lead to conflicts between people and bears right next to homes.

Bears aren’t the only concern. Deer feeding on pumpkins can draw mountain lions into residential areas, the agency warns. And “intentionally feeding wildlife is illegal in Colorado.”

“Like candy for javelina”

In Arizona, the Game and Fish Department gives the same advice. “A ripened pumpkin sitting outdoors is like candy for javelina,” urban wildlife specialist Darren Julian said, as reported by KTAR. “Habituating wildlife to human food sources can lead to property damage.” In Arizona, feeding wildlife other than birds and squirrels is a petty offense, with fines of up to $300.

Disease, paint and wax

A pile of rotting pumpkins also brings raccoons and other animals together in one spot, which can help spread disease, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Painted pumpkins are another issue: the agency cites the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which advises against painting pumpkins because the paint can be toxic to wildlife. Pumpkins with melted candle wax aren’t accepted at donation points for the same reason.

The other Halloween hazard: plastic buckets

In Ohio, the Department of Natural Resources has warned about a different decoration: plastic pumpkin buckets. “The plastic handles tend to get stuck on their heads by the ears, making it impossible for the deer to remove them without help,” the agency said, as NewsNation reported. Its advice: keep them inside, or cut off the handles.

What to do with your pumpkins instead

• Compost them, without paint or wax.
• Look for a pumpkin drop-off event: some communities and food banks organize them.
• Ask local farms or ranches, which sometimes take them as livestock feed, or zoos that may accept them.
• Keep jack-o’-lanterns inside or up high while they’re still on display.

Wanting to help wildlife in the cold months is a good instinct; it just needs the right gesture, like this simple one that helps chickadees survive winter.

The limit

Rules vary by state, and the risk depends on where you live: a pumpkin on a porch in a big city doesn’t carry the same risk as one at the edge of bear country. What doesn’t change is the principle: food left outside teaches animals to come back, and some of them won’t stop at the porch. The same goes for rodents looking for shelter, as we explained with where rats go in winter.

That’s the trick.

The post After Halloween, this decoration can be dangerous for deer and bears, wildlife officials warn appeared first on TheCoolist.

Nothing. The cabinet boxes stayed. The counters stayed. The tile stayed. The appliances stayed. Even the pantry door stayed. The whole project was a coat of paint on the fronts and a new set of pulls.

Why this kitchen looked old when it really wasn’t

Everything a modern 2026 kitchen is supposed to have, this couple had already paid for. Quartz counters by Kitchen and Bath by Mark. White herringbone tile by Neepawa Tile Installer. Wide plank grey floors. A frosted glass pantry door. A navy painted island with squared black pulls. A charcoal accent band above the uppers.

So why did it still read like 2008? Cherry.

The stain has a warm orange cast, and every time light hits it, it throws that orange onto whatever is nearby. Your white tile picks up a yellow film. Your quartz goes warm. Your stainless looks tired. Your grey floor leans brown. The cabinets drag every finish in the room backward in time with them.

That is why the before shots feel impossible to look at. None of those finishes had actually aged. They were just sitting in cherry light.

The one wall that proves the whole theory

Walk your eye across the range wall. The Samsung is the same Samsung. The hood, the microwave, the tile, the grout, the quartz slab, the raised panel door shapes under the paint, all the same. Two things changed. The color on the fronts, and the shape of the pulls. Arched silver became squared matte black. Cherry became Chantilly Lace. Your eye still reads it as a different kitchen.

What the backsplash was really doing

The backsplash is the tell most people never catch. In the before, the herringbone looks cream and tired, like it needs to come down. It does not. It is already a clean white tile. The cherry had been throwing orange light onto it for years, so your eye got used to reading it as yellow. Pull the cherry away and the tile shows its real color.

That is why a cabinet paint job can look like a full remodel. The paint does not just change the cabinets. It frees every other finish in the room to show its actual color for the first time.

How the pantry wall tells the same story

The sink window seems to let more light in on the right side. The window did not grow and the glass is not cleaner. The dark cherry around it had been absorbing light. White bounces it back.

How the navy island finally gets to be the island

The island was never the problem, but it never got to be the hero.

In the before, the navy had to fight the cherry. Two heavy saturated colors in one small room, both pulling the eye hard, both canceling each other out. The whole room just reads as dark and busy.

Once the cherry is gone, the navy finally has a job. It is the one bold color in the room. The one spot your eye lands and rests. That is what an island is supposed to do, and it never got to do it until the cherry stopped shouting over it.

The matte black that was always meant to be here

Count the black pieces in both versions. The faucet. The bar stool. The small frames. Every one of them was already in the kitchen before the paint job, and in the before they looked random, like somebody was dropping modern touches into a room that had not caught up yet.

Swap the pulls to matte black and the pantry knob for a matte black lever, and suddenly every black piece in the room belongs to one planned package.

The pantry door is the clearest small change. The glass and the slab are the same, and the hinges did not move. A cherry frame with a round silver knob became a white frame with a long black lever. One door, dated to modern, under a hundred dollars in parts.

What this means for your kitchen

If your kitchen has cherry, honey oak, or dark maple cabinets from the 2000s, this project is a permission slip. Before you accept a renovation quote, walk your kitchen and ask which single finish is dragging every other finish backward with it. For most kitchens built between 2000 and 2012, the answer is the cabinet fronts.

You may not even have to paint. Sometimes the fix is a lighter restaining. Sometimes it is new doors on the same boxes. For this kitchen, it was paint, pulls, and a weekend of patience. Everything else stayed, and all of it looks new now.

Your kitchen might already be most of the way to the one you want. You just might not be able to see it under the cherry.

Products used

• Cabinet color: Chantilly Lace by Benjamin Moore
• Paint product: Gallery Series by Sherwin-Williams
• Counters and island: Kitchen & Bath by Mark
• Backsplash: Neepawa Tile Installer
• Painter: @refreshedandrefurbishedmb
• Original post: Instagram

The post They painted cherry cabinets Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace: same herringbone tile, a new kitchen appeared first on TheCoolist.

So you grab a can of chalk paint. Everybody paints their old dressers. That’s what you’re supposed to do, right?

Here’s the uncomfortable part. The interior designers getting paid real money to style people’s homes right now walk into rooms like yours every week and quietly leave the paint can on the shelf. They aren’t sanding it. They aren’t refinishing it. They aren’t distressing it to look rustic. They’re not even considering it.

These are people who grew up around antiques, trained in design history, and spend their days inside expensive homes. Their instinct about that paint can is in the opposite direction of yours.

They’re doing something else, and that something else is the exact reason the old dresser suddenly looks like it belongs in a magazine shoot instead of a thrift store corner.

It also costs almost nothing. Most of the time it uses stuff you already own.

Before we get to the move, it helps to understand why they’re treating that paint can like a loaded weapon. Because once you see that, the rest of the story makes a lot more sense.

The paint is erasing the one thing you want

Good Housekeeping surveyed more than 15 interior designers for its 2026 trend report, and the look all of them pointed at has a name: refined layering. It was named by Kerrie Kelly, a designer based in Sacramento whose work the magazine picked as a defining style for the year.

In plain words: old things look better next to new things, and new things look better next to old things. That’s the whole trick.

But the part that matters for your old dresser is this. The wear is what makes it valuable. The scratches. The softened edges. The brass pull with age marks from forty years of being touched. Designers have a word for it: patina. They treat it the way jewelers treat the inside of an old gold ring. You don’t polish it off.

The second you paint over those age marks, the piece stops saying “this has lived in real homes before” and starts saying “someone had a Saturday afternoon and some paint.”

And the paint itself doesn’t age well. Chalk paint chips at the edges within a year or two. The primer shows through where the drawers get used the most. Once it’s on, you can’t just wipe it off. Stripping and sanding to undo the paint also sands off the age marks you’d now be trying to save. The piece gets locked in. It only looks older and sadder from there.

Jeremiah Brent, the interior designer and home expert on Queer Eye, told Good Housekeeping: “new pieces actually look better when they’re next to something old.” The old piece is the reason the room feels like a home instead of a store display.

Leanne Ford, another designer the magazine spoke to, said that when every single item in a room is brand new, people can’t name what’s missing, but they feel it. No history. No warmth. No sense of time.

So the paint has to come off the table. Fine.

But if you put the brush down and walk away, the dresser is still going to look tired tomorrow morning. Nothing’s changed. The wood is still dark. The drawer still sticks. The water ring is still there.

Something else in that room is quietly working against the dresser. And until you see what it is, no amount of paint, polish, or new hardware is going to lift the piece.

The real reason the room has looked tired this whole time

The dresser isn’t the problem. The problem is what you’ve been putting around it.

Walk back into the bedroom. The lamp on top is probably from the same era as the dresser. Framed photos in frames that match. A mirror above it in the same wood tone. A chair in the corner with a cushion that matches the mirror.

Every one of those things is old. Every one is from the same era. All of them are pointing at the dresser and whispering “this room hasn’t been updated in a long time.”

That’s the real reason the room feels tired. Not the dresser. The matching.

Cathryn Erickson of Cathryn Lindsey Design told Good Housekeeping that what makes a room feel personal is the gap between old and new. Designers don’t see a room that needs paint. They see a room that needs contrast.

What designers are actually doing instead

Four small changes. None involve a paintbrush. None cost more than a lamp.

1. One main piece. Opposite style around it.

Brad Thornton of Thornton Projects told Good Housekeeping to pick the room’s main piece first, then layer the opposite style around it. If the dresser is the main piece, everything above and on top of it should be modern: a sleek matte-black ceramic lamp instead of an old brass one, one simple abstract picture instead of an oil painting of a horse.

Old dresser plus old lamp plus old mirror reads as “never updated.” Old dresser plus sleek modern lamp plus simple abstract picture reads as “a designer did this.”

2. Put something glossy next to something natural.

Erickson’s other rule: if the room already has wood, stone, or leather, add glass or chrome. Old oak table plus one clear glass bowl. Old leather chair plus a chrome side table. The eye reads that texture gap as done on purpose.

3. Follow the 3-2-1 rule.

Kelly’s math from Good Housekeeping: “three textures, two finishes, one statement color.” Wood, linen, brass. Matte black and aged brass, not every metal in the room. One deep green cushion, repeated once.

4. Clear the space around the piece.

Brent says each piece needs room to be seen. Neutral wall. Clean top. One lamp. One object. One picture. That’s it.

Two more fixes you can undo in a minute

• Swap the hardware. Amy Youngblood told Homes & Gardens the fastest change on an old dresser is better quality pulls. Brushed brass or matte black transforms a drawer front without touching the wood.
• Add one good textured cushion. Nick Cryer of Berkeley Place told Homes & Gardens that one cushion with real texture does more than three cheap ones.

The paint can isn’t undoable. These are.

The quiet point

The dresser hasn’t looked tired for ten years because it needs paint. It’s looked tired because nothing around it has been treating it like the asset it is. Let the age do its job. Give it something modern to stand next to.

That dresser becomes the most expensive-looking thing you own.

Sources: (1) The Verdict Is In: Refined Layering Will Be Everywhere in 2026 (Good Housekeeping); (2) Designers Say You Might Be Mixing Vintage and Modern Decor the Wrong Way (Good Housekeeping); (3) 5 easy ways to make furniture look more expensive according to interior designers (Homes & Gardens).

The post Designers aren’t painting old wooden furniture to make it look expensive: they’re pairing it with this appeared first on TheCoolist.

Wanting privacy is not petty, and it is not your fault that the houses were built this close. But the fastest fixes are also the ones most likely to break a local rule or start a feud. The good news is that the legal options are wider than most people think, once you know where the lines are.

The Rules That Actually Apply

Fence height is set by your city or county, and sometimes by your HOA. As a general pattern, residential fence limits run about four feet in front yards and six feet in backyards. Local codes also decide how far a fence must be set back from the property line, and HOA covenants often restrict materials as well as height.

Plants are not automatically exempt. A row of trees or bushes along a property line usually counts as a fence, and many ordinances cap these natural fences somewhere between five and eight feet. Then there are spite fence laws: a structure that serves no reasonable purpose except to annoy a neighbor can be declared a nuisance, and the neighbor can sue to have it removed. Courts have applied that to trees too. In a 2002 California case, Wilson v. Handley, trees planted along a property line to block a view were ruled a spite fence.

What You Can Put In Front, Without A Feud

The trick is geometry. A screen at the property line has to be tall enough to block an upstairs window across your whole yard. A screen placed right next to the spot you actually use, the patio, the hot tub, the reading chair, only has to cover that corner, and it can do it at a lower height. The closer the screen sits to what you want hidden, the less height it needs.

• A freestanding screen or trellis by the seating area. Set back from the line and sized to your patio, it shields the spot that matters. Check whether your code treats it as a fence before you buy.
• Overhead cover. A pergola with slats, a shade sail or a large umbrella blocks the view from above, which is exactly where an upstairs window looks from.
• Tall planters instead of a hedge on the line. Grasses or shrubs in big containers can move with you and don’t form a row along the boundary.
• A fast evergreen, kept in check. Thuja ‘Green Giant’ can grow 3 to 4 feet a year in good conditions, according to NC State Extension, but it can reach 40 to 60 feet tall. If you plant it, budget for trimming to your local hedge limit.

If your yard is short on depth, choose the fence color with care too, since a darker tone can make a small garden look bigger.

How To Keep It Neighborly

Before you build, call your city’s planning or zoning office, read your HOA covenants, and ask whether a permit is needed. Then talk to the neighbor. A friendly heads-up that you’re adding a screen by the patio rarely offends anyone, while a surprise wall of trees along the line almost always does.

The honest limit: rules vary widely from town to town, and spite fence laws differ by state, so treat these numbers as a starting point, not legal advice. If a dispute is already brewing, or you’re unsure where the property line is, a survey or a local real estate attorney is cheaper than a lawsuit.

Shield the spot you use, not the whole yard, and check the code first. That’s the trick.

The post The neighbor’s window looks into your yard: what you can legally put in front appeared first on TheCoolist.

Don’t feel bad for being lost here: appliance labels never put the answer in plain sight. The ranking is real, and it isn’t close. But it’s a ranking of efficiency, not of dollars, and mixing up the two is exactly how people overpay for a switch.

The Efficiency Ranking

The government’s ENERGY STAR program puts the numbers side by side. An induction cooktop transfers energy at about 85 percent efficiency. Conventional electric resistance tops, whether exposed coils or a smooth ceramic glass surface, land around 75 to 80 percent. Gas sits near 32 percent, which makes induction “about 3 times more efficient than gas.” A Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory analysis for the Department of Energy found nearly the same order: induction 84 percent, coil and smooth-top 74 percent each, gas about 40 percent.

The reason is where the heat goes. Induction heats the pan itself. A coil or glass top heats up first and then passes that heat along, and a gas flame loses much of its heat to the air around the pot. Coil versus ceramic is essentially a tie.

The Math Per Pot

Take one everyday job: bringing 4 quarts of tap water from 55°F to a boil, which takes about 0.38 kWh of heat. At the national average of 18.2 cents per kilowatt-hour projected for 2026:

• Induction: about 0.45 kWh, roughly 8 cents.
• Coil or ceramic: about 0.51 kWh, roughly 9 cents.
• Gas: about 4 cubic feet of gas and almost no electricity at all. At the 2025 average residential gas price of $15.34 per thousand cubic feet, that’s roughly 6 cents.

So induction uses the least electricity of any electric cooktop, and wastes the least energy of all three. But per pot, it beats a coil by about a penny. Boil water every single day for a year and the gap comes to around $4. Gas often costs less per meal despite its poor efficiency, simply because, at national average prices, a unit of gas energy costs less than a unit of electricity. Your local rates decide that one.

When Switching Actually Pays

Cooking is a small slice of a home’s energy use, under 3 percent by one estimate, so a new cooktop will rarely pay for itself through the bill alone. The smart moment to choose induction is when the old range dies or the kitchen is being redone anyway, because then you’re paying the difference between two new appliances, not the price of a whole new one.

If the goal is a lower winter bill right now, look elsewhere first. Heating dwarfs everything the stove does, and getting the thermostat setting right will do far more for the bill than any burner swap. In the kitchen, a lid on the pot is the cheapest upgrade there is, on every type of stove.

Rank by efficiency, decide by your own rates, and switch when the old one quits. That’s the trick.

The post Which cooktop uses the least electricity: the ranking isn’t close appeared first on TheCoolist.

Walk into most living rooms done up between 2016 and 2024 and you’ll see the same quiet beige-and-white room with just a different throw pillow. Now, almost overnight, designers are walking away from it.

Not for a softer white. Not for greige. Not for the sage green that took over the last few years. They’re walking straight into the one color most people have spent years running from because they were sure it would make their room feel like a basement from 1978.

In 2022, fewer than one in five designers called this color a trend. By late 2025, that number had nearly doubled. It’s now the most-picked color in one of the industry’s biggest designer surveys, while white has quietly dropped into single digits.

If you’ve been loyal to white, this one’s going to surprise you. The strangest part isn’t the shift itself. It’s which color they’re picking, and why most of us would have laughed at the idea even five years ago.

The number almost nobody saw coming

Every year, the design marketplace 1stDibs asks interior designers around the world what’s actually showing up in real client homes. Not a mood board. Not a paint-brand forecast. A count of what designers are really putting on walls and sofas.

The 2026 edition came out in November 2025. It polled 468 designers through the research firm Surveys & Forecasts, LLC. According to the official 1stDibs release, 33% of them picked the same color as the top trend for 2026, up from 17% in 2022. Almost double in four years. White dropped out of the top tier.

Luxury Portfolio, covering the same survey, said designers are moving into “a darker, moodier color palette,” with this color sitting right at the top.

So this isn’t a Pinterest board or a one-magazine guess. It’s what working designers are putting in real houses right now, in rooms their clients are actually paying them to design. And it’s the exact shade most of us were told to steer clear of.

So what is it?

It’s the color your parents probably had in their den in the 80s and painted over the second avocado-green fell out of style. The one most of us tie to heavy wood paneling and oversized leather couches.

Yes, really. The color designers are picking instead of white is deep chocolate brown.

Not muddy brown. Not beige. Not the orange-brown of a 1970s rec room. A warm, cocoa-rich shade with red undertones, closer to melted dark chocolate than coffee.

As Christopher Boutlier of Christopher Boutlier Interiors told House Beautiful, “For a long time, brown was seen as dated or heavy, but designers are embracing it again because it adds depth and warmth without feeling loud.”

White walls look great in photos. They just don’t feel like much to sit in. Done right, chocolate brown wraps around you instead of lighting the room up like a gallery. “Done right” is where almost everyone slips up.

The fix: how designers stop it from feeling like a cave

Designers dodge the “closed-in” feeling with a short list of simple moves:

1. Paint the ceiling two shades lighter than the walls. The one trick that stops a brown room from feeling like a box. A warm cream or soft bone lifts the eye.
2. Pair it with cream, not white. Bright white fights brown and makes it look darker. Cream, oatmeal, or bone sit next to it like they belong.
3. Switch to warm bulbs. Use 2700K (soft warm white) across the room. Overhead cool-white is what makes dark walls feel heavy. King Living’s guide notes that dimmable lamps at a few heights keep the color from “deepening as the light drops.”
4. Let texture do the work. Boucle, velvet, linen, aged leather, raw walnut. Andrea DeRosa of Avenue Interior Design told House Beautiful that “cozy and luxurious fabrics like boucle and velvet are perfect textures for warm, caramel, and rich, chocolate shades of brown.”
5. Start with one wall if you’re nervous. The accent wall behind the sofa, or the first one you see from the entrance.
6. Add one bright moment. A brass lamp, a cream rug, a mirror, one pale piece of art. Something that keeps the eye from sinking.

