shape
carat
color
clarity

The comforts of home..

Gypsy

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I thought this could be a thread like the beauty products thread but about household items, goods, decorating and stuff.

What household items are you loving? What do you need? Sheets, cat trees, dog doors, laundry detergent, vacuum...whatever.

Anyone tried Persil laundry detergent? I use Kirkland's free and clear, but the commercials have me curious.
 

Arcadian

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We're in process of moving, so basically its a big spring cleaning session :lol:

One of my loves is my Miele White Pearl vacuum. I'm contemplating getting a new one especially after the last repair (wasn't cheap!). I'm particularly drawn to the C3 Calima (its yellow :love: ) These are the only vacs that are sealed. Considering anything I get will be used 2x a day in spring/summer, hardiness is a must.
 

missy

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There are so many things for me. In fact I have duplicated everything I need and love at our beach house.

Same bed, same mattress, same comforter and same sheet and pillows and pillowcases. LOL I am that much a creature of habit and much like (unfortunately) the princess and the pea in that I have lots of trouble sleeping in an unfamiliar environment with different things like beds, sheets, comforters and pillows. Hence the reason I duplicated every single thing that has to do with sleeping. :oops: You can imagine how traveling was quite challenging for me when I used to travel more often. Now the main traveling I do is to and from the beach house back and forth from our NY home.

I love our Dyson cordless vacuum and have 2 of those as well.
We have 2 Vitamixes one for each home too.

Coffee machine, popcorn popper, Cybex arc trainer, Precor treadmills all duplicated (and in some cases triplicated :lol: ).

Our precious TIVOs. We love TIVO so much we have 5 of them. 8) Cannot tolerate the cable providers DVRs. They are not nearly as good and we have tried many of them but always come back to TIVO.

Gypsy, we use Kirkland Free and Clear too but are not loyal to the brand in that any detergent free of that stuff works for us.

Loyal to Scott tissue toilet paper though. I don't like any other tp.


Love the kirkland tissues.

For my dh the FAGE Greek yogurt. My dh loves this and buys it every week.

We love Apple products. iPhone, Macbook air, Macbook Pro, iPads, desktop iMac, etc. Sadly I have to admit this LOL I resisted for a long time and realize for us nobody does computers etc better. Worth the extra cost IMO.

A brand of tools far superior to anything else on the market according to my dh.
Festool. Faster easier smarter tools (made in Germany). Track saw, Miter saw, Router, Sander, Dust extractors, etc. Greg buys most of the stuff from them for his woodworking shop. They don't make everything but what they do make he loves.

And pretty much loyal to almost anything by Kirkland. We LOVE Costco. :bigsmile:

And lastly we will never buy another brand of tandem. We LOVE our Calfee custom carbon tandem bicycle and no other brand will do for us anymore. They are simply the best.

ETA: Realize that some of these things are not traditionally considered "household" items but for us we love them so much that we do consider them necessities like household items so hope it's OK I included them in your thread Gypsy.

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kirklandunscentedtissues.jpg

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rainydaze

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Fun thread Gypsy! I love decorating and have so much fun organizing and optimizing my home.

I haven't tried Persil, maybe I'll check it out! I have been using Ecos, along with A&H Washing Soda and white vinegar as a bleach & softener. I've been very happy with that combo.

I love Rachel Ray's oil dispensers, they keep things I use all the time handy. I have three on my island - a blue one for vinegar (for cleaning my cutting boards), a green one for olive oil, and red one for safflower oil (for high heat cooking). I broke one and immediately bought a replacement, can't live without them!

