The Backyard Homestead
Freeing up space and organizing closets, drawers and other cluttered rooms and spaces can sometimes be so overwhelming, especially in today’s busy world. Even if you’re able to put in the extra effort it takes to clean your home, spaces that are disorganized rarely feel clean. And it’s no secret that a more organized home improves the wellbeing of everyone who lives there. That’s why organizing tips, ideas, inspirations, and stories are among Good Housekeeping’s most popular, and with that in mind, we set out to find the best, most useful, most innovative, and most well-designed organizing products, tools and devices.
To select these 34 top-performing products for our first Good Housekeeping Storage Awards, our experts sorted, stacked and sifted through over 140 submissions from the world of organizing products to assess performance, durability, flexibility, versatility, ease of use, aesthetics, size and other criteria. We looked at organizers both big and small — for closets, garages, home office, kids’ supplies and artwork, shoes and accessories, photos, travel, kitchen supplies and food storage and beyond. With over 60 combined years of testing experience in the Good Housekeeping Institute and organizing know-how, you can trust that we can spot a great organizer when we see it!
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Cleaning the toilet is usually everyone’s least favorite task when tidying up the bathroom. But finding the best toilet cleaner can not only make this daunting chore easier but something you may have to do less often. Options to get rid of those toilet rings seem endless with toilet bowl brushes, liquid cleaners, tablets, and automatic toilet cleaners in gels and tablets. If you want to spend less time scrubbing, it’s essential to get the right products for the job.
Luckily, here in the Good Housekeeping Institute Cleaning Lab, we’re bathroom cleaning experts. In addition to our advice on how to remove mold, mildew and hard water stains, we test hundreds of cleaning products each year to find the best of the best, including toilet bowl cleaners. In fact, we’ve just spent three weeks testing 12 different toilet cleaning products to find which ones require minimal effort but yield maximum results. We also review the clarity and completeness of the label directions, the need for any safety warnings based on the ingredients and how easy and neat each product is to use. Our top picks for best toilet cleaners to get rid of tough stains and make your bowl sparkle:
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It’s official: Gray is here to stay. After several seasons of furniture introductions in all shades of gray, we’re seeing more and more of the neat neutral shade throughout the home. And yes… that applies to the kitchen too.
Everything from countertop surfaces to barstools to tilework is being shown in varying shades of gray, from light heathers to dark, rich, almost black charcoal hues. There are still gleaming all-white kitchens out there — especially if you love that Miami penthouse look — but gray kitchens are among of our favorite current trends.
And if you’re looking to introduce a pop of color into your spaces, a gray kitchen is an excellent foundation for the look. Select minimalist gray pieces and juxtapose them with bright or lighter colored items to let them truly shine. You can even use gray as a background for a bold flash of neon, as you’ll see in our gallery of gray kitchens.
These spaces can run the gamut from stately and traditional to uber-modern, sleek city apartments. Consider glossy gray cabinetry for a contemporary home, or lightly painted wood cabinets for a space that’s more country-inspired. A gray kitchen provides a canvas for creativity, regardless of your personal design style. Perhaps best of all, gray tones can highlight the materials you’re working with, much more visibly than a shade of white or black. If you’re selecting rough-hewn gray granite or another type of gray stone for your counters, you’ll be able to see the richness of materials much more visibly than with neutrals on either end of the color scale.
Browse some of our favorite gray kitchens below and get some major designer inspiration for the next time you decide to redo this essential space.
Dan Arnold
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As part of our new GH Stitch Club, we’re showing beginners all the basic techniques for knitting! And the first thing you need to do to get started on any project (FYI: we have a bunch of great options to choose from here), is to learn how to cast on a.k.a place your stitches on your needle.
There are a few different techniques for casting on, including provisional, frilled and long tail, but we advise using the backwards loop method as seen in the video above, especially if this is your first knitting project.
It’s super simple and can be done in just a few of steps:
Make a loop with your yarn and slip it on one of your needles. Then, tighten it just a bit, making sure it’s not too stiff.
Take your yarn and loop it around your thumb. Thread your needle underneath, and create a loop on your needle, again making sure it’s not too tight.
Depending on how many stitches your project requires, you’ll repeat step 2.
