A round-up of minor furniture hacks includes a simple but appealing idea: carving a slot in the edge of a kitchen island or bench with a circular saw for an easy way of storing knives so they're easily accessible. Good trick for a compact kitchen where you don't want to devote bench space to a separate knife block.

A minor tweak here and there to your laundry and clothing storage routine can yield big savings over time. Over at the financial blog WiseBread, they have some great ideas for cheaply extending the life of your clothes and keeping them nice in the process. The tips cover the basics like washing your clothes in cold water to extend the life to reinforcing the hems of pants when you first buy them to stave off problems later. One of the tips I'm particularly guilty of is not wearing appropriate clothes for the task at hand:

It can be tempting to simply get messy chores done while wearing whatever it is we wore at work, but that's a fast way to ruin work clothes. There's a reason why mums frequently make a distinction between their kids' 'play clothes' and 'school clothes'. If tacking a potentially dirty project, don't do it in a dress shirt and slacks.

I've fixed many a messy problem right after getting home from work without getting out of a nice pair of dress slacks, only to have to spend a ton of time getting a stain out for my lack of foresight. What tips and tricks do you have for keeping your clothes sale day fresh week after week? Share in the comments below. Photo by foxtwo.

The Unclutterer blog offers a smart way to separate your kitchen sponges into various roles. A reader there writes:

In our household, we discovered a trick: the Good Clean sponge [for dishes] is used as-is, straight out of the package. When it gets downgraded to the Wiping Sponge [for kitchen counters and the table], we cut one of the corners off. When the sponge gets downgraded again to a Skunging Sponge [the dregs of cleaning], we cut another corner off.

Sounds like a great way to make sure you're not using a skunky sponge on your cereal bowl.

Cat-lover Alan couldn't stand the stink of the litter box in the garage, so he built in a bathroom fan that vents out the side of the house. To smarten up the system, his Mac mini automates the whole business so it's not running continuously:

In front of the litter box sits a motion detector. When the detector "sees" the cat, it tells the computer to start a timer. After 5 minutes (hopefully enough time for the cat, unless he's reading), the fan kicks on and vents the box for 15 minutes. That's just about enough time to take care of any major business that occurred.

Out of respect for the neighbours, he added a dryer sheet on the vent to mitigate the outgoing fumes. How do you automate litter box stink management? Let us know in the comments.

Tutorial site wikiHow says you can get rid of nastry, goopy build-up on your showerhead without using chemicals—instead, simply simmer it in white vinegar and wipe off any mineral deposits.

Notebooks might be getting smaller and more common, but it still helps to have a decently-sized work area. IKEA Hacker outlines how Jonas upgraded his computer desk by using a cabinet door as a work surface, providing a large, high-gloss surface. This particular furniture hack used a Pax cabinet door, but you could go ultra-cheap by checking for discarded doors in the As-Is section.

DIY web site Instructables has a detailed step-by-step tutorial for setting up your own hydroponics system on a budget with recycled materials. All you'll need to get started is a few 2 litre bottles, tubing, an aquarium pump, and a few other odds and ends—most of which you can find around the house or at your local gardening store. When you're finished, you've got a completely automated hydroponics system that regularly pumps nutrient-filled water to your plants. The final project isn't terribly pretty (it's probably best suited to your garage), but judging by the video in the last step, it appears to work really well. If you're an old hand with with hydroponics, share your experience in the comments.

It's pretty universally accepted wisdom that the best way to find a builder, plumber or other tradesperson is to get a personal recommendation, but that's not much help if no-one you know has employed a tiler recently. WhoCanDo takes the online auction model and applies it to renovations and other household tasks: enter details of your planned project and tradies can bid to win your business. Given that most every plumber I know has more work on than they can comfortably manage, I'm not entirely sure how effective this would be, but it's a pain-free way of getting a few representative quotes if nothing I can do. If you've got any other snazzy techniques for snaring the perfect tradesperson, let's hear them in the comments.

Conceptual designer Danny Kuo has prototyped an ingenious solution for getting to the topmost levels of a tall bookshelf with his StairCASE design. The bookshelf combines the functionality of drawers to make steps to reach the high shelves, as shown. For small apartments with high ceilings, this is a pretty ingenious space-saver. The StairCASE doesn't appear to be available for purchase, but a DIY version wouldn't be too hard for someone out to build a new bookshelf.

Most homes and offices have a "junk drawer," usually located in the kitchen, that serves as a catchall for objects that seem to have no other place to go. A junk drawer is simply part of a home, no questions asked. Right? In his book It's All Too Much, clutter expert Peter Walsh begs to differ.

Lots of kitchens have a "catch-all" drawer. What's in here? It's always a surprise. Soy sauce packets from carryout, rubber bands, pennies, matches, pushpins, a stray refrigerator magnet. I'm only going to say this once: No. Junk. Drawer. Do I make myself clear?

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