As Mary Patton of Mary Patton Design told Hunker, “The key is striking the right balance with texture and lighting so the room feels intentionally warm, not heavy.”

Turns out your gut feeling about warmth was right. The old rulebook was the thing that was off.

Sources: (1) 1stDibs 2026 Interior Design Trends Survey press release; (2) Luxury Portfolio coverage of the 1stDibs 2026 report; (3) House Beautiful on the #1 paint color of the year; (4) Hunker interview with designer Mary Patton; (5) King Living guide to styling chocolate brown; (6) Designers Today coverage of the 1stDibs survey.

The post Goodbye all-white living rooms: this dark shade is topping designers’ color lists in 2026 appeared first on TheCoolist.

She didn’t take down a single cabinet door. She didn’t rip up a single tile. The granite she inherited stayed, the floor she walked on stayed, and the backsplash stayed too, which is the part that catches people off guard a few scrolls from now. What you’re looking at in the after shots is paint, two light fixtures, and new handles. That’s it. The whole rest of this kitchen was already there, buried under 2001.

The before is textbook. Orange-brown oak with cathedral arches on every door. A stained glass fluorescent box in the ceiling that must’ve felt futuristic in 1998. Dark speckled granite, warm tan tile, and that classic late-nineties kitchen energy where everything is wood or stone and the whole room reads like a hunting lodge that lost its way to being a kitchen.

If you’ve ever stood in a room like this and been told the only way out is to gut it, the next few photos are going to feel personal.

Why these two Benjamin Moore colors in particular

Her sister is an interior designer, and the palette came from her. Hazy Skies on the uppers, a quiet warm sage that lets the ceiling feel taller than it is. Lead Grey on the lowers, which is misleading as a name because the color is really a deep forest charcoal green. Swiss Coffee on the walls.

This wasn’t trend-chasing. It was a problem being solved on purpose.

Think about what wasn’t allowed to change. The floor was staying warm tan. The granite was staying brown-speckled. Any light paint on the bottom would’ve floated above a floor it didn’t belong to. Dark lowers pull the floor in and make it look like someone picked it on purpose. The ceiling is low, so going dark up top would’ve crushed the room. Light uppers open it back up. Those two colors aren’t a mood board. They’re the only answer the existing bones would accept.

The sneaky move most people miss

Look at the backsplash in the after shots. Now flip back to the before.

It’s the same tile. She painted over it.

Same stone-look shape, same grout lines if you squint. All of it got a bonding primer and a darker gray topcoat so it would step back behind the Lead Grey lowers instead of pulling the room orange like it used to. That one surface is doing more work than the cabinets to sell this as a full gut. Replacing it would’ve meant drywall repair, counter protection, a tiler for a day, and fifteen hundred to three thousand dollars before you blinked. Instead it got a weekend and the right paint.

Done properly, with a bonding primer, two coats of a durable acrylic, and a sealer where water hits most, painted backsplash tile holds up for years. The internet mostly won’t tell you that, because the internet makes most of its money from people who sell tile.

You will love these

TRENDING

They spray painted the honey-oak cabinets with a $10 gun: now the whole kitchen looks brand-new

JUST IN

He refused to replace his dated granite countertops: one Sherwin-Williams color changed the whole kitchen

What the brass is quietly carrying

Small detail, outsized job: the hardware.

Those long brass bar pulls on the deep green lowers are the reason the whole room reads warm instead of cold. If this project had reached for chrome, the Lead Grey would’ve landed as moody-apartment-rental. If it had gone black, the room would’ve felt heavy. The brass warms the green up and shakes hands with the warm tile on the floor. Three years ago this same project would’ve gone with brushed nickel, and the kitchen would be sitting on the wrong side of serious right now.

The two cheap swaps pulling their weight

Two more things, both cheap, both carrying a lot more than their price tag.

The stained glass fluorescent ceiling box got pulled out entirely. In its place, a matte black industrial pendant and a slim three-head track light. All in, probably two to four hundred dollars of fixtures. That ceiling box was personally responsible for about half the dated energy in the before shots. Losing it bought back a decade in one afternoon.

The ceiling itself got a fresh coat of white. Popcorn texture reads clean when it’s bright and crumbly when it’s yellowed. Nobody notices this one until you point at it, and then you can’t unsee what the old color was doing.

Also still in the wall and completely untouched: the Whirlpool wall oven from roughly fifteen years back. The paint around it does so much work that your eye never lands on it long enough to clock the age.

What this actually cost her

A full gut on this kitchen in 2026, with new cabinets, counters, backsplash, floor, lighting, and appliances, runs forty-five to eighty thousand dollars installed in most US markets. That number is why so many people live in kitchens they’ve been quietly hating for a decade.

This project was paint, hardware, two lights, and labor. Even with a professional painter doing the cabinets properly (sand, prime, two coats, full cure), you’re at three to six thousand dollars total. Call it under ten percent of the gut number.

The thumbnail reads custom. The invoice reads weekend. Every arched cathedral door that someone online would’ve told her to tear off is still right there, holding up a kitchen that looks nothing like the one she started with.

The post She kept every arched oak cabinet and painted them Lead Grey and Hazy Skies: now the kitchen looks custom appeared first on TheCoolist.

Fifty-two years later, their kids inherited the set. The orange stain had gone from classy to dated. The top had ghost rings from decades of coffee mugs and clock radios. The drawers still slid like day one.

Here’s the quiet fork in the road almost nobody realizes they’re at. Donate the thing and spend $2,500 to $4,000 on a new “mid-century” dresser from West Elm or Article (rubberwood veneer, cardboard drawer bottoms, done in twelve years). Or hand it to a refinisher for a fraction of that and get a solid-wood piece that will outlive you.

The clients took option two. They asked for one thing: strip the old stain and let the walnut show up.

The grain was there the whole time

The thing about old walnut is that the character isn’t painted on. It’s inside the wood. Fifty years of amber-toned stain had been sitting on top of it, dimming everything underneath. When the top layer came off, chevron figuring showed up on nearly every drawer. The wavy, bookmatched kind. The kind you can’t fake with a printer.

Those V-shapes aren’t printed veneer. They’re what the actual walnut log looked like when it was alive, cut from a tree somewhere in the Midwest probably decades before this dresser was even built.

Same chest, same drawers, different piece of furniture

The dark version was something you’d quietly park in a guest bedroom. The lightened version is the one you’d put front and center in the primary. Same wood. Same handles. Same dovetails. One variable moved: pigment.

Walk around to the angle and you catch something the dark finish was hiding. The grain shifts from drawer to drawer. Each face reads a little differently in the light. The top edge warms up where it meets the sun. In the original, every drawer looked the same because the stain was doing all the talking. Now the wood is.

The long dresser got the same treatment

This is where the before and after really swing. In the original, the dresser was a dark anchor along the wall and the decor on top was pulling all the weight. You looked at the little carved boxes and the picture frames and the vase, not at the furniture.

Lightened, the dresser is the thing you look at. The wood sits somewhere between honey walnut and bleached oak. The chevron grain runs across all nine drawers in long, uninterrupted sweeps. One brass stem on top is all the styling it needs. The furniture carries the room now.

[IMAGE: mcm-walnut-long-dresser-full-after-refinish.jpg] MCM Walnut Long Dresser, Full Front View (After) | Credit: @refreshedandrefurbishedmb Alt: Full front view of refinished nine-drawer mid-century modern dresser in warm honey walnut, three columns of drawers with slim tapered legs, in a bright room with white walls.

This is what you can’t fake

Here’s the test. Go into any big-box furniture store this fall and pick up a drawer front off their “mid-century” display. It’s rubberwood or MDF, and the surface is a laminated sheet printed to look like walnut. Flip over two drawers in the same dresser and you’ll find the same “unique” knot in the same spot. The pattern repeats.

Real walnut doesn’t do that. Every ripple on every drawer is one of a kind because they were cut from one actual tree. Look at the pulls here. The whole raised profile is one single continuous grain line because it was carved from a solid piece. Not glued, not veneered, not printed.

The end view shows the other giveaway. The grain wraps from the top down the side as one continuous piece of wood. On a veneer dresser, the top is one printed sheet and the side is another, and if you look at the corner you’ll see the seam where they meet. On this one, there isn’t one.

The math that nobody runs

A professional strip-and-refinish on a solid-wood bedroom set like this runs somewhere in the $400 to $900 range, depending on the shop. A new “mid-century” set from Article or West Elm runs $2,800 to $4,500 for the pair. The new set is objectively a worse piece of furniture, and nobody’s grandchild is inheriting it in 2078. This one, they will. The dovetails are still tight. The drawer glides are still smooth. Fifty-two years didn’t warp the frame. The next fifty probably won’t either.

If you have one of these in a basement

A lot of people do. A dark walnut chest from a parent or an aunt, still solid, still working, just not matching anything. The default instinct is to let it go and buy new. The better move, nearly every time, is to strip the stain and let the wood come back.

The piece was built to carry a lighter finish. It just never got a shot at one. These clients didn’t just refresh a bedroom set. They kept their family history in rotation for another generation. From across the room, it looks like custom furniture, which at this point is kind of what it is.

Image credits: All photos by @refreshedandrefurbishedmb. Original project post on Instagram: View original

The post They stripped the orange stain off a 1974 solid-walnut dresser: same brass pulls, now it looks custom appeared first on TheCoolist.

Chances are nobody is lying, so don’t feel foolish for being confused. Painting quotes swing because they rarely cover the same job. Once you know what each line costs, the gap explains itself, and you can tell in five minutes whether DIY really saves.

What A Room Costs In 2026

According to Angi’s 2026 cost data, painting a room costs about $1,100 on average, with a typical range of $200 to $2,000, or $2 to $6 per square foot. By size, a 10×12 room runs $240 to $720, a 12×12 $290 to $870, and a 14×16 $450 to $1,350. By type, a bathroom costs $200 to $400, a bedroom $300 to $750, and a living room $900 to $2,000.

The single most important number: labor is typically 60 to 90 percent of the total. Painting contractors charge $20 to $50 an hour, handymen $20 to $40. Paint itself averages $20 to $70 a gallon, and one gallon covers 300 to 400 square feet. Where you live matters too: the average room comes to $1,570 in California and $1,010 in Texas.

What Makes A Quote Double

The extras are where a $500 job becomes a $1,000 one:

• The ceiling. Adds $1 to $6 per square foot. A 10-foot ceiling adds about $1, and cathedral ceilings over 12 feet cost the most.
• Trim, baseboards, crown molding and windows. $1 to $3 per linear foot, up to $6 in hard-to-reach spots.
• Extra coats. Going from a dark color to a light one often needs another coat, at $50 to $70 for every 300 to 400 square feet of wall.
• Repairs and texture. Drywall repair runs $300 to $900, about $600 on average. Skim coating to remove texture costs $1.10 to $1.30 per square foot.
• An older home. A lead inspection adds $200 to $400.

Flip that list around and you have the best way to save: painting only the walls, without trim or ceiling, can cut the price roughly in half. When you compare quotes, line them up item by item. A low quote may simply leave out the ceiling or the trim.

When DIY Actually Saves

For a simple walls-only repaint, doing it yourself usually costs under $100 in materials. To size the paint, divide the square footage you’re covering by 400 for one coat, then double it for two. Since labor makes up most of a pro’s bill, that is where DIY wins big, and it’s why one homeowner turned down a $2,230 quote and did the work himself.

The math flips as the job gets harder. High ceilings, lots of trim, drywall repairs and dramatic color changes add hours, equipment and skill. If you do hire out, letting the contractor buy the paint can save about 50 percent on materials. And in an older home, have it tested for lead before any sanding.

Price the walls, then price every extra separately, and the right quote stops being a mystery. That’s the trick.

The post How much painting a room really costs in 2026: labor and materials, itemized appeared first on TheCoolist.

Why window tracks get so dirty

Tracks are a trap. Every time you open a sliding window, wind, rain and dust settle in the channel. Moisture from condensation runs down the glass and turns the dust into a sticky grime. Over time, the window slides harder, the track smells musty and black spots can appear in the corners. Fall is the right moment to deal with it: once the heat is on, condensation will run down the glass and straight into a dirty track.

What baking soda does

Baking soda is a gentle abrasive: it lifts grime without scratching vinyl or aluminum. It also absorbs odors. Combined with a vinegar spray, it fizzes and loosens what’s stuck in the corners, the hardest part to reach.

How to do it

The method recommended by Glass Doctor, a U.S. glass repair company:

• • Open the window fully and remove the screen if you can.

• Vacuum loose dirt with a narrow hose attachment.
• Loosen the rest with an old toothbrush.
• Sprinkle baking soda on the dirtiest areas.
• Spray a mix of white vinegar and water until the baking soda is damp, and let it fizz for about five minutes.
• Scrub from top to bottom, focusing on the corners, wearing gloves.
• Soak up the residue with rags or paper towels, then wipe with warm, soapy water if needed.
• Let everything dry completely before closing the window.

Glass Doctor recommends doing it at least once or twice a year, ideally in spring and fall.

Don’t forget the weep holes

→ Water still sitting in the track? Here’s what the 2-minute glass-of-water test really tells you 

Many windows have small drainage openings at the bottom of the frame, called weep holes. They let water that gets into the track drain outside. According to the Building America Solution Center, a Department of Energy resource, clogged weep holes can let water pool inside the frame and damage the wall around it. While you’re cleaning, pour a little water into the track: if it doesn’t drain, gently clear the holes with a pipe cleaner or a small brush.

The limit

Baking soda cleans and deodorizes, but it doesn’t disinfect, and it won’t fix a window that sticks because of a damaged roller or a warped frame. Use only a little liquid: flooding a track with clogged weep holes can send water where it shouldn’t go.

There’s another trick for tracks, as we explained with the toilet paper some people lay along them. Windows have other uses too, like the spoon some people place on the window. And baking soda has a stronger cousin for tough grime: the baking soda and hydrogen peroxide mix.

A sprinkle of baking soda, a spray of vinegar and an old toothbrush. That’s the trick.

The post Putting baking soda in your window tracks: what it’s for and why cleaners recommend it appeared first on TheCoolist.

What it’s for

The mix is used to remove light rust from kitchen metal: cast iron skillets, steel pans, baking sheets, knives, graters and old utensils. Instead of buying a rust remover, you use two things that are already in the kitchen, one of which usually ends up in the garbage.

Why does it work? According to Food Republic, the oxalic acid in potatoes helps dissolve rust, while baking soda adds a mild abrasive and lifts the residue away. In other words, the potato does the chemistry and the baking soda does the scrubbing, without scratching the metal the way a harsh product or a wire brush can.

How to do it

• Sprinkle a thin layer of baking soda over the rusty area.
• Press the potato peels on top, flesh side down. For a knife or a small utensil, you can also push the blade into a raw potato cut in half.
• Leave it overnight. The acid needs time to work on the rust.
• Scrub the next morning under running water, using the peel or half a potato dipped in baking soda like a brush. For stubborn spots, add a pinch of coarse salt for extra grit.
• Repeat if needed, then dry the piece immediately and completely.

The step most people skip

Drying is what decides whether the rust comes back. Never let cast iron air-dry: wipe it, then put it on a warm burner for a minute or two to drive out the last drops of water.

Cast iron also needs its protective layer back. After any rust removal, rub a very thin coat of cooking oil over the whole pan, inside and out, and bake it upside down. Bob Vila recommends about a tablespoon of oil and one hour at 350°F, then letting it cool completely before use. Food Republic suggests a hotter oven, 450 to 500°F, for a harder finish. Either way, the pan comes out darker and better protected.

The limit

This is a trick for light, surface rust. If the rust covers most of the pan or has left deep pits in the metal, a potato won’t be enough: a longer soak in equal parts white vinegar and water, followed by fine steel wool, is the next step, and deeply pitted pieces may not be worth saving. And don’t cook on rust: scrub it off first.

It costs nothing to try, though, and it gives a second life to peels you were about to throw out. Potatoes also deserve better than the bottom of a bag: here’s how to store them so they don’t sprout. Rust on garden tools is a different story, as this permaculture gardener shows. And baking soda has another well-known partner in cleaning: hydrogen peroxide.

A few peels, a spoonful of baking soda and one night. That’s the trick.

The post Mixing potato peels with baking soda: what it’s for and why it’s recommended appeared first on TheCoolist.

If you grew up in a house like this, you know the problem instantly. The cherry cabinets are everywhere. The walls are a moody teal that fought the wood instead of flattering it. The chrome dome light stuck to the popcorn ceiling is pulling the whole room back to the mid-2000s. Nothing in this room agrees with anything else.

What they did about it is interesting. They left one piece of the old kitchen in place on purpose. Not out of nostalgia. That piece carries the whole new look.

Most of the budget went into the usual (paint, counters, tile, flooring, appliances), but the single decision that made the room feel custom cost them nothing. They just resisted an urge. Walk through it with me.

The one thing they refused to paint over

Look at the hood above the stove in that first photo. It’s a nice piece of wood. The trouble is that it’s drowning in a sea of matching cherry. You almost don’t notice it, because every surface around it is doing the same job it is.

A lot of homeowners in this spot would have painted it. It would have been the easy call. Everything goes white, hood included, and nobody has to think about contrast ever again.

They didn’t do that. They quieted the room around the hood instead. Every other warm wood surface got painted out, and the hood was allowed to stay exactly as it was. That one leave-it-alone call is what gives the finished kitchen a focal point, instead of letting it read like every other white-and-stainless flip.

Why Worldly Gray beat plain white

The cabinets got sprayed in Sherwin-Williams Worldly Gray (SW 7043). That specific pick is doing more than it looks like.

Worldly Gray is a soft warm greige. It reads as a neutral in most light, but there’s just enough brown underneath it that it sits comfortably next to a wood hood instead of fighting it. If they had gone with a cool bright white (Decorator’s White, say, or Chantilly Lace), the hood would have suddenly looked orange and out of place. Worldly Gray lets the wood stay.

Here’s the stove wall before and after, with the same hood in both shots.

Same hood. Different job. Now your eye lands on it, which is what a hood is supposed to do in the first place.

Notice how calm the whole backdrop is. Cabinets, tile, counters, all stepped back so the hood and the stove can be the show.

The fridge wall got a whole new rhythm

The old fridge wall was busy for a tiny space. Microwave shoved into a cherry cabinet, a top-freezer stainless fridge, a built-in toaster oven, cherry everywhere.

They cleared it up and swapped the stainless top-freezer for a matte black Forno bottom-freezer with brushed brass handles. If you’ve been assuming stainless is always the safe pick, this is where that logic breaks down. On a soft greige and white kitchen, stainless would have read cold and generic, like every builder-grade flip you’ve already scrolled past. Matte black with brass hits totally differently. It picks up the warmth from the wood hood and the black from the cabinet pulls in one move.

The glass-front corner cabinet above the counter is a small design win too. In the before, that corner had a plain door that killed any sense of depth. The reeded glass now lets the eye travel further and makes a tight corner feel bigger than it is.

The sink wall and the floor nobody’s talking about

The sink wall in the before was workable, but it was carrying a lot. Dark laminate counter with that busy brown speckle. Cherry cabinets that pulled the window into a kind of frame nobody asked for. The decorative scrolls on either side of the window were peak early-2000s custom cabinetry.

