We just got new bamboo flooring installed in our house, and before we rearranged the furniture, I put these reusable furniture sliders under the feet of heavy tables, couches, and credenzas. The bottom of the slider is thick felt and the top is grippy foam rubber. The sliders made it easy to move the furniture without marring the new flooring. They also have sliders that work on carpeted surfaces. — MF

Instead of taping or tacking a poster to the wall, use this inexpensive magnetic poster hanger frame. It comes with weighted magnetic bars to sandwich the top and bottom of the poster so it doesn’t curl when you hang it. — MF

Every evening for the past 20 years I do a short dip in our hot tub just outside our bedroom doors. The totality of my maintenance for the hot tub consists of adding one bromide tablet per week. That is all I do. Having tried different tabs over the years, the best ones are Clorox Spa Brominating Tablets. They give consistent clarity and have the least smell. The water is almost odorless. — KK

Half of our climate goals can be achieved by electrifying everything. This free book, Electrifying Everything in Your Home (PDF download), gives very explicit and useful instructions on how you can electrify your own home and life, even if you are a renter. Covers heat pumps, solar panels, electric vehicles, electric appliances, and more. It’s thorough. I found the section on electric heat pumps (which replace furnaces and air conditioners) particularly helpful because I could not find this kind of reliable actionable info anywhere else. — KK

The most useable flame lighter I have is a Bic Reach. This design takes your usual Bic flick lighter, and outfits it with an extended 1.5” (35mm) pipe that ignites the flame away from your thumb. I find those long butane lighters with a two-button safety switch to be both fussy and unreliable, but a regular Bic can’t reach where I want the flame, so this Bic Reach is just perfect for lighting candles, fireplaces, camp stoves, etc., reliably on the first try. It’s probably not what you’d carry everyday in your pocket, but perfect in the utility drawer. — KK

My mother-in-law got a new bed and the headboard was squashing the extension cord plugged into the wall. I bought this SlimLine Flat Plug extension cord with a right-angled plug and it solved the problem. It has a low-profile and the cord comes out parallel to the wall. Just what we needed! — MF

When we recently had an all-day power outage in my Los Angeles neighborhood, I used my Westinghouse WH2200iXLT Super Quiet Portable Inverter Generator to power our computers, cable modem, Wifi system, refrigerator, coffee grinder, and fan. True to its name, this gas generator purrs. It ran quietly in the backyard from 7am until 5pm with temperatures reaching 90 degrees. — MF

Often the best way to secure one object to another is with heavy duty double-sided tape. The bond may be as strong as screws or nails, without the need for holes. And unlike a glue joint, its tidy, and kinda removable. Put the two-sided tape on, zip off second coating, and squeeze together. Fast. I use this tape for mounting gear, electrical devices on walls and tables where I don’t want screws. The best brand is 3M Heavy Duty Mounting Tape. I am always surprised by how much weight it will hold. — KK

Super glue is runny, which can cause it to drip when you apply it to a vertical surface or be absorbed when you apply it to a porous surface. Gorilla make Super Glue Gel, which solves both of these problems. I used it to glue together pieces of laser cut plywood to make these bowls. — MF

The superpower of this inexpensive Luigi sink plunger is that it can push a much greater volume of water than a toilet plunger. Use it to create a tight seal with the sink drain, press it down, and lift up with force to suck out the gunk clogging the pipe. — MF

This is a gruesome recommendation, but necessary. It’s a better mouse trap. We live in an old rambling house at the edge of wilderness, with no cat, so we have a plague of mice and rats in the basement and garage. As fast as I remove them, they are replaced by newcomers. I’ve tried dozens of different traps, including live traps, and sticky traps, and classic traps, and all fail over time. The best, most reliable, and most re-useable one is Tomcat Rat Snap Trap, which is a pedal type trap. (There are now other pedal type brands I have not tried.) Its main advantage is that it works for both mice and rats. Mice can eat the bait on an ordinary rat trap without tripping it, while a rat can escape a mouse trap. With peanut butter bait this one consistently gets both. — KK

I bought a 48-foot string of these Edison-style LED bulbs for our back patio. They’re bright enough to provide light without being harsh. The bulbs are plastic so they won’t shatter. They add the perfect ambiance for evening get-togethers. — MF

We don’t have a bathtub in our home so luxurious baths are not a possibility for me, but these aromatherapy bomb fizzies by Floroma are designed for showers and are the next best thing. The key to using these is to place them near where the water hits, but not directly beneath. They’re scented with 6 different essential oils (eucalyptus, peppermint, lavender, lemon, rose and orange) and the smell is so relaxing and makes the entire bathroom smell really good. — CD

I was dealing with a stubborn shower drain. Backed up and it smelled bad. Liquid Plumr had no effect. A hose and plumber’s bladder made the water drain slowly, but it clogged right back up again. I bought a jar of Green Gobbler Ultimate Main Drain Opener and poured half into the drain and let it sit overnight. The next morning I poured in a quart of boiling water. Problem solved, and the bad smell is gone. — MF

When I’m searching for something to help with a mobility issue in myself or another, I found looking in this pdf catalog of occupational therapy devices by Functional Solutions to open my eyes to what’s been invented before and already available. They have a lot of cool things for temporary disabilities (say an incapacitated limb) and for old age aids, like ergonomic kitchen utensils, doorknob extenders, or bathroom fixtures. You can’t order from this industry catalog, but you can find the items elsewhere online. Or make one yourself. — KK

We had a $900 robot vacuum cleaner, but our elderly cat mistook it for a litterbox and peed on it, rendering it inoperable. After she died, I bought this cheap Lefant Robot Vacuum Cleaner, and it works as well as the costly one did. It comes with a smartphone app, but I don’t use it. I just push the button and it shoots out of the charging port and starts rolling around sucking up dirt. When the batteries are low it finds its way back to the charger. — MF

A tiny smart plug allows me to control any plugged in device from a voice command given to Alexa. I say, “Alexa, christmas tree lights on” and bingo, they’re on. I use Gosund Smart Plugs, the size of a small adaptor that plugs into the wall. They come in a pack of 4 for $29, which is about the same price as one official Amazon brand smart plug. All are pretty easy to pair to your home’s wifi and Alexa or Google. Or you can also control devices from your phone from far away. You can control anything that you can leave in the “on” state. This is the simplest, cheapest version of a smart home. — KK

We changed sides a few years ago. We went from being a live-Christmas-tree family to embracing a fake tree. Artificial trees have gotten so good looking, so inexpensive, and so easy to assemble, that we are now happy owners of a forever tree. And new ones get better each year. The most realistic trees come from National Christmas Tree Company; they are usually at the top of Wirecutter’s recommendations. The best ones have LED lights built in. We went with a budget, light-less 7.5ft tall Douglas Fir from National for $180. Once decked out with our own lights, and covered with ornaments, you can’t really distinguish it from a real tree. — KK

Until recently, I used crumpled sheets of newspaper to start fires under my charcoal chimney, but I stopped subscribing to print editions of newspapers. I started buying Weber Lighter Cubes instead. They’re the size of an ice cube and ignite charcoal briquettes even faster than newspaper. — MF

In a recent issue of my Magnet newsletter, I asked readers to help me separate two coffee cups that somehow got stuck together. (It’s the second-to-last item in the newsletter.) Almost all of the hundreds of suggestions I received involved cooling the small cup and heating the big one to allow thermal expansion to do its work, but that didn’t help. Can Recomendo readers come up with a solution? Send email to: markfrauenfelder+stuckcups@gmail.com — MF