I also love butter crocks. I hate cold, rock-hard butter that won't play nicely. Whenever my mom would visit, I'd find my butter back in the fridge, and I think sometimes DH would put it back in there too. Then I discovered butter crocks, which let you keep the butter out of the fridge and help keep it fresher longer, but it stays nice and soft. Perfect!

aquadispenser.jpg

new-aqua-mattea.jpg
 

rainydaze

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Haha, missy I love that you included toilet paper! Some people (ahem, my mom) don't understand being particular about TP, but DH and I both have to have Charmin. And now that they make MEGA rolls, yeah. With a family of five it's sad how much tp we go through, and those mega rolls make a difference as to how many times I find myself changing tp... and how many tubes we recycle.
 

jordyonbass

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We've got this Eucalyptus air freshener that is really strong, makes the house smell amazing. It's not like most pressurized cans of spray, rather it's a bottle of liquid that sprays mist into the air. Every time I spray it and smell it I feel like any flu/cold germs in the house are being sanitized. There is another bottle of it that the company sells that is an orange/citrus smell but the eucalypt is soooo much better.
 

ame

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I am also curious about Persil, but I usually get those big jugs of the Arm and Hammer detergent at Costco. I love the smell. My sister uses it, and I'd smell the babies (sans poop or pee anyway) and think "oh man the babies smell so delicious" and thought seriously that that was the smell of the babies. No it was this freaking detergent. :doh: But now I feel like my littles are in my house :)

Otherwise--I must have Cottonelle Ultra toilet paper. Whenever Costco has it on special I buy like 6 packages. We have so much g'damn toilet paper in my house it's ridiculous. I HOARD IT. Actually I bring some to work, half of what I buy I stock at work, because princess likes her butt to have the cushy stuff.

I also like to use Honest baby wipes. For a variety of things. Facewipes for makeup removal, and when I sweat and can't immediately shower, I wipe my neck and face and chest and stuff down, sometimes I might use them for uh, hygiene (DO NOT FLUSH.) But I am not allergic to them, which is most important. I send my sister a bundle of dipes and wipes, and they're also the only wipes the babies are not allergic to. There is something about most of the mass diapers, even marked sensitive that absolutely eat our skin alive, and this brand does not do that.

Costco paper towels are my favorite.

Method Dish Soap in the Tangerine (mandarin? whatever the orange one is). I love the smell.

Tums always have to be the Peppermint ones. I can't do fruit. My brain tells me that my heartburn will go away with the cooling coating of mint. I have no idea how I've convinced myself of that but whatever.

I am all Apple products and DH is all PC though he does have an iPad and iPhone. So I guess I am luring him to the darkside.
 

ame

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rainydaze|1461937540|4025059 said:
Haha, missy I love that you included toilet paper! Some people (ahem, my mom) don't understand being particular about TP, but DH and I both have to have Charmin. And now that they make MEGA rolls, yeah. With a family of five it's sad how much tp we go through, and those mega rolls make a difference as to how many times I find myself changing tp... and how many tubes we recycle.
Yea my family thinks I am weird about TP but I have a hard on for Cottonelle Ultra. Costco gets the mega rolls in a killer deal a few times a year.
 

rainydaze

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jordyonbass|1461938569|4025069 said:
We've got this Eucalyptus air freshener that is really strong, makes the house smell amazing. It's not like most pressurized cans of spray, rather it's a bottle of liquid that sprays mist into the air. Every time I spray it and smell it I feel like any flu/cold germs in the house are being sanitized. There is another bottle of it that the company sells that is an orange/citrus smell but the eucalypt is soooo much better.

I know you're down under, and I'm in the US, so we may not have access to it here, but care to share the deets? I am always on the lookout for a nice scent for my home. I get headaches easily from most scents, which makes it very difficult to find something I like that doesn't also kill me. I'd be curious to try this!
 

jordyonbass

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rainydaze|1461941237|4025088 said:
jordyonbass|1461938569|4025069 said:
We've got this Eucalyptus air freshener that is really strong, makes the house smell amazing. It's not like most pressurized cans of spray, rather it's a bottle of liquid that sprays mist into the air. Every time I spray it and smell it I feel like any flu/cold germs in the house are being sanitized. There is another bottle of it that the company sells that is an orange/citrus smell but the eucalypt is soooo much better.

I know you're down under, and I'm in the US, so we may not have access to it here, but care to share the deets? I am always on the lookout for a nice scent for my home. I get headaches easily from most scents, which makes it very difficult to find something I like that doesn't also kill me. I'd be curious to try this!