The after loses the brown speckle for white quartz, swaps the chrome faucet for matte black, and most importantly, pulls out the gray vinyl plank floor and puts natural oak in its place. The oak is a bigger deal than people realize. The old gray floor was cool-toned and was quietly fighting the warm cherry above it. The new oak sides with the hood and the brass, so the whole room is finally pointing the same direction.

And if you compare the two wide shots, you’ll notice something that costs nothing to point out: no walls moved. Same U-shape, same window, same stove spot, same fridge spot. Every expensive thing stayed where it was. The whole custom look came from paint, counters, tile, flooring, appliances, and smoothing out that popcorn ceiling.

Why this won’t look dated in three years

The before was pure 2005. The obvious makeover (all bright white, chrome everything, cool gray floors) would land you in pure 2019, which is already starting to feel tired.

What they did instead borrows a little from the English kitchen look, a little from modern farmhouse, a little from the quiet luxury trend, and doesn’t fully belong to any of them. That’s usually how a room ends up looking custom instead of catalog-ordered.

Cabinet color for the record: Sherwin-Williams Worldly Gray (SW 7043). Hood is the original wood, left alone.

If you were doing this to your own kitchen, which call would you make first, the paint or the appliance swap?

The post They kept their cherry wood hood and painted cabinets Sherwin-Williams Worldly Gray: now the kitchen looks custom appeared first on TheCoolist.

What it’s for

The idea is simple: as the water steams, it carries the aromatic oils of the orange peel and the cinnamon into the air. Within minutes, the kitchen smells like a bakery. Within half an hour, the scent reaches the living room. Many people call it a “simmer pot” or stovetop potpourri.

Why orange and cinnamon? Most of the scent of an orange is in its peel, not its juice: the zest is full of aromatic oils, which heat releases. Cinnamon adds a warmer, spicier note that lasts longer. Together, they make the classic smell of fall kitchens.

It’s mainly used to:

• Make the house smell good without a scented candle or an aerosol spray.
• Cover cooking smells: fish, fried food, onions or a pot of cabbage.
• Welcome guests: it’s a classic before a fall dinner or Thanksgiving.
• Use up scraps: peels that would otherwise end up in the trash get a second job.

How to do it

• Put the peels of one or two oranges in a saucepan and add 2 or 3 cinnamon sticks.
• Cover with 3 to 4 cups of water.
• Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to a gentle simmer, uncovered.
• Top up with water every 30 minutes or so: the pot must never run dry.

Want to vary it? Add a few whole cloves, a star anise, apple peels, a slice of fresh ginger or a sprig of rosemary. The same mix can be reused the next day if you keep it in the fridge overnight.

A touch of humidity, too

A simmering pot also releases water vapor. In fall and winter, when the heating dries out indoor air, a little extra moisture can feel pleasant. But there’s a ceiling: the EPA recommends keeping indoor humidity below 60 percent, ideally between 30 and 50 percent, to avoid condensation and mold. If your windows start to fog up, it’s time to turn off the burner.

The limit

A simmer pot perfumes the air; it doesn’t clean it. It doesn’t remove dust, smoke particles or germs, and the scent fades within an hour or two after you turn it off. Despite what some posts claim online, there’s no evidence that it “purifies” the house.

It’s also still cooking on the stove. According to the National Fire Protection Association, unattended cooking is the leading cause of kitchen fires. Never leave home with the burner on, set a timer to check the water level, and keep the pot away from curtains, kitchen towels, children and pets.

If you like this kind of homemade scent, try the version with lemon peels and ginger. For the bedroom, some people prefer three bay leaves under the mattress. And cinnamon also turns up in cleaning recipes, with real limits, as we explained with this cinnamon vinegar spray.

Orange peels, two cinnamon sticks and a pot on low heat. That’s the trick.

The post Boiling orange peels with cinnamon at home: why they recommend doing it and what it’s for appeared first on TheCoolist.

Then they swear their leggings stopped sticking and the pet hair looked lighter.

So what’s actually going on inside that drum?

A crumpled ball of kitchen foil, no spray, no softener, no scented sheet, somehow fixes the stuff fabric softener is supposed to fix. It costs maybe five cents and takes ten seconds, so people keep tossing one in even when they can’t really explain why.

The enemy they’re fighting is older than any laundry trick on the internet.

The real problem isn’t dirt. It’s tiny invisible charges.

When fabrics rub against each other, they trade tiny bits of electric charge. One piece ends up a little positive, the other a little negative, and those opposite sides snap together like weak magnets. That’s static cling in one sentence.

Ivana Dimitrova, a physics professor at Northeastern University, puts it simply: most things around us are neutral and quiet, but when two materials rub, they swap a little charge, and in dry air that charge has nowhere to go. [1] That stuck charge is why your sock clings to a sweater and why winter laundry crackles the moment you pull it out.

Whirlpool’s own guide agrees: static in clothes comes from fabrics trading tiny bits of charge during tumbling, and it gets a lot worse when the air is dry. [2]

So the pain the foil ball is aimed at isn’t grime or odor. It’s charge.

So does the ball actually “catch” that charge?

Here’s where the trick gets interesting, because the viral videos usually leave out a key detail.

Aluminum is really good at moving electricity around. When metal touches a charged surface, it can pull some of that extra charge off and spread it out across itself. That’s why Dimitrova also suggests easy everyday fixes built on the same idea, like running a wire hanger down a clingy skirt, or tapping a doorknob or a key to zap off the charge before it zaps you. [1]

So in theory, a tight metal ball bouncing around with your clothes should pull some of that charge off the same way.

In theory. Practice has a way of disagreeing with viral laundry tricks, and this one is no different.

The twist most of those videos forget to mention

Here’s the piece the viral posts skip, and it’s the whole reason this trick is often “recommended” with one quiet correction attached. Static almost never builds up during the wash itself. Your clothes are soaking wet, water’s everywhere, and that water carries the charges away before they can pile up. Whirlpool spells it out plainly: static “primarily forms during the drying process or while wearing clothes,” not inside a wet wash. [3]

Appliance expert Michelle Feng of Hisense told Tom’s Guide the same thing in different words. A tightly packed foil ball in the washer probably won’t do real harm, but there’s very little proof it actually cuts static during the wash cycle, and loose pieces of foil can end up stuck in the filter or the drain. [4]

Where the foil ball really earns its reputation is the dryer. Hot, dry, synthetic clothes tumbling against each other is the exact storm that creates static, and that’s where a smooth aluminum ball can quietly soak up some of the charge and leave clothes less clingy coming out.

How to actually use it the right way

If you want this trick to actually pay off, do it like this.

• Tear off a full sheet of foil, about 10 to 12 inches (25 to 30 cm) long, and crumple it into a very tight ball roughly the size of a tennis ball (around 2.5 inches or 6 to 7 cm across). Loose balls shed sharp little pieces.
• Press and roll the ball on the counter until every edge feels smooth. Sharp edges can scratch a washer drum or snag on lace, stitching, and loose threads. [5]
• Toss two balls into the dryer with synthetic loads (leggings, fleece, polyester shirts, blends), where static really shows up. One ball is enough for a small load.
• Reuse the same balls for several loads. Swap them out once they flake.
• Skip delicate or decorated clothes. The risk to the fabric is bigger than the payoff.

That’s the honest version of this trick. The foil ball isn’t magic, and it isn’t really a washer hack at all. It’s a simple bit of physics put to work in the one spot where static actually shows up.

Sources: (1) Northeastern Global News, These 10 tips can help you combat static electricity; (2) Whirlpool Product Help, Reducing Static; (3) Whirlpool, How to get rid of static cling on clothes; (4) Tom’s Guide, People are putting aluminum foil in their washing machines; (5) House Digest via AOL, Why People Are Putting Aluminum Foil In The Washing Machine.

The post Putting an aluminum foil ball in the washing machine: what is it for, and why is it recommended? appeared first on TheCoolist.

Why salt?

Salt is hygroscopic: it attracts water molecules from the air. Left in an open glass in a small, humid room, coarse salt slowly picks up moisture, clumps together and eventually looks damp. That’s the whole principle, and it’s the same idea behind commercial moisture absorbers, which use a far more powerful salt, calcium chloride.

What it’s for

• Catching a little moisture in a small bathroom without a window, a powder room or a cabinet under the sink.
• Showing you there’s a humidity problem: if the salt is soaked and hard within days, the room is too damp.
• A simple scent diffuser: many people add a few drops of essential oil, such as eucalyptus or lavender, for a light fragrance.
• Zero cost and zero electricity: you already have the salt in the kitchen.

It’s also popular in closets, gym bags and cabinets under the sink, where a little damp air gets trapped and a musty smell settles in over time.

How to do it

• Fill a glass or small jar two-thirds with coarse salt, such as rock salt or kosher salt.
• Place it on a shelf, away from the shower spray and out of reach of children and pets.
• Stir it once a week. When it’s hard and damp, replace it.

Be realistic about the effect

Even the dedicated products are slow. In a test by the consumer group CHOICE, a calcium chloride absorber removed about 2 ml of water per hour at 65% humidity, while the dehumidifiers tested removed between 113 and 388 ml per hour. A glass of kitchen salt absorbs even less. It can help in a small closed space, but it won’t dry a bathroom after a hot shower.

What really keeps a bathroom healthy:

• Run the exhaust fan during your shower and for about 20 minutes after.
• Crack the door or window open when you’re done.
• Wipe down the shower walls and hang towels to dry outside the bathroom if possible.
• Aim for indoor humidity below 60%, ideally between 30 and 50%, as the EPA recommends.

The limit

A glass of salt does not remove mold, and it doesn’t purify the air. If you see black spots in the grout, a musty smell that won’t go away or peeling paint, the problem is ventilation or a leak, and salt won’t fix it.

Moisture is a winter enemy outside the house too, as we explained with the white pebbles that trap moisture against your walls. And for a scent that lasts, some people prefer orange peels simmered with cinnamon or three bay leaves under the mattress.

A glass, some coarse salt and a fan that runs a little longer. That’s the trick.

The post Putting a glass of salt in the bathroom: what it’s for and why so many people do it appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• Cool: around 40 to 46°F, never near the stove.
• Dark: light turns potatoes green and wakes them up.
• Breathing, not sealed: a paper bag, a basket or a perforated bag.
• Unwashed and away from onions.

Why potatoes sprout

A potato is a living thing. Warmth and light tell it that spring has come, and it does what it’s built to do: it sends out shoots. Light also turns the skin green, a sign of solanine, a natural compound that tastes bitter and can cause stomach upset in larger amounts. Cut green patches and sprouts away generously before cooking. A potato that is heavily green or shriveled belongs in the compost.

Grandma’s rules, confirmed by the experts

• Keep them cool: Oregon State University Extension recommends 40 to 46°F. Above that, they sprout and shrivel sooner; below 38°F, they turn sweet. A cool basement, an unheated closet or an insulated garage that never freezes works well.
• Keep them dark: a paper bag, a cardboard box or a basket with a cloth over it.
• Let them breathe: never seal them in a closed plastic bag, which traps moisture and invites rot. A perforated bag or a basket is ideal.
• Don’t wash them before storing: brush off the dirt if needed, and make sure they are completely dry.
• Keep them away from onions: onions give off moisture and gases that speed up spoilage, so store the two apart.
• Sort them regularly: one rotting potato spoils its neighbors. Check the bag once a week.

The apple in the bag: folklore or science?

The famous grandmother’s trick is to tuck an apple in with the potatoes. There is some logic behind it: apples release ethylene, a natural plant gas, and continuous ethylene treatment is used in some commercial potato stores to hold back sprouting. But a single apple in a kitchen bag is nothing like a controlled commercial store, and results at home are inconsistent. Consider it a cheap, harmless test rather than a guarantee, and replace the apple as soon as it starts to wrinkle. Cool and dark will always do more than any apple.

And the fridge?

Here the advice has changed. For years, the rule was never to refrigerate raw potatoes, because cold turns some of their starch into sugar, which could brown more when fried. In 2023, the U.K.’s Food Standards Agency updated its guidance and now says raw potatoes can be stored in the fridge, after research found it doesn’t increase that risk compared with a cupboard. Oregon State also lists a fridge set around 40 to 46°F as a suitable option. If your kitchen is warm and you have no cool spot, the fridge beats a sprouting potato. Some people find the taste slightly sweeter.

The limit

Even well stored, potatoes don’t last forever: a few weeks in a kitchen, a few months in a real cool cellar. Store-bought potatoes are also sometimes already older than they look. Buy in smaller quantities if you don’t have a cool, dark place.

Small storage habits make a big difference in the kitchen, like lining your drawers with aluminum foil or the paper test for your fridge door. And some kitchens are even saying goodbye to the microwave.

Cool, dark, dry, away from the onions, with an apple if you like. That’s what kept a cellar full of potatoes firm until spring. That’s the trick.

The post How to store potatoes to prevent them from sprouting: grandma’s fantastic tip appeared first on TheCoolist.

This is not a cleaning failure, and it’s not your fault. The grime isn’t sitting on the grout. It’s inside it, and most of the usual fixes either can’t reach it or quietly make the problem worse.

The One Reason: Grout Is A Sponge

Standard cement grout is porous. Every shower pushes water, soap residue and body oils into countless tiny pores, and that damp, fed environment is exactly where mold and bacteria settle in. A surface wipe never touches what’s living a fraction of an inch down.

Cement grout is also highly alkaline, with a pH of 11 to 13, which is why acids are its enemy. Scott Carothers of the Ceramic Tile Education Foundation explains that acid use “makes the grout more porous”, so dirt collects faster after every treatment. The grout manufacturer Mapei is just as clear about the most popular home remedy: “However, frequent or regular use can discolor and weaken grout and should not be used for routine maintenance.” The weekly vinegar spray is literally opening the door for next week’s grime.

What Clears Years Of Buildup

The tool that reaches inside the pores is oxygen bleach, the powdered sodium percarbonate sold in the laundry aisle. Mixed with water it releases hydrogen peroxide, which penetrates porous materials and doesn’t discolor grout the way chlorine bleach can:

1. Wet the lines with very hot water, which boosts the cleaning power.
2. Sprinkle oxygen bleach powder directly over the grout.
3. Wait 30 to 60 minutes. Years of buildup need the full hour.
4. Scrub gently with a paste of oxygen bleach and hot water, using a toothbrush or small nylon brush. Never a wire brush: overzealous scrubbing can crumble grout.
5. Rinse with clean water and let the area dry completely.

Keeping It White, And Knowing When It’s Too Late

Once it’s clean and dry for at least 45 minutes, seal it. A penetrating grout sealer plugs the pores so water and soap stay on the surface, and sealers typically cure in 24 to 48 hours. Reseal about once a year in a busy bathroom and every two years in low-traffic areas. For routine cleaning, switch to a pH-neutral tile cleaner, and skip the acids.

A few hard rules. Never mix chlorine bleach with vinegar, ammonia or any acid: the combination releases toxic gas. Keep vinegar away from marble, travertine and limestone, which it etches. If you’re curious why the classic vinegar and baking soda combo disappoints, the chemistry is simple. And if the grout is cracked, crumbling or sunk below the tile edges, no cleaner will fix it. That joint needs regrouting. And if mold keeps returning no matter what you do, have a pro check whether water is getting behind the tile.

Oxygen bleach to clear it, sealer to protect it, no acids to ruin it. That’s the trick.

The post Grout turns grey and moldy for one reason: what clears it and what destroys it appeared first on TheCoolist.

Why the kitchen smells bad after a trip

Under every sink there is a curved pipe called a P-trap. It always holds a little water, and that water is what blocks sewer gases from coming back up into the house. As long as the sink is used every day, the trap stays full.

When nobody runs the tap for several days, that water slowly evaporates. Warm, dry indoor air speeds it up, and the heating season is exactly when that happens. Once the seal is gone, odors from the drain line rise freely into the kitchen. As the South Davis Sewer District explains, an extended absence is one of the classic causes of a dry trap.

The trick: paper and a glass

Before leaving, run water in the sink for a few seconds so the trap is full. Then lay a sheet of paper flat over the drain opening, and set an upside-down glass or a small plate on top to hold it in place.

The paper and the glass create a lid. Less air circulates over the water in the trap, so it evaporates more slowly, and if a little odor does escape, it stays trapped under the glass instead of filling the room. A variation shared widely online uses a plastic bottle filled with water, turned upside down in the drain, to keep topping the trap up drop by drop.

What plumbers add to it

The paper trick helps, but the basics matter more:

• Fill every drain before you leave, not only the kitchen sink: bathroom sinks, the shower, the tub and any floor drain in the basement or laundry room.
• For long absences, pour a little mineral oil into seldom-used drains after filling them. It floats on the water and slows evaporation considerably.
• Leave the toilet lids down and run water in every drain as soon as you get home.
• Take out the trash and empty the garbage disposal with a good rinse, since leftover food is the other big source of kitchen smells.

When it is not the trap

If the smell persists after refilling the drains, the problem is elsewhere: a partial clog, a blocked vent pipe or a damaged trap. In that case, call a licensed plumber. And if the sink smells even when you use it daily, try the coffee grounds and baking soda paste, and check the dirtiest place in your kitchen.

With Thanksgiving and holiday trips coming, it is worth adding to the checklist before you lock the door.

A full trap, a sheet of paper and an upside-down glass. You come home to a kitchen that smells like a kitchen. That’s the trick.

The post Before a trip, put a glass and a sheet of paper in the sink: the effect is brilliant appeared first on TheCoolist.

This is not your fault, and you didn’t clean badly. The moths you see are the end of the cycle, not the start, which is why a single big cleanup almost never ends it. They also have a season: Colorado State University Extension notes that adults are most often seen from November through February.

Why They Always Come Back

Each female can lay over 200 tiny eggs, about 0.5 mm across, on or near food. The larvae that hatch can chew through plastic bags and thin cardboard, binding food together with silky webbing. When they’re fully grown, they leave the food entirely and crawl into cracks to pupate, often where a shelf meets the wall or the ceiling.

That is the whole trap. Infestations often start with an infested package brought home, and one missed box of crackers, or a few pupae tucked in a shelf joint, is enough to restart everything. The adults don’t even eat and live only a little over a week, but a home can support three or four overlapping generations a year.

The 3 Steps That Actually End The Cycle

1. Hunt the webbing. Open everything: flour, cereal, nuts, dried fruit, spices, pet food, bird seed, even dried flowers. Webbing is the surest sign. Throw out what’s infested. For anything you want to save, freeze it for at least two to three days, or heat it in the oven at about 120 to 140°F for 20 minutes, longer for bulky items.
2. Vacuum, then wipe. Pull everything out and vacuum crumbs, corners, shelf-pin holes and the seam along the back wall, where larvae hide to pupate. The cleaning product matters far less than removing every bit of spilled food.
3. Starve them for a month. Move dry goods into tightly sealed hard plastic, glass or metal containers. About a month covers the pupal stage plus the adult lifespan, so whatever is still hiding has nothing to lay eggs on. Keep bird seed and dog food out of the pantry entirely.

Plan B if moths still appear: a pheromone trap will show you the hot spot, but it only catches males, so treat it as a detector, not a cure.

Where The Bay Leaf Fits In

The cheap spice people swear by is the dried bay leaf, and it does earn a place on the shelf, just not the one most people think. A 2016 study cited by Hunker found bay leaves repel, and even kill, several grain pests that share the pantry, including flour beetles, mealworms and weevils. Against the moth itself, the honest answer is different: “There is no available scientific evidence that bay leaves are effective against the common pantry moth”.

