An Emergency First-Aid Kit For Your Home
Are you prepared for emergency quick fixes in your home? Do you have the basic tools and supplies for quick patches and repairs that may pop up? And more importantly, do you know where they are.
It’s your birthday and you’re celebrating by having a group of friends over for a fun night. There’s laughter, and games, and some wine involved. Oh no! Someone bumps into a side table and knocks a glass of red wine onto your soft, plush, off-white area rug! You need to take steps now to prevent a rose-tinted stain from setting in!
You never know when a scenario like this could happen. That’s why I have put together a list of first-aid essentials for your home. I advise keeping them in a bucket or bag altogether. Heck, label it your Home Repair Kit. And tell your husband not to move it from its spot in the storage room.
Here are more ways to take care of your home.
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What To Put In Your Home Repair Kit
These items are ones that you won’t find in your basic tool kit. It’s handy to have a basic tool kit around the house too with items like a tape measure, hammer, multi-bit screwdriver, and utility knife. I recommend picking one up if you don’t already have a tool kit. Then have a separate repair kit with the following:
- Clean Rags/ Microfiber Cloths
- Club Soda
- Eraser Sponge
- Bar of White Soap
- Furniture Markers
How To Tackle That Wine Stain
Let’s go back to the wine-stained area rug scenario. Oh no! Someone bumps into a side table and knocks a glass of red wine onto your soft, plush, off-white area rug! Before you murder them, reach for a clean microfibre cloth and club soda. Dab at the spill with your cloth and let it absorb as much wine as it can. Work your way in from the outside of the spill, dabbing gently. Don’t rub at the rug or it will break the fibers. Then spritz with club soda.
Let it sit for a bit before dabbing that up with another clean cloth. Repeat the process. The nice thing is that most carpets have Scotchguard or stain-resistant materials built into the strands so those dang spills can’t take hold, giving you more time to clean it up. If you still see a stain after it’s dried then hire a professional cleaner, they should be able to get the rest of the stain out since you took preventative measures right away.
Club soda can also help get stains out of fabrics likes clothes or drapery.
Other Types of Emergencies
People are often afraid of hanging art and pictures because they don’t want too many holes in their walls. But art is one of the best ways to add personality to a room so I say go for it! If you find yourself taking down or needing to reposition a hanging picture, don’t be afraid to make those adjustments. Yes, you now have an exposed nail hole, but you can help hide the blemish without a complete paint job. Use a bar of soap and rub it over the hole a few times. Soap shavings will fill in the hole and you will barely notice it. Nail holes are not massive so a tiny white dot on your wall won’t stand out. Unless you have dark paint, then you may want to use a charcoal soap bar instead of white.
If you still can’t stand that hole, and you have some leftover paint, use a fine paintbrush and dap a spot of paint on the soap filler. a small paintbrush is also great for fixing wall scratches and any minor touch-ups. I’ve even used a small paintbrush and tester can of white paint to cover spaghetti sauce stains on the dining room stippled ceiling. I have no idea how that got there…
Multi-Purpose Tool
Painters Tape is a necessity in my opinion. Yes, it is used for covering baseboards, light fixtures, and windows while painting. But it can be so much more. Since it is not super sticky, it won’t peel paint off your walls. Use it to tape up paper grids when planning a wall gallery layout.
Then use a strip of painters tape on the back of your pictures, mark on the tape where the hooks are, and use that piece of tape on the wall to plan where your nails go. That way you can make sure your picture will be level and the nails are the exact spacing you need to properly hang your picture.
You can also use it as a great dirt collector in window sill tracks but rolling up some tape with the sticky side out and bouncing your tape ball along the track. Or use this same method to clean the cupholder in your car!
It can also be used as a lint remover when you’re in a pinch.
Another great idea is to put it a piece of tape on the back of the light switch plate when your painting a room, and then write the paint colour and number on the tape. You’ll never have to worry about where you put that paint swatch again if you need more touch up paint in a few years.
Seriously, I think I have more uses for painters tape than I do duct tape! Which is saying a lot for where I come from.
Other Basic Tools in The Home Repair Kit
I use microfiber cloths for everything in my home. When you invest in a good quality microfiber they lift and hold onto dust, dirt, and even germs on your surfaces. A heavier weight means more microfiber in your cloth. You shouldn’t be able to see through your cloth if you hold it up to a light. I use these for getting sawdust off of projects between sandings, dusting and cleaning my house, cleaning blinds, wiping up stains and spills, etc.
A small plastic scraper or trowel is good to have on hand for a lot of uses too. They are meant for applying patching compound or wall filler to holes but I have used them for removing stickers from furniture, or wherever a child thinks is a great place to put stickers, scraping dried food from plates or floors, applying and removing vinyl decals. Just make sure you are using the right amount of pressure so you don’t scratch the surface of the item you’re scraping on.
Eraser sponges are like whiteout for surfaces. You can clean appliances, cabinets, floors, and walls with them. WARNING: they are abrasive and can remove the finish on cabinets and furniture so test a small area first and be careful how much pressure you use. They can also take paint pigment off of walls. But they are also great for sinks, white baseboards, front doors, or cleaning the soles of shoes.
I recommend keeping some markers or crayons in your kit designated for furniture and flooring repairs. You can buy a fancy set with wood tones made to match furniture or hardwood. Or you can take advice from someone in the flooring industry, and just buy a pack of crayons or markers, take out the ones that match the tones of your furniture and use those for quick fixes. It honestly does the same job to repair scratches and scrapes in your wood. No, neither will completely erase the imperfection, once wood is damaged it’s damaged, but the marker or crayon does help to disguise the battle scar.
What’s In Your Emergency Home Repair Kit?
Do you have any supplies that you feel need to be on this list? Let me know! I want to know what your home first-aid kit products are and if they differ from mine. And if you found this list helpful, share it or pin it to save for later!
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