Just google searched it, it's called Orange Power by Planet Ark. And it's not actually Eucalypt but Lemon Myrtle and Orange Oil, interesting because I could have sworn it was Eucalypt. The Orange Oil scent is also nice but that yellow bottle is the bee's knees!!
Also if scents can give you a headache then go very easy on it, one or 2 sprays per room will be plenty!!

orange-power_4cdb8fe59ed7b.jpg
 

PintoBean

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I :love: :love: :love: Charlie's soap for laundry detergent. It's in a tub with a little green scooper to scoop out the powder. It's supposed to be more environmentally friendly than your typical detergent.

I also :love: :love: :love: biokleen powder dishwasher detergent - the one with the orange scent - i believe that's the original.

With a year old newly renovated interior, I am cuckoo about my vacuum cleaner having BUMPERS! So I :love: :love: :love: my vacubumpers. They stick on with velcro, and you can remove them to wash.

All three items I get from amazon.com

OHHhhhh.... LITTER GENIE and CLEVER cat and LARGE litter mat.
 

rainydaze

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Awesome! Thanks jordy!
 

rainydaze

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PintoBean|1461943367|4025108 said:
I :love: :love: :love: Charlie's soap for laundry detergent. It's in a tub with a little green scooper to scoop out the powder. It's supposed to be more environmentally friendly than your typical detergent.

I also :love: :love: :love: biokleen powder dishwasher detergent - the one with the orange scent - i believe that's the original.

With a year old newly renovated interior, I am cuckoo about my vacuum cleaner having BUMPERS! So I :love: :love: :love: my vacubumpers. They stick on with velcro, and you can remove them to wash.

All three items I get from amazon.com

OHHhhhh.... LITTER GENIE and CLEVER cat and LARGE litter mat.

Oh Pinto, YES, good one! I have the LitterChamp... total genius. LOVE that thing.

Off to check out vacuum bumpers... :appl:
 

stracci2000

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Missy, I'm with you about Scott tissue.
It's the only brand I buy.
A long time ago my grandmother told me that you get so much more square footage of paper from Scott than the other brands. I started to compare brands, and she was right.
If you stand in the store, and start looking at the square footage, you will be amazed at the difference.
 
Q

Queenie60

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I have the built in vacuum in my home, where you plug the hose in the outlet in each room. My favorite part of this system is the toe kick under my kitchen island. I just swifter all of the debris up to this mechanism, give it a little tap and the vacuum opens up and sucks all of the debris into this small suction. It's wonderful and very user friendly!!

And can't live without my Vitamix. It's the one appliance (aside from my Nespresso latte machine) that I use daily, soups, salad dressings, and everything else.

Now for the challenge - as of today, the installation of my new audio/video system is being completed. Everything will be wireless - I'm scared to death!! I am not tech savvy and hope that this system is user friendly as they described it to be. Updates to follow :|

Love this thread Gypsy. :appl:
 

Sky56

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Haha Missy - we are so much alike. Scott TP fan for decades. And I came to the very late realization that I like Apple the best.
 

Arcadian

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My other is my pressure cooker. Took me a long time to get over my fear of the things. I had a stove top one (yeah they can be dangerous!!!)

The one I currently have is Instant Pot 7 in 1 Love that its not that nonstick interior crap. Pretty much make the majority of lunches and dinner in it over the summer when I don't want to heat up the house. it will come in very handy where I'm going.
 

Puppmom

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You guys...I'm drooling over here. With two small children, one large dog and one income for two years there are pretty much no comforts at my house...for us parents anyway! :lol:
 

purplesparklies

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Arcadian said:
My other is my pressure cooker. Took me a long time to get over my fear of the things. I had a stove top one (yeah they can be dangerous!!!)

The one I currently have is Instant Pot 7 in 1 Love that its not that nonstick interior crap. Pretty much make the majority of lunches and dinner in it over the summer when I don't want to heat up the house. it will come in very handy where I'm going.