So use it for what it’s good at. Tuck a couple of dried leaves into the flour and rice containers as cheap insurance against beetles, and let the three steps handle the moths.

Two limits are worth knowing. Skip insecticide sprays in the pantry: extension entomologists don’t recommend them, and they must never touch food or food surfaces. And if moths keep showing up after a month of sealed containers, the source is likely outside the pantry, such as a forgotten bag of bird seed, dried flower arrangements, or seeds and nuts stashed by rodents. At that point, call a pest professional.

Find the webbing, vacuum the cracks, seal everything for a month, and let the bay leaf guard the flour. That’s the trick.

The post Pantry moths keep coming back? A cheap spice on the shelf can help appeared first on TheCoolist.

Nobody checks a coffee mug before giving it away, so this is not on you. But a few of the mugs from that decade now trade for hundreds of dollars, and one series in particular has a real collector market behind it. Ten minutes and a flashlight are enough to know what you have.

Why An Ordinary Mug Became Valuable

The mug collectors chase hardest is Starbucks’ City Mug Collector Series, launched in the 1990s and followed over the years by the City Scenes, Architecture, Global and Discovery lines. Each mug was made for one city, and most were bought to be used. That is precisely what makes pristine early ones scarce today: a chip, a faded print or a box thrown out, and a mug drops out of the collector market. The few that survived in perfect shape are the ones collectors want.

The numbers are real, and they come from actual eBay sales. A 1994 Minneapolis mug, new in its box, sold for $2,200 in 2018. Another 1994 Minneapolis St. Paul sold for $1,500 in 2019. A 1994 Long Island mug went for $400, a 1994 New Orleans for $270. Other 1994 cities have sold for under $100, so the year alone guarantees nothing.

What To Check Before You Donate The Box

• Turn it over. The bottom shows a year, a capacity in fluid ounces, and often a country of manufacture. The year is the design’s copyright date, not proof of when it was made, and the country barely affects value.
• Look for the small white SKU sticker. If it’s still there, search its number: it’s the fastest way to find your exact mug. A mug that kept its sticker is considered more complete and can fetch a premium.
• Find the box. New in its original box is the gold standard. A mint mug without one typically brings 60 to 80 percent of that price, a used one 25 to 50 percent.
• Inspect it under bright light. A chip, a hairline crack, or a faded print makes most mugs nearly worthless to serious collectors.
• Check the other usual suspects. Hand-painted Otagiri mugs imported from Japan, recognizable by a gold diamond-shaped label underneath, stopped production in the 1990s and are still actively listed by collectors, as are TV-show mugs from the era, like a 1990 Simpsons mug.

How To Know What It’s Really Worth

Ignore what sellers are asking. A listing price is only what a seller hopes to get, not what anyone has paid. One collector guide puts the rule in one line: “The ‘Sold Items’ filter is the only source of truth.” On eBay, turn that filter on, read five to ten recent sales, and compare their condition honestly with yours.

That is also where most of these mugs are sold, along with Etsy and Poshmark, where vintage Starbucks mugs are regularly listed. Photograph the bottom, the sticker and the box, and describe every flaw. And keep expectations grounded: most 1990s mugs sell for a few dollars to a few dozen, a handful bring a few hundred, and only the rarest city designs reach four figures. For a different kind of collector mania, the Finnish mugs selling for thousands follow the exact same rules.

Flip it, find the sticker, check what it actually sold for. That’s the trick.

The post The 90s mugs everyone has in the cupboard now sell for serious money appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• In August 1996, a 3-year-old boy fell into the gorilla enclosure at Brookfield Zoo, Illinois.
• Seven gorillas were in the exhibit, and rescuers could not reach him right away.
• A female gorilla named Binti Jua, with her own baby on her back, picked him up.
• Nearly 30 years later, she still lives at Brookfield Zoo.

The fall

In August 1996, the boy slipped away from his mother, climbed through a barrier at Brookfield Zoo’s gorilla exhibit and fell nearly 20 feet, ABC’s Good Morning America recalled. Besides the female who would become famous, six other gorillas were in the exhibit. For the people watching from above, there was no way to get to him quickly.

What the gorilla did

Binti Jua, an 8-year-old female, approached first. Her 17-month-old baby, Koola, was clinging to her back. She picked the boy up around the waist, cradled him and carried him to a door where zookeepers and rescuers were waiting, according to the same report.

The boy spent four days in the hospital with a broken hand and cuts to his face. He and his mother were never publicly identified. The gorilla’s name, Binti Jua, means “daughter of sunshine.”

Why she reacted that way

No one can say for sure what was going through her mind. She was a young mother at the time, carrying her own baby, and many people saw in her gesture a protective, maternal reflex. Others are more cautious and simply note that she handled the child gently and brought him to the one place where humans could take over. Either way, the images went around the world. At a time when gorillas were often portrayed as dangerous, the sight of a female gently carrying a human child changed how many people looked at these great apes. The story came back into the news in 2016, when a boy fell into the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo and the gorilla Harambe was shot.

Where she is today

Binti Jua was born in 1988. In March 2025, Axios listed her, at 37, among the gorillas moving into Brookfield Zoo’s new indoor habitat. Her story is still told to zoo visitors and resurfaces online every year. Animals keep surprising us, like the cheetah that fell asleep against a wildlife photographer, or the way pets seek out their people until the very end, as one veterinarian explains.

The limit

We can’t know Binti Jua’s intentions, and specialists remain cautious about reading human feelings into animal behavior. Gorillas are wild animals of enormous strength, and the outcome could have been very different. That’s exactly why this story is still told almost 30 years later.

That’s the story.

The post In 1996, a 3-year-old boy fell into the gorilla enclosure at a Chicago zoo: what the gorilla did next is still remembered appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• A factory-sealed 2007 iPhone sold for $63,356 at auction in February 2023.
• Its owner had received it as a gift and put it away, unopened, for years.
• A few months later, a rare 4GB model sold for $190,372.80.
• The key is condition: still sealed, with its original box. A used phone is worth far less.

The phone she never opened

In 2007, a woman starting a management job at PetSmart received a brand-new iPhone as a gift from friends. She already had three Verizon lines, so she put the phone away and forgot about it, iPhone in Canada reported. In 2019, an appraiser on a TV segment valued it at $5,000.

In February 2023, it sold at LCG Auctions for $63,356. Its retail price in 2007 was $599.

The record: $190,372.80

In July 2023, another factory-sealed first-generation iPhone, the rarer 4GB model, sold for $190,372.80 at LCG Auctions, according to MacTrast. It retailed for $499 in 2007, while the 8GB version cost $599. MacTrast describes the 4GB as the rarest first-generation model, and this one came with a letter of provenance. In other words, a phone that cost a few hundred dollars in 2007 ended up selling for the price of a house in many parts of the country.

What makes an old phone valuable

The two stories have one thing in common: nobody bought these phones as an investment. One was a gift that was never opened, the other a box that stayed sealed for 16 years. These records share a few things:

• The model: a first-generation device, or a historic one, attracts collectors.
• The condition: factory-sealed, in its original box, never activated.
• The story: provenance documents help. The 4GB iPhone came with a letter of provenance.
• The sale channel: specialized auction houses reach serious collectors.

Before you throw out that drawer

Check what you have: the exact model, its condition, whether you still have the box, the manuals and the accessories. Don’t open a sealed device just to see if it works: for collectors, an intact seal is part of the value. Completed sales on auction sites give a much better idea of value than listing prices. Treasures sometimes hide in the most ordinary things, like the everyday item that contains real gold. And if you’re decluttering the kitchen too, here’s why many homes are saying goodbye to the microwave.

The limit

Let’s be clear: these are exceptions. Both record phones were still sealed in their original packaging. A used, scratched or opened phone, even an early iPhone, is usually worth a small fraction of these prices, and most old phones in a drawer are worth little. Before selling or recycling one, back up your photos and wipe your data.

That’s the trick.

The post Those old phones you’ve kept tucked away in a drawer could be worth a small fortune appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• Outdoor lights wrapped around a railing are exposed to rain, snow and standing water.
• A little moisture in a plug or a connection is enough to trip the GFCI, the outlet’s safety cut-off.
• Electrical safety experts insist: outdoor-rated lights and cords, plugged into GFCI-protected outlets.
• Drying everything out can help, but the problem often comes back.

Why the rain cuts the power

Outdoor outlets are normally protected by a ground fault circuit interrupter, or GFCI. Its job is to cut the power the moment electricity leaks where it shouldn’t, for example through water. “A common problem seen during wet weather events is the tripping of a home’s ground-fault circuit interrupter,” FOX Weather noted, citing a holiday lighting company: even slight dampness can shut off an entire display.

On a railing, the risk is higher: the connections between strings often hang low, close to wet wood, puddles or snow. And because the lights work fine on dry days, many people only discover the problem on the first wet evening, when the whole porch display goes dark at once.

The same problem every year

Electrician Dave Rongey, of Ask-The-Electrician, points out that drying the lights and plug strips may help, but the problem will likely return. His advice: install the power source components “in covered areas where they will not be exposed to direct weather,” and use plug strips rated for wet locations.

The rules electrical safety experts repeat

The Electrical Safety Foundation International lists a few simple rules:

• Plug outdoor decorations into GFCI-protected circuits. If your outlet doesn’t have one, portable GFCIs exist.
• Use only cords and lights marked for outdoor use.
• Keep cords and light strings clear of snow and standing water.
• Fasten lights securely, without anything that could cut or crush the cord’s insulation.
• Inspect everything for damage before hanging it.
• Turn decorations off before leaving home or going to sleep.

Don’t “fix” it by bypassing the GFCI

A GFCI that trips is doing its job. When it happens, unplug the decorations, let everything dry, then press the reset button on the outlet. If it trips again right away, the moisture or the damage is still there. Plugging the lights into an unprotected outlet to stop the cut-offs removes the protection against shocks. The right fix is to find and protect the wet connection. Storms deserve the same caution indoors, as we explained with the appliance you should unplug during a storm.

The limit

A tripping GFCI isn’t always caused by the lights: an old outlet, a damaged cord or another device on the same circuit can be the culprit. If it keeps happening once everything is dry and covered, call an electrician. And before bed, firefighters have their own rule: the one kitchen appliance to unplug.

That’s the trick.

The post Many people wrap string lights around the porch railing just for looks: at the first rain, electricians see the same problem every year appeared first on TheCoolist.

This is not a hygiene problem, and it is not your fault. Clean clothes don’t smell because they weren’t washed well enough. They smell because they stayed damp for too long, and the fix is not more heat or more detergent. It is speed.

Why Slow-Drying Clothes Start To Smell

A few bacteria always survive the wash, and they wake up the moment fabric sits wet. A study published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology in 2012 traced the classic laundry funk to one main culprit, Moraxella osloensis, which produces a sour-smelling compound while clothes stay damp. Every extra hour of wetness is an extra hour for it to work.

That is why winter is the worst season for it. Cool, still, humid indoor air slows evaporation to a crawl, and a rack crammed into a cold, closed room is close to the perfect incubator. The goal is not to make the clothes warm. It is to make the water leave faster than the bacteria can get going.

What Actually Speeds It Up

In order of impact:

1. Give the load an extra spin. Run about 10 more minutes of spin before you unload, especially for jeans and towels. Every drop the machine throws out is one the air never has to absorb.
2. Hang, don’t pile. Leave a gap between every item, alternate thick and thin pieces, and put shirts on hangers instead of folding them over a rail. A smaller load that dries in one day beats a full one that takes three.
3. Move the air. Set the rack in front of a fan on low, or near a heat vent without blocking it. Keep it away from walls, where trapped moisture turns into mold.
4. Add a dehumidifier if you have one. Consumer testers at Which? compared identical loads and found that “using a dehumidifier almost halved the drying time.” Set it to 30 to 40 percent humidity, at least 8 inches from walls and furniture, in a small room with the door closed.
5. Pick the right room. No dehumidifier? Choose a small, warm room with a window you can crack for a few minutes morning and evening, so the damp air has somewhere to go.
6. Pull what’s dry as you pass. Every item you take down gives the heavy ones more air.

What doesn’t help: draping clothes over a heat vent until it’s blocked, stacking towels two deep on one rail, or shutting the rack in a cold bedroom and hoping. If space is tight, the overhead setups in this tiny studio get the rack out of the way and into moving air.

The Limit Every Indoor Rack Has

All that water has to go somewhere. Every drop that leaves the clothes ends up in the room, and in a closed house it settles on the coldest surfaces first, which is why fogged windows and black spots in corners often show up the same week the laundry moves inside. The same logic applies in the kitchen, where one small habit stops the windows from fogging.

And if something still smells after a full day of drying, don’t fold it away. Rewash it and give it a faster second chance, because the smell only gets stronger in a drawer. Heavy pieces always take longest, so hang them first, with the most space and the most air around them.

Spin harder, hang wider, keep the air moving. That’s the trick.

The post How to dry clothes in the cold season without a dryer: what actually speeds it up appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• At 45°F, small, thin-coated, young, senior or sick dogs can already feel uncomfortably chilled.
• At 32°F, most dogs begin to be at risk of hypothermia and frostbite.
• At 20°F, even the most cold-tolerant dogs should be closely monitored outside.
• Shivering can stop as hypothermia worsens: it’s not a sign that things are getting better.

The three numbers vets use

Veterinarian Jennifer Coates, DVM, sets out three markers in a guide reviewed by Hannah Hart, DVM, and updated on Oct. 23, 2026:

• 45°F: especially vulnerable dogs “can feel uncomfortably chilled.”
• 32°F: “most dogs begin to be at risk for cold-related health problems,” such as hypothermia and frostbite.
• 20°F: “even the most cold-tolerant dogs should be closely monitored when outside.” At that temperature, walks should last about 10 minutes or less.

With 45.5% of American households owning a dog, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association, it’s a question millions of owners face every winter.

Size and coat change everything

Small dogs lose heat faster relative to their size, while heavier dogs with more body fat stay warm longer. A dense undercoat, like a Malamute’s or a Pomeranian’s, offers the best protection. Single-coated dogs like Whippets get cold much faster. And contrary to a common belief, long hair alone doesn’t reliably keep a dog warm. Age and health play a role too: puppies, senior dogs and sick dogs are among the most vulnerable, and they’re the ones that can feel uncomfortably chilled as early as 45°F. A wet coat makes things worse, which is why vets insist on drying your dog thoroughly after rain or snow.

The signs your dog is cold

• Behavior: whining, slowing down, looking for warm spots, anxiety, lifting its paws off the ground.
• Body: shivering, pale skin, cold ears and paws.

Keep in mind that a dog that stops shivering isn’t necessarily warmer: shivering can stop as hypothermia gets worse. If you suspect hypothermia or frostbite, bring your dog inside, warm it up with warmed blankets or hot packs wrapped in fabric, and see a veterinarian immediately.

Simple ways to protect your dog

Cut walks short as soon as your dog seems cold. Shorten walks, use a wind- and water-resistant coat or boots for small or short-haired dogs, and dry your dog thoroughly after rain or snow. Your dog’s signals are worth reading all year round, from what a wild greeting at the door really means to the feeding trend one veterinarian warns against.

The limit

These thresholds are general guidelines. Wind chill, dampness and how long your dog stays out matter as much as the number on the thermometer, and a husky and a chihuahua won’t react the same way at 32°F. When in doubt, your vet knows your dog best.

That’s the trick.

The post At what temperature does your dog start to feel cold? Vets have put a number on it appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• Blend the peels of 2 lemons with 1 cup of water, then stir in 2 tablespoons of baking soda.
• The oils in the peel help with grease and leave a fresh scent; baking soda deodorizes and scrubs gently.
• Use it on sinks, countertops, tiles, trash cans and lightly greasy surfaces.
• Never use it on marble, travertine or limestone: the acid can etch the stone.

What it’s for

The tip went viral on the Argentine news site TN, then in the English edition of El Cronista, which presents the mix as a home cleaning aid. Each ingredient has its own role. According to El Cronista, lemon peels “contain essential oils that leave a fresh scent and help deodorize surfaces,” while baking soda neutralizes odors and works as “a gentle abrasive.”

The home site House Digest goes in the same direction: lemon rinds “have oils that are great at eliminating stains and grease,” and baking soda’s “mild abrasive makeup is helpful for scrubbing.” In other words, the peel you were about to throw away does the degreasing, and the powder does the scrubbing.

How to make it

El Cronista gives a simple recipe:

• The peels of 2 lemons, rinsed.
• 1 cup of water. Blend the peels with the water until smooth.
• 2 tablespoons of baking soda, stirred in after blending.

Pour the mix into a container, spread it on the surface, let it sit, then wipe with a damp cloth. House Digest suggests a slightly thicker version: three lemon peels, 3 tablespoons of baking soda and 3/4 cup of water, which it recommends for pots and pans, grease and countertops.

Where to use it

El Cronista lists the kitchen sink, countertops, trash cans, bathroom tiles and light grease on washable surfaces. It’s a good way to use up the lemons from a weekend of cooking, and it presents the mix as a complement to your regular cleaning, not a replacement for it.

The limit

Lemon is an acid, and some surfaces hate acid. Cleaning specialist Jill Koch, quoted by Chowhound, warns that on marble and other natural stones, lemon juice “can etch the surface.” Marble, travertine and limestone are the most at risk; granite is tougher but acidic cleaners can wear down its seal over time. Always test the paste on a small hidden spot first, as House Digest recommends. El Cronista also advises wearing gloves and keeping the mixture away from your face. El Cronista gives no shelf life, so make small batches rather than storing a big jar of fresh peels.

The same logic works with other scraps from the kitchen: see why people mix potato peels with baking soda, or the baking soda, dish soap and sugar paste. Baking soda also works in an unexpected place: your window tracks.

Two peels, a blender and a spoonful of soda. That’s the trick.

The post Blending lemon peels with baking soda: what it’s for and why it’s recommended appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• Simmer a few sprigs of rosemary and several whole cloves in a pot of water.
• Its main use is to scent the house, after cooking or before guests arrive.
• Fill the pot halfway to two-thirds, keep the heat low and top up the water.
• It doesn’t disinfect the air or remove the source of a bad smell.
• Never leave the pot unattended.

What it’s for

The tip has circulated widely in Spanish, notably in El Economista, and the English edition of El Cronista sums up its real purpose: boiling rosemary and cloves is “a simple home remedy for adding a pleasant aroma to indoor spaces.” The newspaper suggests it after cooking strong-smelling foods, before guests arrive, or simply as an occasional home scent.

The scent comes from the plants themselves. El Cronista explains that cloves contain eugenol, the compound behind their warm, spicy smell, while rosemary contains cineole, camphor and pinene compounds, which give it its fresh, resinous note. Heat releases these aromatic compounds into the steam, and the steam carries them through the room.

How to make it

Clemson Extension gives the method for any simmer pot:

• Fill a pot one-half to two-thirds with water and add the rosemary sprigs and cloves.
• Bring it to a gentle simmer, then “reduce the heat to low and let it steam.”
• Top up with fresh water to keep the ingredients submerged. One pot can last a few hours.
• Replace the ingredients after a few refills, once the scent fades and they turn mushy.

Clemson also advises avoiding reactive metals like aluminum, which “can affect the fragrance and quality of your blend.” A stainless steel saucepan, a glass pot or an enameled Dutch oven works best.

Make it your own

Rosemary and cloves are a base, not a rule. In its winter list, Clemson adds cranberries, orange slices, cinnamon sticks, star anise, pine sprigs and bay leaves. A strip of orange peel brightens the blend, and a cinnamon stick makes it warmer.

