1. Coffee container
Lugging a heavy bag of seeds or lawn fertiliser out to the footpath is no fun, and it’s tough to spread evenly with a shovel or cup.
You get a clump in one spot and none in another, so you’re wasting both time and product.
Here’s a great solution. Make a ‘sidewalk salt shaker’ from a big plastic coffee container with a handle.
Poke 1/4-in. holes in the lid and fill it with sand, cat litter, seeds, or a mix of whatever you want and shake away! — Tony DeMarse.
If the yard has more weeds than grass, the simplest solution might be to dig it all up and start again.
2. Hose reel
To keep holiday lights from getting tangled and make it easy to string them around the yard next year, roll all the strings of lights onto a portable hose reel with wheels and a handle.
Fancy sprucing up your current hose reel? Build a latticed structure from treated pine to store a garden hose and reel, using it as a trellis to grow screening plants.
3. Ice trays
Forget the old coffee can filled with your lifetime collection of screws, washers and other hardware.
Take 10 minutes to organise the miscellany in ice cube trays.
Nail together a case from scrap plywood and carry it right to the job at hand.
Thanks to reader Leo McSherry for this extremely cool tip.
While you’re getting organised, create a basic DIY kit with these ten tools, including clamps and vices, ladders and hammers.