I haven an Instant Pot but have never used it! I need to get it out and figure out how it works as it sounds perfect for the summer months!
 

packrat

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Going to check out that air freshener, thanks Jordy! I'm a nervous wreck about my house all the time--a husband, 2 kids, four cats and a dog who sometimes pees on the back deck and rolls in it..I'm always worried my house smells funny. I have a plug in Glade oil thing and a Scentsy pot in the kitchen.

Not much for comforts here...I do compare square footage of toilet paper and prices tho! One of the kinds is so soft it leaves like..lint all over. I think it's the kind w/the baby on it. We don't use that anymore.
 
Q

Queenie60

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Hang in there Puppmom and Packrat - once the kiddies are grown, things will get better - I promise! I remember the days of poop, toys and all of the messes that you just can't keep up with. Your time will come, enjoy the chaos while you're young! :wavey:
 

luv2sparkle

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I LOVE my dyson cordless vacuum. I own two of them. I also own a Miele and it doesn't get used very often now.
I recently bought an air fryer from QVC. We all love it. The kids use it continually.

I love charman TP-buy that at costco.
 

rainwood

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My Nespresso Latissima Pro, hands down. Love it!

All my tech stuff is Apple: iMac, MacBook, iPhone, iPod, iPad, Time Capsule. Would never go back to the PC universe. The two exceptions for Apple are my Bose computer speakers and my Bose Soundlink Mini. They sound great even though they are small.

All Free & Clear detergent, Method Granite Cleaner and Peppermint Anti-Bac Cleaner and lots of other Method cleaners, Target's in-house brand of liquid hand soap in Aloe, Great Northern TP in the giant Costco rolls (Cottonelle would be a good second place). My Shark vacuum cleaners (I like them better than my Miele canister and the Dyson Animal I gave away). I also like the Swiffer Vac that I'm not sure they make anymore.

Love my terra cotta tortilla warmer I got in Santa Fe 25 years ago. Keeps the tortillas perfectly warm and moist. My Tramontina 12" salute pan they don't make anymore. My Wolfgang Puck pots and pans with glass lids from a long time ago. My Tramontina pasta pot that has a flat strainer you slide onto the top lip to drain the pasta. Takes up way less dishwasher space than the separate strainer you lift out of the pan. My Cuisinart food processor from the 70's. Built like a rock and still works perfectly. The non-stick muffin bakeware I bought in Paris and the Gastoflex non-stick bakeware I've found a few times since. Expensive but better than the silicone ones. The USA non-stick cookie sheets and jelly roll pans they have at Costco.

I could go on and on, but even some of the stuff I didn't indicate came from Costco which is my favorite place on earth to shop. You can get some great stuff there if you have the patience to look.

Oh, and my Costco canvas prints of favorite photos. I have them all over the place.
 

marcy

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Great thread Gypsy! It's fun to see what other people like and must have!

Paper products: Puffs with lotion (switched to them during a bad cold and never went back), Quilted Northern (only TP we buy) and Viva paper towels (love how thick they are)

Luggage and briefcases: Tumi - they wear like iron

Computers / laptops / phone / tablets: Apple

Soda: 8 oz Coke in bottles

Kitchen Aid stand mixer

DH would say his Nespresso espresso machine

Fleece blankets they are so soft and warm

Cheer Free detergent

Release non stick foil it saves me from washing lots of dishes
 

Matata

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Gypsy

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Awesome posts! I am going to have to check a lot of this stuff out.

I remember someone from overseas telling me that toilet paper fixation was very much an American thing. We used to use Charmin, when our Costco carried it. Now we use Quilted Northern, which I like too. Not as much as I like Charmin, but still very much.

Rainwood, I think I have the same Tratimonia with the flat strainer. It's a great pot, very durable and convenient. Costco is our go-to as well.

You know what I love? My memory foam kitchen mat. It's ugly (large and gray) but it's a lifesaver for the joints when I am cooking.