The limit

This is a home scent, not a cleaner or a remedy. El Cronista writes that “laboratory findings do not establish that boiling these ingredients will disinfect indoor air,” and that there is “insufficient evidence” of any specific medical benefit. The smell also fades once the heat is off, and the newspaper warns that the mixture “should not be used to mask persistent odors caused by mold, dampness, sewage or inadequate ventilation.” Safety comes first: Clemson says to “never leave it unattended,” and El Cronista adds that hot water and steam can cause burns, so the pot should stay out of reach of children and pets.

Looking for other blends? Try orange peels with cinnamon or lemon peels with ginger. And for a bathroom that smells musty, here’s what a glass of salt in the bathroom is for.

A pot, a few sprigs and low heat. That’s the trick.

The post Boiling rosemary and cloves at home: why they recommend doing it and what it’s for appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• The tiny hole is a drainage port: water that gets inside the lock can run out.
• That limits rust and corrosion on the parts inside.
• It can also take a small drop of lubricant.
• Master Lock recommends cleaning and lubricating a padlock every 3 to 6 months.

What the hole is for

The Argentine news site TN put the question in front of a wide audience under the headline “Pocos lo saben” (few people know). The answer is simple. According to Monroe Engineering, “the small hole on the bottom of padlocks acts as a drainage port.”

A padlock lives outside: on a gate, a shed, a gym locker or a bike chain. Rain, snow and humidity get into the keyway. Without an exit, that water would sit inside the body, against the small parts that make the lock work. With the hole, Monroe explains, “moisture will drain out of the small hole while subsequently minimizing the risk of rust and corrosion.”

Its two other uses

• Lubrication. Moving parts can stick over time, and Monroe notes that “you can apply a small amount of lubrication through the small hole and into the padlock’s body.”
• Locksmith access. Depending on the model, the same article explains, a locksmith may be able to open the lock by inserting a special tool through the hole.

How to keep a padlock working

Master Lock gives precise care advice:

• Every 3 to 6 months, clean and lubricate the lock. In very dusty or corrosive environments, every three months.
• Use a PTFE lubricant, applied “sparingly” to both the keyway and the shackle. The brand says to “NEVER use dry graphite, or a silicone lubricant.”
• Work it in: tap the lock, open and close it several times with the key, wipe off the excess and let it dry.

Master Lock adds that “regular lubrication will also help minimize freezing in cold weather environments,” which matters as winter approaches.

The limit

The hole drains water, it doesn’t keep it out. A lock left for years without care can still seize up, which is why Master Lock asks for more frequent care in dusty or corrosive places. And since water runs down, the drain does its job best when the bottom of the lock faces the ground. Never plug the hole with tape or glue, and don’t use it as an excuse to skip the cleaning Master Lock recommends.

Everyday objects are full of design details like this one, from the two holes in clothespins to the gap in public toilet seats. And if your keys are dull or rusty, see why people are spraying vinegar on their keys.

A tiny hole, a drop of lubricant and a lock hung the right way. That’s the trick.

The post Few people know what the tiny hole in a padlock is for appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• Spray white vinegar on the base of the toilet and the floor around it.
• Let it sit for 10 to 15 minutes, then wipe and scrub what’s left.
• The acid in vinegar neutralizes odors and breaks down water stains.
• If the smell keeps coming back, the problem may be under the toilet.
• Never mix vinegar with bleach, and keep it off natural stone floors.

Where the smell really hides

“It’s often the space between the base of the toilet and the floor that gets forgotten,” notes Tom’s Guide. That’s where splashes land, dry and build up. Plumbing company Rooter Plus explains that in homes where men stand or young children are learning, “splash-back contamination of these areas is virtually guaranteed.” Worse, urine can soak into grout: it “penetrates below the surface, where it crystallizes and harbors bacteria,” so a quick mop doesn’t reach it.

The tip has spread fast: the Spanish site OkDiario relayed it this month, and the English edition of El Cronista presents it as a way to reduce smells, help prevent moisture stains and make cleaning easier.

How to do it

• Spray plain white vinegar on the base of the toilet and the floor around it, without forgetting the back.
• Wait 10 to 15 minutes, the dwell time given by both Tom’s Guide and El Cronista.
• Wipe with a damp cloth or paper towel, then use a scrubbing brush on stubborn patches.
• Repeat often in a busy bathroom: Tom’s Guide suggests two to three times a week.

Why vinegar? According to Tom’s Guide, its acid “kills bacteria without harsh chemicals, while breaking down water stains and neutralizing odors.” A few drops of essential oil in the bottle can add a scent, the same article notes.

The limit

El Cronista is clear that the trick “does not replace a deep disinfection,” and it warns never to mix vinegar with bleach or other chemical products. Check your floor too: Molly Maid, quoted by Real Homes, warns about vinegar on stone floors: “Even diluted, it can etch natural stone.” On marble or travertine, use warm water and mild soap instead.

And if the smell comes back no matter what, vinegar isn’t the answer. Rooter Plus explains that when the wax ring under the toilet fails, urine “can seep underneath your toilet and become trapped against the subfloor,” and “the only solution is complete wax ring replacement.” For grout that already smells, the company recommends an enzymatic cleaner left on for at least 30 minutes.

The bathroom has other details worth knowing, like what the gap in public toilet seats is for. Inside the bowl, see what pouring vinegar into the toilet once a week does, or the shaving foam trick more and more people use.

A spray bottle, fifteen minutes and a cloth. That’s the trick.

The post Spraying vinegar around the toilet: what it’s for and why it’s recommended appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• Crystal Drinkwalter and Jazmyn Canning were quoted up to $200,000 for a natural swimming pond.
• They built it themselves on their 65-acre property in Canada for $52,000.
• The project took over two months in the summer of 2026.
• The water is cleaned by filters, plants and UV, with no harsh chemical treatment.

A $200,000 quote

The couple, known online as @vanwives, told People in an exclusive interview that professional quotes reached up to $200,000, depending on the design and site. Their idea: a pond you can actually swim in, on their 65-acre property. They wanted to swim “in fresh, clean water without the harsh chemical treatments.”

The plans from a pro, the work by hand

They didn’t start from scratch, and they didn’t improvise either. The plans were drawn by Derek, of Quiet Nature, a designer with 25 years of experience. Then the couple did the work themselves, over more than two months.

The figures are impressive:

• About 100,000 lbs of boulders, the heaviest weighing roughly 7,500 lbs.
• An avocado-shaped pond of about 50 by 35 feet.
• Eight water-truck deliveries, about 120,000 liters, for around $2,000.
• Hours spent washing rocks and removing mud and clay after heavy rain, before filling.

They first swam in it in August 2026. Before that, they still had to fill it: for a pond this size, the water had to come by truck.

How the water stays clean

No chlorine, but a lot of equipment: two pool-style pumps, a large media filter, aerators, skimmers, a UV filter and a planted wetland “regeneration zone” where plants help clean the water. Filtration was a “major expense,” the couple said, without giving a figure. Upkeep means backwashing the filters when needed and running a robotic pond vacuum most days.

Frogs, birds and a skating rink

The pond quickly attracted wildlife: frogs, which the couple named Sara, Sally and Sandra, and birds. It doesn’t need to be drained in winter and may freeze for skating. Like many old garden tricks, it’s a project that works with nature, a bit like the bottles people used to bury along garden paths. The couple say the pond has brought them “so much joy, relaxation and fun,” and they’re already thinking about building bigger and adding a walk-in beach area. Would they do it again? “100%,” they told People.

The limit

$52,000 is far from cheap, and the couple say themselves that a natural pond “certainly isn’t necessarily the cheaper option.” Their savings come from a large property, months of free labor, professional plans and a lot of physical work. Not every backyard can host a 50-foot pond. If you just want to help wildlife this winter, start smaller: one simple gesture keeps backyard birds alive.

That’s the story.

The post Quoted $200,000 for a natural swimming pond, this couple built it themselves for $52,000 appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• Putting a bay leaf under the pillow is an old tradition that has gone viral again on social media.
• People do it for the scent, for relaxation and, in some traditions, for “good dreams.”
• Bay leaf oil contains compounds also found in other relaxing scents, such as linalool.
• But no study has tested the effect of a bay leaf under a pillow on sleep.

An old habit back in fashion

Bay laurel has been part of folk traditions for centuries, from the laurel crowns of antiquity to the leaves kept in the house for luck. Placing a leaf under the pillow is one of those habits that resurfaces regularly. Sites like wecb have asked why “everyone” is doing it, and the habit keeps spreading online.

What people use it for

The reasons people give are always the same:

• The scent: a crushed bay leaf releases a warm, slightly camphor-like aroma that many people find soothing.
• The ritual: a small gesture before bed, like a cup of herbal tea, that signals it’s time to slow down.
• Tradition: in some folk beliefs, bay leaves are associated with protection or prophetic dreams.

What’s in a bay leaf

A 2017 study published in the journal Molecules analyzed the essential oil of bay leaves from southern Italy. Its main components: 1,8-cineole (31.9%), the fresh compound also found in eucalyptus, sabinene (12.2%) and linalool (10.2%), a molecule also present in lavender.

Linalool is the most interesting one here. The authors cite earlier research reporting sedative effects of linalool on the central nervous system. But that research tested the molecule itself, not a dried leaf under a pillow, and the 2017 study didn’t test any effect on sleep.

How to do it, if you want to try

Use one or two dried bay leaves, lightly crushed to release the scent, slipped inside the pillowcase or under the pillow. Replace them every few days, once the smell fades. Dried bay leaves are cheap and easy to find in the spice aisle. Make sure the leaf is fully dry, so it doesn’t stain the fabric, and keep it out of reach of pets and young children, who might chew on it. It’s the same logic as other scent tricks, like boiling lemon peels with ginger or a glass of salt in the bathroom.

The limit

Let’s be honest: no study shows that a bay leaf under the pillow improves sleep. Online claims that it “lowers blood pressure” are not backed by any research we could find. At best, it’s a pleasant scent and a calming ritual. Avoid it if you’re allergic or sensitive to strong smells, and keep your pillow clean, since yellow stains on a pillow can be a warning sign. If you sleep badly over the long term, talk to a doctor.

That’s the trick.

The post Putting a bay leaf under your pillow: what it’s for and why so many people do it appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• Most cats start to feel uncomfortable below 45°F, according to PetMD’s veterinarians.
• Some vulnerable cats can be unhappy below 60°F.
• Below 32°F, every cat is at risk of frostbite and hypothermia with prolonged exposure.
• Cats often don’t shiver or meow until they’re already quite cold.

The number vets use

In a guide written by veterinarian Sandra C. Mitchell, DVM, and reviewed by Veronica Higgs, DVM, PetMD sets the main threshold at 45°F: below that, most cats begin to feel uncomfortable, and prolonged exposure can become risky for some of them. Their advice is clear: keep cats, including indoor-outdoor cats, inside when it’s below 45°F.

At 32°F, the freezing point, all cats are at risk of frostbite and hypothermia if they stay out long enough. Hypothermia starts when a cat’s body temperature drops below 100°F. A normal cat runs between 100.4 and 102.5°F, warmer than us.

Some cats feel it much sooner

For some cats, discomfort starts well above freezing. PetMD lists the cats that need extra care:

• Seniors and young kittens.
• Thin, sick cats or cats that have lost a lot of weight, and cats with arthritis. For them, 50 to 60°F can already be significantly uncomfortable.
• Short-haired or hairless breeds, and breeds from warm climates such as the Egyptian Mau.

A thick-coated Maine Coon stays warm longer, but every cat eventually gets uncomfortable in the cold. Indoor cats can feel it too: a cat sleeping by a drafty window or on a cold floor in a poorly heated room will look for warmth. That’s often why cats suddenly claim laptops, sunny spots or their owner’s bed when winter arrives.

The signs your cat is cold

The tricky part: cats hide it. According to PetMD, watch for:

• Curling into a tight ball, sometimes with the tail over the nose.
• Shivering, sluggishness, a smaller appetite.
• Ears, paws or body cold to the touch.
• In more serious cases, weakness: a cold cat becomes quiet and less responsive. That’s a reason to call the vet right away.

How to keep a cat warm this winter

If your cat seems weak, collapses or seems distressed, PetMD’s advice is to seek veterinary care immediately. For everyday comfort, bring outdoor cats in at the first cold snap. Offer a covered bed, blankets or a pet-safe heated bed, away from drafts. PetMD also suggests a bowl of water warmed to about body temperature to help warm a chilly cat. Cats are attached to their routines and their people, which is also why vets have put a number on how long you can leave a cat alone.

The limit

These numbers are guidelines, not a thermometer reading of your own cat. Wind, rain and wet fur make the cold feel much worse, and a healthy young cat and a thin senior cat won’t react the same way at the same temperature. Outdoor wildlife struggles too: here’s how to help backyard birds through the cold.

That’s the trick.

The post At what temperature does your cat start to feel cold? Vets have put a number on it appeared first on TheCoolist.

You haven’t missed a spot, so this is not your fault. The source is somewhere you can’t see: a few inches below the drain, inside the pipe. And winter gives it every advantage.

What Is Actually Building Up Down There

Three things are usually behind it, often together. The first is biofilm, a slimy layer of bacteria and fungi that grows wherever water stands in a pipe, and older cast iron or PVC lines are especially prone to it. The second is hair, tangled with soap scum and hard-water minerals, which slowly decomposes just out of sight.

The third is the one winter makes worse: a dry trap. The curved pipe under every drain holds a little water as a seal against sewer gas. When a drain goes unused, in a guest bathroom or a shower nobody takes, that water slowly evaporates, faster in dry, heated winter air. Once the seal is gone, the sewer has a straight line into your bathroom. Hair sitting in the trap can even wick the water away.

The 10-Minute Clean

Ten minutes of work, plus a short wait:

1. Find the drain. Sniff the sink, the tub and the shower one by one. The smelly one is usually the least used.
2. Refill the trap first. Run about a gallon of water down that drain. If the smell fades, the trap was dry and you’re done.
3. Pull the stopper or cover. Most shower covers twist off counterclockwise. Wash it in hot, soapy water, and fish out the hair below with a cheap plastic drain hook.
4. Treat what’s left. Pour in 1/2 cup of baking soda, then 1/2 cup of white vinegar. Let it fizz and sit for 15 minutes.
5. Flush hot. Finish with a long run of hot water to carry everything you loosened out of the pipe.

The Habit That Stops It Coming Back

Make it a weekly habit to run water in every drain in the house, guest bathroom included. It costs nothing and keeps every trap full all winter. Add a hair catcher to the shower, and empty it after use. Leaving for the holidays? A simple trick with a glass and a sheet of paper slows the evaporation while you’re away.

The honest limit: if the smell is sewage or rotten eggs and survives a refilled trap and a clean drain, stop there and call a plumber. It can mean a cracked pipe or a blocked roof vent, and sewer gas is mostly methane and hydrogen sulfide, which are flammable. The same goes for a clog that comes back after the baking soda treatment. That is a pipe problem, not a cleaning problem.

Water first, hair second, a weekly run in every drain. That’s the trick.

The post Something builds up in the bathroom drain every winter: the smell arrives before you find it appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 1: clocks go back one hour.
• Firefighters use the date as a reminder: test your smoke alarms and change the batteries.
• Almost three out of five home fire deaths happen in homes with no smoke alarm or no working one.
• Every alarm, even a hardwired one, should be replaced after 10 years.

When the clocks change

Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. local time on Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, when clocks move back to 1 a.m., as FOX 5 New York reminds. Hawaii and most of Arizona don’t change their clocks. Your phone will update on its own. The oven, the microwave and the car won’t. Most people spend a few minutes that weekend walking from room to room resetting clocks, which is exactly why firefighters chose that moment for their reminder.

The one thing firefighters keep repeating

The message has a name: “Change your clock, change your batteries.” Departments like the Champaign Fire Department in Illinois repeat it every fall, because the clock change is the one date almost everyone remembers.

The reason is simple. According to the National Fire Protection Association, “almost three out of five home fire deaths happened in homes with no smoke alarms or no working smoke alarms,” and working alarms cut the risk of dying in a reported home fire by 54%, as its report summed up. An alarm with a dead battery is just a plastic disk on the ceiling.

What to do before bed on Sunday

Fire officials in Loudoun County, Virginia, spell out the routine:

• Test every alarm. Press the test button. “All smoke alarms should be tested monthly.”
• Change the batteries at least once a year, and right away if an alarm chirps.
• Check the date on the back. All smoke alarms, hardwired or battery-powered, should be completely replaced every ten years.
• Don’t forget carbon monoxide alarms. They belong outside each sleeping area and on every level of the home.

“It’s critical that these life-saving devices are tested frequently to ensure they work when you need them most,” said Chief Keith Johnson of Loudoun County Fire and Rescue, quoted by a local department.

Why this weekend matters more than it seems

The clock change also kicks off the heating season, when space heaters and other appliances run longer and later. That’s why firefighters also insist on the one kitchen appliance to unplug before bed, and why the safest way to stay warm matters, as we explained with the low-energy alternative to space heaters.

The limit

Changing a battery doesn’t fix an alarm that’s too old: past 10 years, the sensor itself can fail, and the whole unit must go. Some newer alarms have sealed 10-year batteries and no battery to change at all. Pressing the test button still applies. And if you’re adjusting the thermostat while you’re at it, here’s the real temperature to keep at home this winter.

That’s the trick.

The post Clocks fall back this Sunday: the one thing to do before bed that night, firefighters keep repeating it appeared first on TheCoolist.

Here is where the project began.

Everything you’d expect from a late-’90s build is sitting right there. Cream arched cathedral doors, chrome track lights with those little round heads, dark counters, and a backsplash in moody blues and warm browns that every renovation Reel this year would tell you to rip out before you spend a dollar on anything else.

Why pulling the backsplash was never on the table

That tile runs all the way around the kitchen. It wraps behind the range, behind the fridge, and up the sink wall. Pulling it would have meant tearing into every wall in the room, trashing the budget, and living in dust for weeks. So the clients made the call most homeowners talk themselves out of. The tile stays. Everything else moves.

The payoff after the reface

And this is what that choice got them.

Same kitchen. Same backsplash hiding just out of frame. What changed is a navy island in Benjamin Moore Hale Navy, perimeter cabinets in Chantilly Lace, a blonde LVP floor, gold hardware, and leather stools pulled up to a new counter run. No walls came down.

Why the loud tile actually works now

Why does this work when it sounds like it shouldn’t? Busy tile is not really a pattern. It is a palette. Those planks already carry navy, warm white, charcoal, and amber in them. The designers at Refreshed and Refurbished MB didn’t try to tame the tile. They quietly matched everything else to it and let the tile do the heavy lifting.

The sink wall is the clearest story

Window, tile, counter run, cabinet boxes: all exactly the same. The whole shift came from new door fronts, a lighter floor, and a swap from chrome fixtures to black and gold. Two of those three are a weekend project.

You will love these

TRENDING

They spray painted the honey-oak cabinets with a $10 gun: now the whole kitchen looks brand-new

JUST IN

He refused to replace his dated granite countertops: one Sherwin-Williams color changed the whole kitchen

Finishes that were already waiting in the tile

Now look at the finishes together. Gold pulls repeat the amber in the tile. A matte black faucet picks up the darkest planks. Even the faded rug ties into the brown and gray wash of the backsplash. Nothing in this room is a brand new color. Every finish was already waiting inside that tile.

The only thing they added to a wall

The only brand new wall feature is a pair of floating oak shelves. They sit right where your eye lands first, and they bridge the warm blonde floor and the warm notes in the tile. Three materials, one quiet handshake.