Before you know it, you’ll be on your way to knitting like a pro!
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If you’ve been toying with the idea of knitting lately, you’ve come to the right place. As part of our GH Stitch Club, we’re creating easy tutorials that will walk you through the most important components of knitting, including how to cast on and how to cast off.
In this post, we’ll be focusing on how to knit stitch, which is the most basic stitch in knitting. Depending on your project, you may also need to learn a purl stitch or stockinette stitch, but if you’re a beginner, you’ll likely be using a knit stitch for most of your creations.
Step 1: After you cast on, insert your needle from left to right into the first loop.
Step 2: Wrap the yarn over your needle from left to right.
Step 3: Pull the yarn through the first loop on your left-hand needle, creating a loop on your right-hand needle.
Step 4: Slide off one stitch from your left-hand needle. This will give you the first knit stitch on your right-hand needle.
Pro tip: You’ll want to be able to slide your stitches down your needle easily. To do that make sure you’re not pulling the loops too tight.
Step 5: Repeat steps 1 through 4, until all of your stitches are on your right-hand needle.
Step 6: Switch hands and continue on in knit stitch.
Once you’ve created rows, you’ll be working in garter stitch.
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After you’ve finished a knitting project — whether it be a scarf, gloves or blanket — it’s so important to make sure you properly cast off (a.k.a create an end to your knitting). If you’re a beginner knitter, this part might be a little tricky! As part of our GH Stitch Club, we’re breaking down the steps to help you learn how to cast off when knitting (and if you need, take a look at our tutorial on how to cast on for a refresher).
In the video above, we will walk you through casting off (sometimes also called binding off), step by step, ensuring your stitches are safely and neatly sealed off.
Step 1: Insert your needle to knit, and then knit your first and second stitch.
Step 2: Pull the first stitch over your second stitch. Your first stitch will then be wrapped around your second stitch. Pull your second stitch through so it’s solo on your needle.
Pro tip: To avoid curling when casting off, make sure you don’t pull too tightly at the stitches.
Step 3: Knit your third stitch. Pull your second stitch over your third stitch so that your third stitch is solo on your needle.
Step 4: Repeat this process until you get to the end of your row.
Step 5: Once you get to the end, cut the yarn away, leaving just a small tail.
Step 6: Pull the tail through the last loop on your needle and tighten.
Step 7: Using a darning needle, follow the lines of your knitting and weave the tail in and out of the stitches.
Step 8: Cut off an excess yarn.
Now you can rest assured there will be no unraveling!
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To catch every second of your favorite show, you’ll need a television screen that’s dust-, dirt-, and fingerprint-free. But using the wrong cleaning method can negate any warranty that may still be in effect. That’s why the Good Housekeeping Institute’s Cleaning and Media and Tech Labs have joined forces to recommend the safest, most effective methods and products to clean your television screen and reveal a picture that’s brilliant to watch, and scrub down all the accessories that go along with it.
No matter what type of television you have, you’ll need a dry microfiber cloth that’s designed to clean and remove smudges from eyeglasses, cell phones and camera lenses. We like the oversized one from Toddy Gear. It’s nine inches square so it’s easier to use on a large screen than a smaller cloth.
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Alberthe Buabeng, known by most as Albie, is a Washington-based interior design content creator and all-around idea machine. Her passion for decoding spaces is the culmination of nearly a decade of working in the retail visual merchandising and marketing industries, sprinkled with a lifetime of experiences. With a background of space design and storytelling, paired with her real-life lessons, Albie creates content to connect her decor-obsessed audience with beautiful and functional design inspiration.
Her desire to contribute to the design community has also manifested in adapting the #SharetheMicNow Instagram initiative for the home industry; self publishing Curate The Home You’re In, an anecdotal and aspirational home book, and hosting The Design Influence, a podcast and community dedicated to supporting other interior designers in the digital space.
In 2020, the home industry, like much of the world, was shaken by the death of George Floyd. As discussions arose on the topic of inequality, diversity and inclusion within the design business, it felt like more of the same conversations, followed by little to no action. By the time the “black boxes” that were intended to symbolize a need for change emerged on Instagram, there were all kinds of panels and lists put together to showcase Black designers and architects, but I’d yet to see one that could trigger sustainable conversations for change.