I just bought this: http://www.surlatable.com/product/PRO-2393668/Sur+La+Table+Tri+Ply+Stainless+Steel+Nonstick+Skillet I'll let ya'all know how I like it.


We're going to be in the market for a new mattress soon. Ours is giving both of us the pain.

Air freshener is a bigger for us too. 5 cats.

Keep'em coming. Love these posts!
 

Gypsy

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Matata

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Gypsy|1461981343|4025368 said:
Matata|1461980312|4025362 said:
Well I never thought I would be ecstatic about self-cleaning litter boxes but I just bought 2 Litter Robot Open Air boxes and these cat litter trapper mats http://www.amazon.com/Trapper-EXCLUSIVE-Waterproof-iPrimio-Feature/dp/B0163NXEM8?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00

I've gone from 4 litter boxes in the house to two! Oh happy happy day.


Matata, if they hold up after 6 months with your cats, let me know.

Will do Gypsy. It was touch and go the first week. Atticus thought it was a toy and would jump in it just activate the cleaning cycle to watch it turn. Then he figured out how to get the waste drawer open and would run the machine so all the litter fell out into the base where the waste drawer should have been. LOL. Thankfully, the novelty is wearing off. He still raptly watches it go through the cleaning cycle but hasn't tried to dismantle them in days.
 

MarionC

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Mrs. Meyer lavender cleaning products. All of them: laundry, kitchen, bath.
and really good paper towels. I consider both of these comforts indulgences which makes them seem even better!
 

Jambalaya

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Great thread! Love hearing about everyone's creature comforts.

I tend to spend any spare money on bling rather than the house. My deal with the house is that I love it to be clean and neat, and I have a modern kitchen and bathroom (granite etc) but beyond that, I've never gone down the route of making it look like a magazine spread. I think that could get real expensive, real quick, and it's not something I want to spend a ton on. So I don't buy much for the house at all, mainly things that need replacing. I still have a lot of nice china, glass, bedding and kitchen implements from when I got married years ago.

However, I do consider myself to be a homebody. I love being at home. I love the couch with its built-in chaise. I also love my light, fluffy royal-purple furry robe. A good robe is a must, and snuggly slippers also, the ones that are boots with furry bits inside all around your ankle. I also love to have a good desk, and I have two. One is a large oak table in front of a window - I love to sit at that desk and do paperwork or write letters. The other one is more of a bureau and I don't sit at the desk part so much as store a lot of things in the hutch, and the whole thing is painted cream so it looks very pretty. I also love my collection of books housed in oak bookcases.

I have two blankets that are pastel tartans, and they're beautiful. I have one blanket on the bed and one on the chaise to snuggle under, with my robe and slippers! Did I mention I'm a homebody?

I bought two houseplants for the first time ever, in the last 18 months. One has red flowers and the other has white. This is a true story: The red one did not flower for a year, until I bought the white one, and then the red one flowered like crazy and continues to do so. I made it jealous by buying another plant. I know zero about flowers and plants but I chuck them some water every so often and we seem to get along.

Does anyone have a recommendation about where I can get a good white fitted sheet for a queen-size? I had a Ralph Lauren one which lasted for years, until it tore, and now I have a Martha Stewart but I've only had it a couple of years and it has a small tear. When I go shopping it's all sheet sets, which I don't want - I just want one fitted sheet which is good quality without paying a fortune.

I have a large bath which I use about twice a week (in addition to daily showering, I'd like to add!) I love a hot, deep, soapy bubble bath. Nothing like it!

My favorite thing ever is when the kitchen is really clean and neat, including inside of the cabinets and the fridge, and I have the radio on and tuned to an interesting program, the window open, and I'm cooking something tasty.

Nothing better than a clean, neat, well-ordered home. I do have a lot of drawer inserts and boxes so the insides of all my storage are quite well-organized. I do have a place for everything and I find that quite satisfying. I'm also good at having major clear-outs. I cannot stand clutter, having grown up in a very cluttered home, and I positively love getting rid of stuff.
 
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