The range wall is where the floor earns its keep

Range stayed. Fridge stayed. Tile stayed. All the drama is coming from two swaps: cathedral doors became flat Shaker fronts in Chantilly Lace, and the dark brown floor tile became blonde LVP. That new floor is doing more than it gets credit for. It bounces light straight up into the backsplash and pulls the warm tones forward, where the dark floor used to drag everything down.

The navy base cabinet is the quiet workhorse

That navy base on the right is doing a lot more than it looks. It picks up the deepest tiles in the backsplash and gives your eye one solid dark place to rest. Without it, the busy tile would still feel busy. With it, the tile reads as the feature wall of a kitchen that costs twice what this one did.

What you can borrow from this reface

The useful takeaway here costs very little to try at home. Before you swing a hammer at the loudest thing in your kitchen, change the quiet things first. Cabinet fronts. Floor color. Hardware. One dark anchor piece. The loud thing you were ready to tear out might turn out to be the best feature you already own.

So, would you have kept this backsplash, or would it have been the first thing in the dumpster?

Cabinet colors (both Benjamin Moore): Chantilly Lace on the perimeter, Hale Navy on the island Refacing company: @refreshedandrefurbishedmb Location: Roblin, Manitoba

The post They kept their rustic backsplash and added Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace Shaker doors: now the kitchen looks custom appeared first on TheCoolist.

You did what nearly everyone is told to do, so this is not your fault. But it is the wrong fix for this radiator. Air is light and rises, so trapped air leaves the top cold. A cold bottom is the opposite signal, and heating pros read it as something heavy sitting inside, which no amount of bleeding will ever remove.

What Is Actually Sitting In The Bottom

Inside a hot-water heating system, water is constantly in contact with steel and iron, and over the years it corrodes them from the inside. The result is a black, heavy grime of iron oxides, sometimes mixed with scale, and because it is denser than water it settles exactly where the flow is weakest: the lower channels of the radiator. One boiler manufacturer doesn’t hedge: “The culprit in 99% of these cases is a build-up of sludge and grime.” Once a channel is blocked, hot water simply flows across the top, and that section stays cold.

The usual companions give it away: gurgling, rooms that take longer to warm up, radiators that seem to need bleeding over and over, and bills that climb without the house feeling any warmer.

The Check Anyone Can Do In 20 Minutes

1. Turn the heat on and wait about 20 minutes, long enough for the whole system to come up to temperature.
2. Run your hand up the radiator from the bottom, slowly. It should warm evenly. Then feel the two pipes at the valves: warm pipes with a cold lower half point to sludge inside that radiator.
3. Walk the house. One cold-bottomed radiator means the problem is local. Several mean it is system-wide.
4. Rule out the look-alikes. A radiator that is cold everywhere is not sludge: think stuck valve or a balancing problem. Cold only at the top is air, and that one you can bleed.
5. If you bleed anyway, read the water. Heat off, radiator cooled, valve opened a quarter to half turn. Brown or black water is the sludge confirming itself. Afterward, check the boiler pressure gauge and top it up to the manufacturer’s level if needed.

What not to do: turn up the thermostat to compensate. Heating experts are unanimous that it fixes nothing and only raises the bill, and the number on the dial was never the whole story of a warm room anyway.

When A Flush Is Actually Needed

If a single radiator is affected, it can be isolated with its two valves, drained, removed, and hosed out outdoors until the water runs clear, then refitted, refilled and bled. It is a reasonable job for a careful DIYer, with two cautions: never fully undo the valves, or you may drain the whole system, and on a sealed system the boiler usually needs repressurizing afterward. If that sounds like more than you want to take on, it is a short visit for a plumber.

If several radiators are cold at the bottom, the sludge is in the whole system, and the fix is a professional flush: typically $150 to $600 depending on the number of radiators, for a 4 to 8 hour job, every 5 to 6 years. Ask for a corrosion inhibitor and a magnetic filter at the same visit: the first slows new sludge, the second catches it before it settles.

One limit before you reach for the key at all. If your radiator has a small air vent on its side, it is probably a steam radiator, still common in older homes, and none of this applies: leave it to a steam specialist. And never open a bleed valve while the heat is running, because the water is hot and can spray under pressure.

Feel the bottom before you grab the key, and read the water if you do. That’s the trick.

The post Radiator hot on top, cold at the bottom? Heating pros don’t bleed it, they check this appeared first on TheCoolist.

There is a third option sitting in your bathroom. A bathtub washes a duvet that no home machine can swallow, and done right, it comes out clean, fluffy and clump-free. The method matters more than the muscle.

Why A Duvet Comes Out Lumpy, And How The Tub Avoids It

The failure everyone fears, a duvet that dries into flat, hard lumps, has two causes, and neither is the tub itself. The first is detergent residue: soap trapped deep in the filling coats the fibers or the down and mats them together as they dry. The second is rough handling while wet: twisting or wringing a soaked duvet tears the filling and bunches it into clumps that never fully redistribute. The bathtub method is built around avoiding both: very little soap, a lot of rinsing, and pressing instead of wringing.

Here is the full sequence:

1. Clean the tub first. Rinse away any soap scum or cleaner residue, which would transfer straight into the fabric.
2. Half-fill with lukewarm water and a small dose of mild liquid detergent. About a tablespoon is enough. Skip powder, which does not dissolve well in a still tub, and skip fabric softener entirely, because it coats the filling. For a natural down duvet, use a down-specific detergent, which protects the oils in the clusters.
3. Submerge and press. Lower the duvet in and press down on it repeatedly with flat hands, the motion some laundry guides compare to a cat kneading a blanket. You are pushing water through the filling, not scrubbing it.
4. Soak 10 to 15 minutes, pressing now and then, then drain the tub completely.
5. Rinse two or three times. Refill with clear water, press, drain, and repeat until the water runs clear and the duvet no longer feels slippery. This is the step that decides everything: residue left now becomes lumps later.
6. Press the water out, never twist. Push the duvet against the side of the tub, then roll it in dry bath towels to draw off more water. A wet duvet is heavy, so take it in stages.
7. Dry it long, flat or spread over two parallel lines, so the weight is distributed. Turn it every half hour at first, and break up any forming clumps with your fingers while the filling is still damp, when they separate easily. In good airflow, count a full day; a thick duvet can take longer.

If your pillows have gone the same yellow as the duvet, they get a different treatment: this soak restores their original whiteness. And if space is tight at home, the overhead drying setups from a tiny studio that dries all its laundry indoors work for a duvet too.

The One Rule That Is Not Negotiable

The duvet must be bone dry before it goes back on the bed or into the closet: evenly filled, with no cool damp spots when you press your hand deep into it. A down or feather duvet dried incompletely can develop mildew and odors inside the filling, which no second wash fixes well. If the weather will not cooperate, finish it in a dryer on low heat with a couple of tennis balls. Ten minutes of tumbling beats a musty winter. And check the care label before you start: a wool-filled duvet or one marked dry-clean only stays out of the tub.

Plan the wash for a dry morning, press instead of twisting, rinse more than feels necessary, and keep your hands in the filling as it dries. That’s the trick.

The post How to wash a duvet that will not fit in the machine: no laundromat needed appeared first on TheCoolist.

They didn’t touch a single surface. They painted.

Two paint colors did the whole thing

Cabinets got Sherwin-Williams Honed Soapstone, a sage with warm olive sitting under it. Walls got Benjamin Moore Pale Oak, a soft off-white that calms the textured ceiling. The old satin nickel pulls came off, long brass bar pulls went on, and the painters packed up. That was the project.

Here is day one

Honey oak cabinets wall to wall. Dark speckled granite. Brown tile backsplash in a diamond. Terracotta floor running right into the cabinets. Scroll Instagram for ten minutes and you will find a hundred captions saying every one of those surfaces has to go.

Same room, totally different kitchen

Same island. Same granite. Same tile on the walls. Same tile on the floor. Same appliances. Same pendants. Nothing moved. It reads completely different.

What actually changed

Everything different came out of a can of paint. No sledgehammers, no dumpster, no weeks of takeout. Colors picked on a Saturday, painters in a few days later, kitchen back in use inside a week.

Down the galley, the shift lands even harder

The old honey oak felt heavy, like the room was closing in on the stove. The sage opens the corridor back up, and the brass catches enough pendant light to feel finished, not slapped together.

Why this color actually works

The brown backsplash, the brown granite, and the terracotta floor all share the same warm red-brown base. Drop a cool gray or a crisp white on the cabinets and every one of those surfaces suddenly looks stranded. The room reads broken, which is why the standard advice says to rip them out. The problem is not the materials. It is the color mismatch nobody fixed.

Sage with an olive base lives in the same warm, earthy family as that tile and granite. Instead of fighting the brown tones, it leans into them. The brass pulls do the same. Three warm tones start reading as one palette instead of three leftovers.

You will love these

TRENDING

They spray painted the honey-oak cabinets with a $10 gun: now the whole kitchen looks brand-new

JUST IN

He refused to replace his dated granite countertops: one Sherwin-Williams color changed the whole kitchen

Before you copy it, here is the honest check

Paint cannot save every kitchen. Two quick checks before you spend anything.

The color test: grab a Honed Soapstone chip from the paint store and hold it right against your backsplash and granite at the same time, in your real kitchen light. If the green pulls the warm tones forward and the three surfaces start reading as one palette, you are in business. If the sage goes grayish or chilly next to your tile, your materials have a cooler base. Try a truer olive, a warmer mossy green, or a putty color instead. Match the undertone, not the exact shade.

The reality check, which Instagram tends to skip:

• Honey oak has open grain that will telegraph through paint unless the cabinets are cleaned, deglossed, and primed with a stain-blocking primer like BIN or STIX. Skip that step and the grain shows within a season.
• Pro cabinet painting in the US usually runs $3,000 to $8,000 for a kitchen this size, plus hardware. Fraction of a gut job, still not pocket change.
• Brush-and-roller DIY on cabinets almost always looks like brush-and-roller DIY. Factory-smooth needs a sprayer and real patience, or someone with both.
• Painted cabinets chip around pulls and drawer edges. Expect touch-ups every few years, more with kids.
• Sage green and brass are trends. They will date in ten years, same as honey oak did. Fine if you are staying. Worth thinking about if you plan to sell soon.
• Paint fixes nothing structural. Bad layout, failing appliances, cracked granite, water-damaged boxes, doors that will not close. If the bones are broken, no color saves them.

Pass the chip test and have solid cabinets, paint is the highest-leverage move you can make. Fail either, be honest with yourself before you swipe a card at Sherwin-Williams.

The stove wall is where it clicks

Up close, the sage absorbs the brown diamond tile instead of fighting it. The brass tracks with the gold warmth already sitting in the granite. Three materials, one color conversation.

The finished kitchen

This is not a magazine kitchen. The terracotta floor is still terracotta. The ceiling is still textured. The granite is still busy, and anyone paying attention will clock the backsplash as a 2000s install. What the paint did was pull all of it into a palette that reads intentional instead of resigned. That is a different win, and it is the one most homeowners can actually afford.

Two cans of paint. One hardware swap. Zero demo. If you have been staring at honey oak cabinets and dark brown counters and talking yourself into a thirty-thousand-dollar gut, run the chip test first.

The paint colors used

• Cabinets: Sherwin-Williams Honed Soapstone
• Walls: Benjamin Moore Pale Oak

Credit: Transformation by @refreshedandrefurbishedmb on Instagram (original post).

The post They painted honey oak cabinets Sherwin-Williams Honed Soapstone: same brown granite, a new kitchen appeared first on TheCoolist.

This is the quiet problem with collecting the kind of pieces that are supposed to anchor a room. You buy them one at a time, which means they almost never match. The usual advice is simple: pick your favorite, hang it, and figure out the rest later. Later usually never comes.

Kris had the same problem, only bigger

Kris Jenner had collected several antique crystal chandeliers over the years. Different styles. Different time periods. None of them really went together, and none of them had the right room.

In 2015, she brought in designer Jeff Andrews to pull her Hidden Hills dining room together. He was handed the collection as the starting point. The room had to be built around what she already owned, not the other way around.

That’s a real head-scratcher. One huge chandelier in a formal dining room is easy. One chandelier plus two more pretty antiques sitting in storage is a waste. Three different antique chandeliers in the same room, by every old-school decorating rule, should be a mess.

What most designers would’ve done

Most designers in that spot would pick the best chandelier, hang it over the middle of the table, and quietly suggest the other two end up in a bedroom, a stairwell, or a daughter’s house. That’s the safe move. It would’ve looked expensive. It would’ve also looked like every other dining room in Hidden Hills.

The second option is to try to make the three antiques look like a matching set. Pick one finish, hang them in a cluster, force a theme. This almost never works with antique pieces. Your eye catches the differences before the similarities, and the whole thing starts to look like a mistake.

Jeff Andrews did something different

Jeff Andrews didn’t do either of those things. What he did instead has quietly caught on, and Homes & Gardens just called it the lighting look designers expect to spread through American luxury homes in 2027. Eleven years after he first did it.

His move was simple, and it starts with a choice most homeowners would never make.

He let the chandeliers stay mismatched.

Keeping the mismatch sounds obvious when you read it. In real life, almost nobody does this with pricey antique pieces. The instinct is to match, coordinate, hide the differences. Andrews did the opposite. He made the differences the whole point.

Then he quieted everything else in the room so the lights had space to shine. The chairs, the walls, the surfaces are all warm chocolate brown. No loud pattern pulling the eye away.

And then he did the thing almost nobody tries.

He hung all three chandeliers in a straight line over one long dining table.

Why three mismatched chandeliers actually work

Three antique crystal chandeliers. In a row. Different designs. Over the same table. It should look chaotic. It doesn’t. Lined up like that, the three pieces stop looking like three chandeliers fighting each other and start looking like one big connected centerpiece. The mismatch is what makes the room feel rich instead of showroom-perfect. Homes & Gardens describes the effect as a “subtly satisfying asymmetry.” In plain English: a matching set of three identical chandeliers looks like something you ordered off a catalog. Three antiques you’ve clearly picked up over the years looks like a life.

There’s a reason three works where two or four wouldn’t. Our eyes are built for it. “The human eye naturally registers odd-numbered groupings as balanced without feeling overly rigid or symmetrical,” says Jennifer Fitzpatrick, founder of Studio J & Co. In plain words, three feels calm and interesting at the same time.

View this post on Instagram

How to pull it off in your own dining room

If you want to try this at home, Jennifer lays out four rules that decide whether it works or falls flat.

Pick smaller chandeliers than you think you need. This is the step most people skip. If you’re hanging three instead of one, each one has to be smaller than a single big statement chandelier would be. The total width of all three put together should be about two-thirds the width of your dining table. Hang three full-size chandeliers and the room starts to feel like a hotel lobby.

Space them out evenly. Jennifer says to keep them 24 to 30 inches apart (about 61 to 76 cm), measured from the center of one to the center of the next. Eyeballing it won’t cut it. Grab a tape measure.

Get the drop right. The bottom of each chandelier should sit 30 to 36 inches (about 76 to 91 cm) above the tabletop. Any higher and the light feels cold. Any lower and you can’t see the person sitting across from you.

Wire all three to one dimmer. This is the detail nobody talks about, and it might be the most important one. All three chandeliers should run on a single dimmer switch, not three separate ones. When you turn them down for dinner, they dim together. Jennifer says this is what creates “that warm, hospitable dining ambiance.” Three separate switches would ruin the whole effect.

The quiet lesson

Kris’s dining room was finished back in 2015. Andrews was solving one client’s collection problem, not predicting a trend. The design world caught up more than a decade later.

The real takeaway: the best decorating ideas usually come from working with what you already own, not shopping for what matches. If you’ve been holding onto pieces that never quite went together, this is your sign to try them in a row.

The post Kris Jenner collected 3 mismatched chandeliers: her designer turned them into one stunning centerpiece appeared first on TheCoolist.

The appliance replacing the air fryer

It is the air fryer oven, sometimes called a smart countertop oven or a multifunction oven. Instead of a drawer basket, it has a door, racks and an interior about the size of a small oven. Inside, the same principle as an air fryer, a powerful fan blowing very hot air, is combined with several heating elements.

The result is one appliance that can air fry, bake, roast, broil, toast, reheat and often dehydrate. Many models add automatic programs, a digital panel, a rotisserie spit or a probe that stops cooking when the food reaches the right temperature.

Why people are switching

• Capacity. A basket air fryer cooks for one or two people at a time. An oven-style model fits a whole chicken, a 12-inch pizza or two trays of vegetables.
• Visibility. With a glass door, you can watch the food without pulling out the basket and losing heat.
• Fewer appliances. It replaces the toaster, the air fryer and often the big oven for everyday meals, freeing counter space.
• Energy and time. Heating a small cavity is faster than heating a full-size oven, which matters on busy weeknights and during holiday cooking, when the main oven is full.

What to check before buying

These ovens are larger than basket air fryers, so measure the counter space and the clearance under the cabinets: they need room around them to vent heat. Check the interior capacity against what you actually cook, and look for removable crumb trays and racks that go in the dishwasher, because cleaning is where many models disappoint.

Prices have come down as the category grew. Simple air fryer ovens now cost about the same as a large basket model, while premium versions with smart programs, probes and app control sit at the high end of the countertop market.

Basket air fryers still have an edge for small portions: they heat up almost instantly and crisp fries and wings slightly faster, because the food sits closer to the fan.

The honest limit

“Farewell” is a strong word. A good basket air fryer still does its job, and nobody needs to replace one that works. The oven-style models make the most sense for families, for people who cook for guests, or for anyone ready to retire a toaster and an air fryer at once.

One safety rule applies to both: like any heating appliance, plug it directly into a wall outlet, never into a power strip. And while you are reorganizing the kitchen, take a look at the dirtiest place in your kitchen, and at the habit of putting foil on the refrigerator shelves.

One box that fries, bakes and roasts, plugged straight into the wall. That’s the trick.

The post Goodbye to the classic air fryer: the new state-of-the-art appliance that cooks every meal in different ways appeared first on TheCoolist.

By any sane person’s measure, the flip was done.

Then she walked past it one morning and something still felt off.

The $20.99 basement rescue

Back up a few weeks. The dresser came home with a bright orange $20.99 sticker slapped on the side. It had been living next to a boiler, propped on a flattened cardboard box, surrounded by copper pipes and plumbing magnets. The kind of corner where good furniture goes to be forgotten.

But the bones were there. A classic 1940s American bow-front chest with a carved shell-and-leaf center drawer, two little flanking drawers up top, two deep drawers below, fluted side columns, and delicate bracket feet. Nothing being built today has this profile for twenty bucks.

The top, though, was a horror show. Deep gouges, black burn rings where something hot had sat too long, white blooms from water damage, and patches where the finish had cracked into alligator skin. Someone had clearly used this thing as a workbench, a hot plate, and a spill zone for decades.

So the plan was the obvious two-tone: paint the body a quiet color, strip and restain the wood sections where the carving actually mattered, keep the original brass pulls because new reproductions never land right on an old piece.

Round one: dark Kona on top, olive sage on the body

She mixed a soft, dusty olive for the body. For the wood, she went with Kona. If you have ever stained anything, you know Kona. It is one of the darkest stains sold anywhere, basically black with a whisper of brown.

The reveal landed. The before-and-after was objectively a huge glow-up.

Why her gut kept pulling at her sleeve

Here is the thing nobody wants to say when a flip gets praised: sometimes the praise is really for how much better it looks than before, not for how great it actually is.