Inspired by the original Share The Mic Now campaign on June 10th — founded by Bozoma Saint John, Luvvie Ajayi Jones, Glennon Doyle and Stacey Bendet — I decided that this could be the beginning of something truly powerful in the home industry. A week later, we hosted the inaugural Share The Mic Now: Home Edition, featuring more than 100 participants across two weeks of Instagram takeovers for candid and sustainable discussions about diversity and inclusion in the home industry.
Celebrating the first Black History Month since organizing the #SharetheMicNowHomeEdition initiative, paired with all of the events of 2020, which led to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, I am hypersensitive to how much still hasn’t changed. As a first generation Haitian American, married to a Black man and raising a young Black daughter, I am acutely aware of how discriminatory our society can be and has always been. While also mourning George Floyd, I also painfully remember the attack on Abner Louima more than 20 years ago. After getting bombarded with emails committed to “change” and “equality”, it was time for me to write the words you’re now reading. Last summer, I posted this statement to my white peers on Instagram in an effort to pitch the #sharethemichomeedition initiative:
“What if we could translate momentary sharing into a longer conversation by allowing Black creators to get in front of the audiences of their white counterparts ‘in person’?”
It was one of the most uncomfortable yet freeing comments I’d ever publicly made about the state of the interior design industry — one that has often made me feel like an outsider in need of someone else’s validation.
albieknows
albieknows
Typing some of my most controversial thoughts made me proud. Making my peers uncomfortable made me proud. I’m talking about abolishing the establishment so that we could all thrive based on merit equally.
Why should I need to request a longer conversation to address our longstanding not-so-secret professional segregation? Why request permission from a peer to speak to an audience deserving what I already know I bring to the table? Why ask that someone else’s mic be shared with me?
Mariah Texidor
danielle carson
How can we, as designers collectively, be charged with designing and decorating beautiful spaces when our own interiors are rot? What looks like an industry that’s all-inclusive, all-embracing, is more alienating than accepting. Who are we, as “designers,” to uphold what is beautiful when we’ve for so long ignored the ugliness within our own elitist, exclusive walls?
Who are we, as consumers and creators, kidding when we “amplify” voices for a day? A week? A month? A season?
When behind closed doors the opportunities are riddled with bias—the bias of privilege at best, and ignorance at worst?
Skimming the pages of shelter magazines, browsing the line up of home TV networks and scrolling the social media of brand campaigns has long shown a clear void — a lack of depth resulting from a lack of diversity. We tap-dance around the who, what, when, where, why and how of it all, but the conversations we have ad nauseam don’t yield solutions … just more conversations.
We’re supposed to be the curators of beauty for the world, but is that beauty with an asterisk? What were we really saying when we shared our mics? What did we hope people hear? I have heard a lot of the same, with some sprinkles of seeds for change. I have heard “allies” commit to learn and change and grow. I have heard promises for equity and inclusivity. But what have I seen?
Words.
Requests.
Apologies.
Excuses.
More of the same.
But little to no action.
The hyper visibility has turned to unanswered emails, lost contacts, unbirthed opportunities, “fatigued” allies. Little did we know being “woke” still had a bedtime.
Allies, I’ve been amplified. Do you hear me now?
Are you an ally or an amplifier?
Danielle Carson
Danielle Carson
The irony…
The benefactor of the inequity needs to be the one to intensify the effort to close the divide. How fitting that black boxes become a symbolic social gesture for allyship…black boxes, synonymous with usually the only surviving element of a crash to investigate the cause.
Ladies and gentleman, we’ve crashed, and the black boxes have spoken.
But the season for conversation, and learning, and processing has come to a close.
We’ve seen the truth — an ugly, not-so-new naked truth — and to pretend otherwise is more egregious than having never said anything at all.
Calling all gatekeepers, educators and decision makers, amplification is reactive. It’s time for proactive change. Look at your teams — to your left, to your right, above you and below you. Does everyone look like you or do they look like me too? Do they look like the least of us … the rest of us … the best of us? Not to check a box but to reflect the true beauty of the world around us?
Danielle Carson
Collectively, we are the mic.
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