I bought a piece of 1.5 inch stiff foam to try to fix a sag in a bed. It didn’t work but having that thick piece of solid foam around has been a life saver.
Need something flat to put a laptop on? Throw it on the foam. Going to be doing something that requires you to be on your knees for a while? Get the foam!
It went from stupid purchase to something I’d gladly replace if it broke.
Got a bidet as a joke gift for Christmas a few years ago, it has been an absolute game changer. Hate pooping anywhere but home now, I actually feel clean, and use much less toilet paper.
A significant portion of the world uses water to clean after doing their business! It’s just us westerners that are odd about it.
I’m curious what the history behind it is, because I never feel clean if I only wipe. Like if you handled faeces with your hands (for whatever reason) would you be OK with just wiping it off with a paper towel? I sure wouldn’t!
When I worked at a small startup, we were moving to a new office and I was asked to help with the buildout. I engaged with the flooring vendor, and he came by one day to drop off a carpet sample. He put it on my desk where my mouse was. It was a rectangle sample of tight knit office carpet, about 18”x22”. When I got back to my desk, I just put my mouse on top of it and started using it as a mouse pad. That was 15 years and 3 companies ago, and I still use it as my mousepad. It’s perfect for the mouse to glide on, soft enough for my wrist to rest on, absorbent of sweat or drink condensation, and large enough I never hit the edge. I will never not use it. It is my mouse carpet, and I love it.
An oversized poncho cape from the local Goodwill. It was woven in different shades of blue and while I’d never wear it outside, I’ve used it as a wearable blanket at home for a few years now.
I found out it was actually hand made, and costs 300+ USD from the original shop. Bonus points, I feel like a wizard when I wear it
Here’s an odd one my wife and I were just talking about. Some years ago, we were redoing our kitchen and the contractor told us to go buy the kitchen faucet we wanted. We went off, looked at several, and picked the one we thought looked the best with what we were doing.
When the contractor went to install it, he opened the box and a battery pack fell out. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why a faucet would need batteries. It turned out that you can turn it on and off by touching it anywhere (handle, faucet itself, whatever), you just leave the physical handle open and set where you want it, then you can touch on and off. I thought it was the dumbest thing ever and we’d never use it.
Flash Forward to now and it’s one of the most used conveniences we’ve ever bought. All those times your hands are covered in raw meat or other cooking mess? Just touch the faucet with your elbow. Rinsing a bunch of veggies one at a time? Tap on, tap off. It works flawlessly, unlike those touchless ones at the airport: no delay and works every time. We will never have a kitchen sink without it - my wife wants them for the bathroom.
Does it have a timer safety thing? I know my cat would turn the faucet on and let it flood the house lol.
I bought a house with these and didn’t realize it had this feature for like a year (batteries had died). Now I love it. I find myself taping every faucet it use and am annoyed when others don’t turn on.
I actually bought a handfree soap dispenser to go next to it, which is a great combo. Preparing meat or something, I can clean my hands and tap sink with elbow and not worry about cross contamination of everything.
This sounds like something I’d like to get for the shower, but with multiple memory settings, that’s a much different product… Unless I ducted two shower knobs… Oh fuck I feel a project coming on…
We’re about to redo our bathrooms and have started looking at things. One thing we saw that sounded cool are these new thermostatic shower controls: you set them to a temperature and it mixes the water to keep it at that temperature regardless of fluctuations in the hot and cold input. Huh, sounds neat. So we looked at one - over $3000 for just the valve. It doesn’t sound that neat.
Sorry, new?! Unless this is something different from what I’m imagining, thermostatic shower valves have pretty much been the standard in Denmark for all of my life. You can get them for 80 usd (or probably even lower). These are purely mechanical, no need for batteries. I can even find one on US Amazon for around 50 usd (https://www.amazon.com/Bathroom-Thermostatic-Showering-Temperature-Control/dp/B071ZP4ZHN/ref=ex_alt_wg_m?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B071ZP4ZHN&psc=1&pd_rd_w=MLPp3&pf_rd_p=e06954f1-ab26-49e7-940f-21fea3d5decd&pf_rd_r=1YGK573NBS6VC329GYD0&pd_rd_wg=PC4iL&pd_rd_r=4415efd7-7117-45ad-8b60-0a1c86e84ef0&content-id=amzn1.sym.e06954f1-ab26-49e7-940f-21fea3d5decd).
Edit: I realise that this sounded more aggressive than it meant it to. I was simply quite surprised! :)
Omg! Was it designed to go to space? I’ve got an idea for a T valve with 2 sets of always on knobs. The wife says as long as it looks good I can do it…
I think it’ll cost about 200$ to get good looking materials.
I needed a “lap desk” or something to put my laptop on, but I wanted it to be low-profile and I could only find a wooden cutting board. Now wooden cutting boards are the only thing I use as lap desks because most actual lap desks I find are super bulky.
I also ended up doing this after my dad suggested it as an idea… and it’s actually a really great suggestion, they work fantastically well for this purpose!
Yeah it’s exactly what I was looking for! The one I’m currently using was actually the only cutting board that was big enough in the store that I was in, so it has goofy cookings decals all over it 😂
It’s a charcuterie board, not a cutting board, its for parties, the illustrations are telling you what kinds of snacks to put out. What a cool idea for a lap desk, it’s so pretty and unique.