Sit with the Kona version for a minute. The top is so dark it stops looking like wood and starts looking like a slab of black laminate. All that beautiful carving in the center drawer? Lost. Shadows swallow it. Those graceful shell curves she was supposed to show off are basically invisible.

The olive body gets dragged down with it. On its own, that sage has a dusty, lived-in quality to it. Set it next to near-black wood and it goes cold, almost steely, and suddenly it isn’t sage anymore, it is just gray. The brass pulls, which should have been the warm little thread tying the whole piece together, float there with nothing to grab onto.

The dresser looked dramatic. It also looked about ten years out of style. Dark stain plus cool gray paint was the painted-furniture handshake of the mid-2010s. That wave crested and rolled back years ago. Right now the whole market is leaning into warmth, honeyed wood tones, and soft greens, and anything cold-leaning dates itself the second you walk into the room.

She did not have to articulate all that. She just knew.

So she stripped it. Again. By hand.

You will love these

TRENDING

They spray painted the honey-oak cabinets with a $10 gun: now the whole kitchen looks brand-new

JUST IN

He refused to replace his dated granite countertops: one Sherwin-Williams color changed the whole kitchen

Round two: Minwax Antique Walnut, nothing else changed

If you have never used chemical stripper, picture a greasy oatmeal-colored sludge that eats finish down to raw wood and smells faintly like a bad decision. Doing this once is a lot of work. Doing it a second time on a piece you already finished is a whole act of faith.

The new pick was Minwax Antique Walnut, a mid-brown with honey and amber under it. The color of an old leather belt that has been loved for twenty years. Nothing else about the dresser changed. Same olive body. Same brass pulls. Same floor, same wall, same light.

Look at that carved shell now. Every curve is back. The grain in the top is doing something, telling a story about where the piece has been. The brass pulls stopped being a question mark and started being the obvious right call. And the body paint, the exact same color, finally gets to be the warm, sagey olive she originally mixed.

This is a controlled experiment flippers rarely get to see. Same dresser, same body, same hardware, same room, same camera. Only the stain is different. And the walnut version doesn’t just look nicer. It looks like it belongs in a completely different store. One costs 60 dollars at a yard sale. The other costs 600 at a boutique down the block.

The little surprise she hid inside

Pull open any drawer and you get a small, delighted gasp.

Every drawer is lined with a wild protea floral in rust, mustard, and dusty pink. The outside of the dresser is quiet and grown-up. The inside is a party. This is the kind of detail that costs maybe twelve dollars at Target and separates a flipper who is going through the motions from one who actually loves the piece she is working on.

Which version was right?

Here they are back to back, from basement orphan to finished.

Twenty bucks and change, two full refinishes, one quiet gut call, and a can of Minwax Antique Walnut. That is the whole recipe.

The real takeaway is quieter than the dresser itself. Applause is a trap. It sounds like a final verdict and it is really just the first opinion. Sometimes the only person who knows a piece isn’t done is the one who made it.

Source: u/TlyTlymama on r/FurnitureFlip via Reddit.

The post Her 1940s dresser got a second makeover despite the praise: Minwax Antique Walnut made it look expensive appeared first on TheCoolist.

Here is what makes it awkward to critique. The room was done right. Clean caulk lines, evenly spaced panels, trim paint that did not bleed. She was not fixing a mistake. She was trying to escape a formula, the one every panel-molding tutorial on the internet pushes you toward. The fix she landed on breaks the single rule that whole formula is built on.

The one move every molding tutorial warns against

So she did the thing every molding tutorial begs you not to do. She painted the trim the same color as the wall. Then the baseboards. Then the ceiling. Everything in Sherwin-Williams Carnelian SW 7580, color-matched into Benjamin Moore paint, rolled from floor to ceiling with no breaks.

Why white trim makes paneled rooms look pre-assembled

Designers call it color drenching. The reason your DIY feed never recommends it is simple. Every big-box aisle, every Lowe’s handout, every “how to install picture molding” video repeats the same line: paint your trim bright white for contrast. That rule is why so many paneled rooms look pre-assembled. White trim against a dark wall tells your eye there are two layers in play. A flat wall in back, little picture frames glued on top. You can almost see the staples.

Where your brain stops seeing frames

Pull that color break out, and your brain reads the wall differently. Instead of frames, it reads shadow. The trim stops announcing itself and starts behaving like molded plaster in a 1920s apartment. Architecture, not applique. That shift is what makes a drenched room feel built instead of installed. Nothing had to come off the wall. The exact same cheap pine profile she had been staring at for two years suddenly looks custom.

The ceiling step most people chicken out on

Now the ceiling. This is where most people quit. They tell themselves a white ceiling makes the room “feel taller” and leave it. That one call undoes the whole trick. A white ceiling draws a bright line around the top of the room, your eye hooks on it, and the box stays a box. Paint the ceiling the wall color and that line disappears. You stop measuring the height. A 10 by 10 office starts feeling like a cozy den instead of a converted closet.

You will love these

TRENDING

They spray painted the honey-oak cabinets with a $10 gun: now the whole kitchen looks brand-new

JUST IN

He refused to replace his dated granite countertops: one Sherwin-Williams color changed the whole kitchen

Why Carnelian hits different than a true red

Here is where Carnelian earns its fee. In warm indoor light, it reads less like red paint and more like leather, closer to a tufted library chair than a bold accent wall. A true red would feel loud. A plum would push the room feminine. The brown base in Carnelian is what sells “handsome study” to an American reader, which is exactly the association she was reaching for.

The full before and after, side by side

The side-by-side makes the before suddenly feel obvious.

What she kept white on purpose

Pay attention to what she kept white on purpose. The window frame is still cream. The outlet covers stayed white. The carpet is still neutral. Little bright punctuation marks around the perimeter. Without them, the drench reads as a mistake, like she ran out of time. With them, it reads as restraint, like every surface was a choice.

Up close, the whole trick is one shadow

Up close, the whole magic is one small thing. Paint catches the lip of each profile. Shadow replaces the old white line. That shadow is what reads as expensive.

One weekend, one can, no demo

One can of paint. One weekend. No new trim, no demo, no contractor beyond the painter. The molding on your office wall is probably fine. It was the white paint on top of it that was costing you the custom look.

The post She kept the wall molding but ditched the white trim for Sherwin-Williams Carnelian: now her office looks custom appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• Freeze a cup of water, then set a coin on top of the ice.
• If the coin has sunk, the freezer warmed up long enough for the ice to melt while you were away.
• Food safety depends on temperature: a thermometer is more reliable than a coin.
• A full freezer holds its temperature for about 48 hours if the door stays closed.

What the coin is for

The trick is simple. As Tom’s Guide explains, fill a cup with water, freeze it overnight, place a quarter on the ice and put the cup back in the freezer. Then you just check where the coin is:

• Still on top: the ice didn’t melt.
• In the middle: the ice partly thawed, then refroze. Check each item.
• At the bottom: the freezer fully defrosted at some point, and the food should be thrown out.

The point is that a power cut can happen while you’re asleep or away and leave no trace. When the electricity comes back, the freezer refreezes everything, and the food looks normal again. The coin keeps a record of what happened.

Why it matters after an outage

Thawed and refrozen food can’t be judged by its look or smell, and FoodSafety.gov is categorical: “Never taste food to determine its safety.” The federal site also sets the rules that matter: food “may be safely refrozen if it still contains ice crystals or is at 40°F (4°C) or below,” and a full freezer holds a safe temperature for about 48 hours, or 24 hours if it’s half full, as long as the door stays closed.

Other clues to check

The coin is only one signal. Tom’s Guide points out that water pooled inside packaging is a sign that food has thawed and refrozen, which is generally unsafe, especially for meat, poultry and seafood. The same article recommends checking with an appliance thermometer, or a Wi-Fi fridge thermometer that sends an alert when the temperature rises. Keeping the freezer full also helps: it holds the cold twice as long as a half-empty one.

The limit

The coin has a known flaw. NC State Extension, in an article titled Coin in the Cup: RISKY, points out that ice floats: if it melts and refreezes without completely turning to water, the coin can stay on top. The trick “would give a false sense of food safety,” the extension warns, and it never tells you the actual temperature. Food safety experts quoted there suggest a temperature logger or color-changing temperature strips instead. The coin is a free first clue, not proof. In doubt, use an appliance thermometer, and when you’re still unsure, throw it out.

Storm season is also the time to know which appliance to unplug during a storm, and the one kitchen appliance firefighters say to unplug before bed.

A cup, a quarter and a quick look. That’s the trick.

The post Few people know why you should leave a coin on a cup of ice in the freezer appeared first on TheCoolist.

Attic Bedroom Ideas That Work With the Sloped Walls Instead of Fighting Them

An attic bedroom has one real advantage over any other room in the house: it already feels tucked away. The ceiling comes down low over the bed, the walls meet at odd angles, and the whole thing feels like a hideaway before you’ve even added a pillow. The trick is leaning into that instead of trying to flatten it out.

The ideas below cover a wide range: cottage pattern-on-pattern, soft Scandinavian, modern neutral, and a few that split the difference. Pick the one that matches your light, your budget, and how much time you actually spend up there.

Turn the Weirdest Ceiling Into the Best Feature

Sloped ceilings go from problem to feature the second you cover them in a pattern that wraps the whole triangle. The orange florals and green vines here pull your eye up, so you stop noticing the angles and start noticing the pattern. The sage beadboard on the lower walls keeps it from feeling like too much, and the yellow block print quilt pulls the warm tones back down to the bed. For more chic bedroom ideas built on this same layered approach, this is a template you can lift straight into any top-floor room.

Where to Put Books When Every Wall Slopes

The weird triangle of wall behind the bed is usually dead space. Here, it’s a built-in bookshelf painted deep red, with the toile wallpaper carried right up to the shelving. That red backdrop makes old spines look like a painting. The lesson: the shortest wall in the room is usually the one begging for a built-in, not a dresser crammed in sideways.

How to Mix Three Patterns Without the Clash

Three different patterns in one tight attic nook could be a disaster. It works here because the scale changes with each one: tiny polka dots on the headboard, bigger roses on the pillows and shade, thin stripes on the bedskirt. Keep the scales different and the colors in the same family, and you can layer as much as you want without the room looking busy.

The Paint Move That Lifts a Low Ceiling

Painting the ceiling the same color as the walls, even when the ceiling slopes down low, is the move that keeps the room from feeling boxed in. Your eye reads the whole thing as one surface instead of stopping at the ceiling line. The sage blue here makes the whole space feel wrapped and calm, and the tan velvet bed grounds it so it doesn’t float.

The One-Can Fix for a Dark Attic

Attic rooms get a reputation for being dim because the windows are usually small. The whole-room white treatment here, including the beams, bounces every bit of natural light around the space instead of letting the beams eat it. The pale blue quilt and the olive plant keep it from feeling sterile. For anyone fighting a low-light attic, this is the cheapest fix you’ll ever make.

The Paint Color Built for Afternoon Light

Warm paint colors like this soft yellow were made for rooms that get afternoon sun. The light hits the walls, bounces off the ribbed white ceiling, and gives everything that golden glow. The gingham bedding reads homey instead of fussy because the brown stays grounded against the warm walls. A single candle on the nightstand pulls the whole thing together once the light fades. The whole thing comes down to the shade you pick, which this roundup of bedroom paint ideas gets into with real examples.

Turn the Tallest Wall Into Real Closet Space

The one wall in an attic that goes floor to ceiling is prime real estate, and it’s usually wasted. Here, a run of white IKEA wardrobes fills the whole thing with real closet space, and the woven baskets on top eat the dead air near the ceiling. The pink and brown striped bedding adds enough color that the wardrobes read as a design choice, not just storage. If your attic has one tall wall, that wall is your closet.

The Headboard That Reaches for the Peak

Tall rooms with peaked ceilings beg for a headboard that reaches up and meets the point. This cream paneled one does exactly that, and the whole room suddenly has a center. The two skylights add light the small side windows can’t, and the symmetrical lamps on either side keep it balanced. Clean neutrals like this are the easy win for an attic that gets used as a guest room, since they don’t fight whatever bedding you throw on later.

The Attic Bedroom That Needs No Renovation

Not every attic needs a renovation to feel finished. Soft green on the walls, a cushion on the window seat that was probably already there, and warm wood floors are enough. The orange curtains do the heavy lifting as the one bold choice, and the simple spindle bed stays out of the way. If you’re renting, or you want a guest attic that doesn’t need commitment, this is the whole blueprint.

Which of these attic bedrooms are you most tempted to copy?

The post 7 attic bedroom ideas that use clever storage and simple decor to make small spaces work better appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• The hole is first of all designed for hanging pans on a hook or a rail.
• It also works as a built-in spoon rest: the handle of your spoon or spatula slips into it.
• The utensil stays off the counter, and the drips fall back into the pan.
• It doesn’t fit every spoon, and metal utensils can get hot.

What everyone thinks it’s for

The first answer is the right one, but it’s only half the story. According to Chowhound, the hole “is most commonly used to hang up pots and pans,” on a pegboard, a pot rack or a hook above the stove.

The second use few people know

The Spanish news site OkDiario goes further, explaining that the hole can serve as a holder for the spoon or spatula you’re cooking with. Picture a pot of tomato sauce: the spoon is coated, the counter is clean, and there’s no spoon rest in sight. Instead of grabbing a plate, slide the end of the spoon handle through the hole in the pan’s handle.

Chowhound confirms that the hole “also doubles as a holder for a stirring spoon.” The kitchen site The Kitchn adds a detail that makes all the difference: put the spoon in upside down, so the sauce drips back into the pot rather than onto the stovetop.

How to make it work

• Test your combo first. The Kitchn warns that the trick “won’t work every time,” because it depends on the size of the hole and the shape of your utensil.
• Pick wooden spoons. Chowhound says wooden tools work particularly well, since they don’t conduct heat.
• Watch silicone. Most silicone utensils are rated for about 400 to 500°F, according to the same article, so keep them away from the flame.
• Skip metal. A metal spoon resting against a hot handle can heat up quickly and burn your fingers.

The limit

On many pans the hole is simply too small for a spoon handle, and OkDiario notes that on some models it’s mostly decorative. On a pan with a short handle, the spoon can also end up right above the burner, which is a bad place for plastic or silicone. Keep the trick for simmering on low or medium heat, and never leave a utensil in the handle when you move a heavy, full pan: it can slide out and splash.

The kitchen is full of details like this one: here is what the two holes in clothespins are for. On the cooking side, try the steam trick of two glasses of water in the oven, or see the appliance more and more kitchens are using instead of the toaster.

A hole for hanging, a spoon upside down, a clean counter. That’s the trick.

The post Few people know what the hole in a frying pan handle is for appeared first on TheCoolist.

In short

• Shaving foam is sprayed onto the inside of the bowl, left to sit, then scrubbed with the brush.
• Like soap, it contains surfactants that loosen grime and dried-on urine.
• It clings to the walls and leaves a fresh scent.
• It won’t dissolve heavy mineral rings or disinfect the toilet.

What it’s for

The Hungarian site KertVár and the German site Ludwigshafen24 describe the same routine: spray the foam generously on the stained areas of the bowl, spread it with the toilet brush, wait, then scrub. Ludwigshafen24 recommends a dwell time of 20 to 30 minutes.

Why foam rather than a regular cleaner? First, because it stays put. A liquid slides straight down into the water, while a thick foam clings to the sides, right where the stains are. Second, because of what’s inside: according to the home site Hunker, shaving creams “contain surfactants and other ingredients similar to soaps and cleansers,” which help lift dirt, grime and dried-on urine.

Ludwigshafen24 adds another argument: unlike some harsh cleaners, shaving foam contains no aggressive chemicals that could attack the ceramic surface of the toilet. The site presents it as a complement to your usual routine, not a replacement. KertVár, for its part, notes that the same can works on bathroom mirrors and shower curtains.

How to do it

• Use a basic foam, not a gel, and an inexpensive one: Ludwigshafen24 says even cheap products work.
• Spray under the rim and on the stains, then spread it with the brush.
• Let it sit. Hunker suggests about 10 minutes for regular cleaning; for stubborn marks, go up to the 20 to 30 minutes suggested by Ludwigshafen24.
• Scrub and flush. Wipe the base of the toilet with the leftover foam on a cloth: Hunker notes it also helps with odors around the floor.

Bonus: Hunker notes that the fragrance added to most foams leaves a fresher scent.

The limit

Shaving foam is a mild cleaner, not a miracle product. The brown or gray ring that forms at the waterline comes from hard water, and soap doesn’t dissolve minerals. For that ring, frugal-living columnist Mary Hunt, in Everyday Cheapskate, recommends baking soda and vinegar or borax and vinegar, and for the toughest stains a pumice stone, used sparingly so as not to scratch the china. Shaving foam doesn’t disinfect either: Hunker itself advises stronger products if that’s your goal. And never mix it with bleach or another cleaner in the bowl.

For mineral rings, here’s the best way to remove limescale from the toilet. You can also see what baking soda around the toilet is for, and the new option replacing toilet paper in more and more bathrooms.

A can of foam, a brush and twenty minutes. That’s the trick.

The post Spraying shaving foam in the toilet bowl: what it’s for and why more and more people do it appeared first on TheCoolist.

It’s citric acid, the white powder sold for canning and household cleaning. It has become one of the most shared bathroom fixes of the year in Europe and Latin America, and it targets the exact problem that clogs shower heads across much of the U.S.: hard water.

What’s actually blocking the holes

Limescale is mostly calcium and magnesium left behind when hard water dries. Every shower leaves a thin film on the face of the head, and the tiny outlet holes are where it builds up fastest, because water sits in them after the tap is turned off. The higher the mineral content of your water, the faster those holes narrow. The flow turns uneven, then the pressure drops.

That is also why the two classic fixes tend to disappoint. Baking soda is alkaline: it makes a decent scrub, but mineral deposits only dissolve in acid, so it mostly polishes around the problem. Vinegar is an acid and does work, but at household strength it needs long soaks, and it leaves the bathroom smelling like a salad dressing for the rest of the day.

Why citric acid is the one to try

Citric acid acts directly on calcium deposits without much effort on your part. It has no smell, it rinses away cleanly, and it’s easy to find: look in the canning aisle of the supermarket, at hardware stores, or online.

Beyond restoring pressure, regular descaling keeps the flow even and helps a shower head last longer. A clogged head is often replaced when it only needed a soak.

How to do it, step by step

• Dissolve two to three tablespoons of citric acid in a container of warm water.
• Unscrew the shower head if you can.
• Soak it for 30 minutes to an hour.
• Scrub the face with an old toothbrush to lift whatever is left in the holes.
• Rinse thoroughly, screw it back on, and run the water for a minute.

If the head is fixed in place, pour the solution into a plastic bag, pull it up around the head so the holes sit in the liquid, and secure it with a rubber band or a zip tie.

Keeping it from coming back, and where to be careful

Once the holes are clear, a monthly soak keeps them that way. Drying the surfaces after each shower slows the buildup, and a quick look at the holes every few weeks tells you when it’s time. If your water is very hard, a shower filter or a softener deals with the problem at the source.

Three limits are worth knowing. Keep citric acid away from natural stone such as marble or travertine, which acids can etch. Check the manufacturer’s care instructions before soaking specialty finishes like unlacquered brass or oil-rubbed bronze. And never mix citric acid with bleach: combining an acid with bleach releases toxic gas.

The same mineral crust quietly builds up elsewhere in the house, starting with the washing machine. And if you still like your vinegar, there is a right order to use it with baking soda, and the reason is chemical.

One tablespoon too many won’t hurt, one soak a month is enough, and the pressure comes back the same day. That’s the trick.

The post Neither baking soda nor vinegar: the ideal way to remove built-up limescale from shower holes and avoid losing pressure appeared first on TheCoolist.

A honey oak kitchen in 2026 has a kind of expiration date on it. The orange tone catches every light in the room and makes the whole house feel older than it is. The usual move is to tear the whole thing out, drop ten to twenty-five thousand pounds on new cabinets, and start over. The second-usual move is to spray every door white and call it done.

The homeowner in Mosborough did neither.

She kept every single cabinet. Every drawer. Every carcass. The layout. The windows. Then she handed the painter a color most people have never heard of, a quiet Dulux shade called Gentle Fawn, swapped the counters for quartz, and let the room breathe. The result does not look like a respray. It looks like a kitchen a designer built for the house from scratch.

Here is what changed, and why the color choice is the whole story.

What the kitchen looked like before

Nothing structural was broken. The cabinets were real shaker doors, solid, well made, mid-2000s build. The layout worked. The window over the sink pulled good light into the room.

But the oak was loud. Every photo of this kitchen came back orange. The black laminate counter and the black tile floor did not help, since they made the orange sit on top of the room instead of blending into it.

This is the moment most families call a kitchen showroom. She called a sprayer instead.

Why white would have been the wrong call

The reflex pick for a tired oak kitchen is bright white. It feels safe, Pinterest-approved, easy to sell on later. But white does not actually help this room. The new quartz counters are already a creamy white with soft gold veins. The new floor is a warm herringbone wood-look. Two warm, light surfaces already carry the room. Painting the cabinets a cold bright white on top of that reads flat, and reads flipper. Everyone has seen that kitchen by now.

Gentle Fawn is a soft, warm, dusty beige. Not greige. Not mushroom. Warmer than either. It sits with the quartz, picks up the wood tone in the floor, and lets the burnt steel hardware pop against it.

That is the quiet trick. The color was not picked to be pretty. It was picked to make peace with every other surface in the room.

Prep was the real work

A spray job lives or dies on the taping. Every glass front, every worktop, every socket, the floor, and the ceiling edge got wrapped. From the outside this stage looks like chaos. From a paint point of view, this is the stage that decides whether the finish looks sprayed or looks sloppy.

The paint on the counter is Morrells, a tough industrial coating that cures hard enough to stand up to a working kitchen. Dulux color, Morrells build. You want a finish that will not chip the first time a pan hits the lower door.

Primer went on first in the sunshine, then two coats of Gentle Fawn in a matte finish. Spray dries fast and lays flat, so you do not get the brush marks or the orange peel that rollers leave on a factory door.

You will love these

TRENDING

They spray painted the honey-oak cabinets with a $10 gun: now the whole kitchen looks brand-new

JUST IN

He refused to replace his dated granite countertops: one Sherwin-Williams color changed the whole kitchen

The reveal

Look at that side by side. Same cabinet boxes. Same window. Same layout. The room reads twice as expensive on the right.

The quartz is the second star of this room. White with a soft gold vein, which echoes the warmth in the Gentle Fawn instead of fighting it. A pure, cold, bright white quartz would have cheapened the whole thing.

The tap swap deserves a sentence. The old chrome mixer went, and in came a matte black gooseneck. That one piece of hardware shifts the whole sink zone from builder-grade to intentional.

The hardware mix nobody notices but everyone feels

Every door got a round, matte burnt steel knob. Every drawer got a cup handle in the same burnt steel finish, positioned clean and centered.

This mix is what expensive bespoke kitchens do. Knobs on the doors read quieter. Cup handles on the drawers give your hand something to pull. A flipper buys one bag of matching handles and puts them on everything. A designer picks two.

Zoom out

Same cabinet carcasses, same openings, same cutouts. The run reads brand new because the cabinets around the ovens finally stopped shouting.

The little shots that prove the finish

Sprayed finishes do this. The light hits the door and slides across it. A brush job catches on every stroke.

The takeaway

A full respray like this runs a fraction of a kitchen replacement. The tiling and the walls are still to come, which the painter calls out in the caption. But the cabinets, the counters and the hardware, the parts that take over a room, those are done.

If your kitchen is honey oak, do not reflex-paint it white. Pull a Gentle Fawn chip, or any warm dusty beige in that family, and lay it against the floor you are keeping. Warm to warm. Let the quartz and the hardware do the rest.

The reason this one looks custom-built is that nothing in it is fighting anything else.

The post She kept every honey oak cabinet and sprayed them Dulux Gentle Fawn: now the kitchen looks custom-built appeared first on TheCoolist.

The frustrating part is that the same tub, moved a few feet, does its job remarkably well. The difference is not the brand. It is the physics of the space around it.

Why The Middle Of A Room Is The Worst Possible Spot

These absorbers are calcium chloride, a salt so thirsty it pulls water vapor straight out of the air and dissolves into brine in the reservoir below. But it is a passive device: it only dries the air that drifts past it. In an open room, fresh humid air pours in constantly, from you breathing, from the kitchen, from outside. One specialist review puts it bluntly: a single tub in a 200-square-foot room is a rounding error against the moisture load. The salt never wins that race. That is also why it seems dead near an open window or a doorway: it is trying to dehumidify the outdoors.

Where it wins is small, enclosed, still air: a closet, a cabinet, the space under the sink, a car over winter, a storage trunk, an RV. In a sealed pocket of air, the salt only has to dry a few dozen cubic feet once, then keep them dry. Closets are the textbook case, because most have no HVAC vent at all. They trap a microclimate of stagnant, damp air against the wall, exactly what musty-smelling coats are made of.

The Placement Rules That Change Everything

Once the absorber is in the right kind of space, five details decide how well it performs:

• Put it on a shelf, not the floor. Warmer air carries more moisture and sits higher, so mid-height placement puts the salt in contact with the most moisture-laden air. The floor is the laziest and least effective position.
• Leave air around it. Pushed tight against a wall, or buried in a closet stuffed to the rails, airflow drops to near zero and the crystals barely work. A couple of inches of clearance on all sides is enough.
• Keep the enclosure closed. The tub works because the space is sealed. A closet door left open turns it back into the middle of a room.
• Favor the cold side. Moisture condenses against cold surfaces first, so the damp exterior-wall end of a closet beats the warm interior end.
• Stable, high, out of reach. The collected brine is corrosive to metal and irritating to skin, so the tub belongs on a high, stable surface away from children and pets, where a spill cannot reach clothes or valuables. Spent brine goes down the drain with plenty of water.

Where A Tub Will Never Be Enough

One honest limit: if a whole room or a basement is genuinely damp, no placement trick saves a passive tub. That is dehumidifier territory. The salt is for the pockets the machine’s dry air never reaches. In the rooms themselves, the cheapest fix is cutting the moisture at its source, and wet laundry drying indoors is one of the biggest. If you have no choice, the airflow setups in a tiny studio that dries all its laundry indoors keep that moisture moving instead of settling.

So take the tub off the bedroom floor. Shelf height, closed door, air around it, cold wall. That’s the trick.

The post Most people put the moisture absorber in the wrong spot: where it actually works appeared first on TheCoolist.

Limescale in a toilet is calcium carbonate left behind by hard water. It sits below the waterline, in the rim jets and around the trap, and every flush adds a little more. Baking soda is alkaline and can’t dissolve it; it only scrubs. Vinegar is an acid but a weak one, and diluted in the bowl water it barely touches a crust that has had months to set.

The powder that does the job

Citric acid, sold as a white powder in the canning aisle, at hardware stores and online, is a stronger acid than vinegar, has no smell, and is safe on porcelain, chrome and tile. It is the same method that cleared the clogged holes of a shower head, applied to a bigger surface with a longer soak.

For the toilet, the method is deliberately slow:

• Dissolve two to three tablespoons of citric acid in a pot of hot water.
• Pour it into the bowl, aiming at the ring and under the rim.
• Leave it overnight. This is the step people skip, and it’s the one that matters.
• In the morning, scrub with the brush and flush.

A thick, old crust may take a second night. For a ring that has survived years, a wet pumice stone rubbed gently on the porcelain lifts what the acid has loosened without scratching.

Faucets get a different treatment

For the scale around faucets and on shower screens, the same acid works in a gentler form: cut a lemon in half, rub it on the deposit, leave it 10 to 15 minutes, rinse with hot water. Lemon juice is citric acid too, in a version that clings to a vertical surface. A cloth soaked in the citric-acid solution and wrapped around the base of a faucet for an hour does the same for heavier buildup.

One warning that applies everywhere: never mix citric acid, or any acid, with bleach. The combination releases toxic gas. Rinse the bowl and flush before using any other product.

Keeping it from coming back

Once the bowl is clean, a weekly pass with the brush stops scale from getting a foothold, and a small dose of citric acid once a month keeps the ring from forming at all. Two things make limescale worse and are worth fixing: a toilet that runs or drips constantly, which leaves a permanent wet line for minerals to cling to, and a bathroom with poor ventilation, which keeps every surface damp.

Vinegar still has its place for a quick wipe on a light film. For the crust that’s been there since you moved in, it never stood a chance. One bag of powder and one night. That’s the trick.

The post Neither vinegar nor baking soda: the best way to remove limescale from the toilet and faucets appeared first on TheCoolist.

Forty-eight numbers. Forty-seven of them are exactly the same. One is not. It’s hiding in plain sight, and most people’s eyes slide right past it. You have 11 seconds. Ready?

The challenge

Look at the picture below. Somewhere among all these 929s, a different number is hiding. Find it before the time runs out.

• Start your timer: 11 seconds, no more.
• Don’t zoom in right away: scan the grid row by row, from left to right.
• No scrolling until you’ve found it, or until time is up.

Stuck? Here’s a hint

Why your eyes skip right over it

Your brain doesn’t read every number one by one. After the first few 929s, it builds a pattern and starts filling in the rest automatically. Since the odd number uses exactly the same digits, just in a different order, it blends into the pattern. That’s what makes this kind of puzzle so tricky, and so satisfying when you finally spot it.

To be honest, this isn’t an eye exam or an IQ test. It’s a fun attention game: your speed depends on your screen, your focus, and where your eyes happen to land first.

The solution

Found it in under 11 seconds? You’ve got eagle eyes. Didn’t make it? Try again tomorrow: these puzzles get easier with practice.

Want more?

If you enjoyed this one, here’s a video full of similar challenges to test your eyes again.

Eleven seconds, one odd number and a brain that loves patterns. Did you find it?

The post You have eagle eyes if you can spot the odd number hiding among these 929s in 11 seconds appeared first on TheCoolist.

The machine is rarely the problem. The settings are, and they are not your fault: a heat pump behaves nothing like the furnace most of us grew up with, and the thermostat menu never explains the difference. Fixing it costs nothing but ten minutes.

Why A Heat Pump Punishes Furnace Habits

A heat pump doesn’t make heat, it moves it from outside to inside, which is why the Department of Energy credits it with delivering up to three times more heat than the electricity it consumes. Most US systems also carry a backup: electric resistance strips that work like a giant toaster. Building scientist Allison Bailes sums up the gap in one line: “The heat you get from the heat pump itself is about three times more efficient than the electric resistance heat.” So every hour the strips run instead of the compressor, you pay roughly triple for the same warmth.

Nearly every expensive mistake comes down to one thing: a habit that wakes up the strips. That is exactly what one Mid-Atlantic homeowner suspected after a winter of painful bills, in a Reddit thread picked up by The Cool Down. Commenters zeroed in on the thermostat handing the job to the backup heat at too high an outdoor temperature.

The Settings To Change Tonight

Five corrections, in order of payoff:

• Shrink the night setback. A deep overnight turndown saves money with a furnace. With a heat pump, the morning catch-up is precisely when the strips kick in. Keep the house steady between 68°F and 72°F, and if you lower it at all, stay within 3 to 5 degrees. If 68 still feels chilly, the fix is usually in the room, not on the dial.
• Stay on “Heat,” not “Emergency Heat.” Heat pumps keep working as it gets colder; they simply move less heat. On “Heat,” the thermostat adds backup only when it is needed. “Emergency Heat” runs the strips alone, all the time. Save it for a breakdown.
• Drop “Auto” mode for the winter. Auto can bounce between heating and cooling to hold a number, so you end up paying for cooling you never wanted. Choose “Heat” and leave it there.
• Stop the on/off routine. In Maine, where residents have installed more than 200,000 heat pumps, the state’s energy efficiency program is blunt about it: “Turning heat pumps down when you’re away or asleep may actually use more energy than leaving them on.” Set it once and let it run.
• Ask about the backup lockout. Many systems let a technician set the outdoor temperature below which the strips are allowed to help. Set too high, the strips cover for the compressor on mild days. If your bill looks wrong, this is the first question for your installer.

Defrost, Filters And The Honest Limit

Defrost is where many owners panic. On frosty days the outdoor fan stops and the unit seems to quit, but a normal cycle runs about 5 to 15 minutes, every 30 to 90 minutes. Don’t switch to Emergency Heat or shut the system off. Keep 2 to 3 feet of clearance around the outdoor unit, brush snow off gently, and never pour hot water on the coil. Clean mini-split filters every two to four weeks, ducted filters every three months.

As for savings, no honest percentage applies to every home. The gain depends on how much of your heat was coming from the strips: if they were running for hours on cold mornings, correcting the habits that call them can cut a large share of the bill; if your system was already set right, expect little. And if frost keeps building, the unit defrosts constantly or never, or the strips still run on mild days, call a technician: a refrigerant leak or a dirty coil is not a settings problem.

Set it, leave it on “Heat,” and let the compressor do the work you paid for. That’s the trick.

The post He ‘tricked’ his heat pump and cut his electricity use by 35 percent appeared first on TheCoolist.

This homeowner ignored all of it. She picked up a single color, let a painter do his thing over one weekend, and ended up with what honestly looks like a different house.

You have seen this kitchen before. Millions of American homes got built or flipped between 2008 and 2016 with this exact combo. The espresso stain was the fancy upgrade back then. The speckled granite was the “safe” counter that was supposed to work with anything. The warm beige tile sat in every builder catalog. Then around 2020, the internet turned on all three at once, and the only word anyone used for it was “dated.”

Everyone would have told her to go white. She went navy. Smart call.

The color is Sherwin-Williams Naval

The cabinets got refinished in Sherwin-Williams Naval (SW 6244) in a satin sheen. One deep, almost black blue, sprayed over the exact same doors, the same crown, the same side panels. Clean the wood down, light sand, prime, two coats, done. Nothing else got swapped. The boxes stayed. The doors stayed. Even the little brushed nickel knobs stayed on.

Here’s what those exact doors looked like a week earlier, in the espresso they came in.

Side by side, so you can see what paint actually did to this door.

Watch what happens to the shape. Those raised panels were built to carry a dark finish. In the espresso, the shadow lines inside the molding read as streaks and grime. In the Naval, those same shadow lines turn into depth. The door stops looking cheap and starts looking like real cabinetry.

You will love these

TRENDING

They spray painted the honey-oak cabinets with a $10 gun: now the whole kitchen looks brand-new

JUST IN

He refused to replace his dated granite countertops: one Sherwin-Williams color changed the whole kitchen

The granite is the real surprise

This is the part most people do not see coming. That busy speckled granite everyone kept telling her to replace? It is now the best thing in the room.

The stone has cool gray tones and tiny flecks of blue hiding in the pattern. Set it against brown wood and those cool colors get swallowed, so the counter just reads as noise. Set it against Naval, and the gray and blue in the stone finally have a partner. The speckle stops looking like a mess and starts looking like movement. A counter her painter was ready to help her replace is now the thing holding the whole room together.

The backsplash and the floor get to stay warm

This is the quiet reason white paint would have been a disaster here. The beige tile and the medium-dark hardwood are both warm colors. Paint the cabinets white and those warm pieces suddenly look yellow and tired next to the cool white, and you end up on the hook for new tile and new floors too.

Naval does the opposite. Deep cool color up top, warm stone in the middle, wood floor at your feet. That is how the expensive kitchens of 2026 are put together.

She did not chase a trend. She happened to land in the middle of one because she picked the one color that let every warm surface in the room keep breathing.

A quick test if you want to try this at home

Grab a dark navy paint chip at any hardware store and hold it up against your own granite and your own backsplash in the actual kitchen light. If the warm tones in your counter and your tile look richer and more intentional next to the blue, your kitchen is a strong candidate. If the warm tones look muddy or washed out, your stone is probably running cooler and a warm off-white would serve you better.

What stayed exactly where it was

Same cabinets. Same doors. Same granite. Same backsplash. Same floor. Same stainless fridge, stove, microwave and dishwasher. Same knobs. The only new material in the whole room is a gallon or two of paint.

The whole job was a clean, a light sand, a prime, and two sprayed coats of Naval in satin. One painter. One weekend without a working kitchen. One kitchen that stopped looking like 2012 and started looking like something she picked on purpose.

If this is the kitchen sitting in your house right now, you do not have the problem the internet keeps telling you that you have. You have a kitchen that is one color away from new.

The post She kept every dark raised-panel cabinet and painted them Sherwin-Williams Naval: now it looks custom appeared first on TheCoolist.

Every outlet and light switch sits in a box cut straight through the drywall into the wall cavity, and on exterior walls that cavity connects to outside air. The Department of Energy’s researchers note that, especially in older buildings, uninsulated outlet and switch boxes let outside air straight in, and across a whole apartment those small leaks add up to significant air leakage, which is why the DOE recommends sealing them. Hold a hand flat over an exterior-wall outlet on a cold, windy day and you can feel it: a thread of winter arriving through the socket.

The trick: a foam gasket behind every plate

The product is a pre-cut foam insulation gasket, a thin fire-retardant pad shaped exactly like an outlet or switch plate, sold in multipacks for a few dollars at any hardware store. The install is the whole charm of the trick:

1. Kill the power to the outlet at the breaker; thirty seconds of caution for a job around live terminals.
2. Unscrew the cover plate, one screw, usually.
3. Press the gasket over the outlet, so its cutouts line up with the receptacles or switch toggle; it lies flat against the drywall, covering the gap around the box.
4. Screw the plate back on. The plate compresses the foam into an air seal. Restore power. Next outlet.

An evening does the whole apartment. Priority order: every outlet and switch on exterior walls first, then interior walls that back onto unheated space, stairwells, garages, that cold hallway, because an interior-looking wall can hide an exterior cavity behind it, and those outlets leak just as much. For sockets that stay empty most of the year, add childproof-style plug caps; they block the last leak path, through the slots themselves.

Why renters love this one specifically

It’s the rare weatherization upgrade with no permission slip: no caulk gun, nothing glued, nothing altered, two screws per outlet and fully reversible on moving day, which is exactly why it’s an apartment classic rather than a homeowner one. If a gasket alone doesn’t kill a strong draft, the heavier follow-up is sealing the gap between box and drywall with acrylic caulk, never foam or caulk inside the box itself. And the hand-test that found the leak belongs to a family: the same cold-day tour that runs the paper test on every window should end at the wall plates. While each plate is off, give the outlet itself two seconds of attention, the electricians’ checklist applies here too.

A stack of foam pads, a screwdriver, one evening. The wall stops breathing winter, the couch corner warms up, and the trick stays invisible behind the plates, which is exactly where the best ones live. That’s the difference it makes.

The post Her simple trick for the apartment’s power outlets makes all the difference appeared first on TheCoolist.