25 Genius Hacks To Make Your House Smell Amazing
Sometimes you just need to know how to make your house smell good! These smell hacks for the home are the perfect thing to keep your house smelling good or fixing bad house smells as quickly as possible! The good news is that you likely have the common household items you need to make your house smell great.
How to Make Your House Smell Good
The other day I came home to a smelly house. I had left something extra nasty in the trash can and was totally regretting it. I immediately took it out of course, but I was scrambling to get the entire house smell out!
Fresh air! Fresh air! How does one little smell turn into something so BIG?
I searched around and found some awesome smell hacks to make the house smell good that have helped me in a pinch. I have created this list of my favorite ways how to make your room smell good.
Keep these great ideas around for the next time you are desperate to get your home smelling great. These would be perfect if you have company coming over!
Hacks To Make Your House Smell Good
The good news is just like with BAD smells…a little GOOD smell can make a noticeable difference. It is amazing how a little change can make the house smell good.
1. Change Your A/C Filter with Essential Oils
Make your whole house smell fresh with this totally chemical free air-freshener hack for your air filter we love using your favorite essential oils the natural way! I love how the good smells waft through the entire house.
2. Car Fresheners Freshen Houses Too
Placing a car air freshener to the A/C vents in your home is a great way to make the house smell good and it works quickly for a specific room! via Krazy Coupon Lady
How to Make your Room Smell Great
3. Brew Strong Smelling Tea to Waft Through the House
Make very very very strong tea. Use multiple tea bags in hot water of your favorite herbs (I like to add in some citrus peels) and keep warm over low heat or in a slow cooker. Later you can dilute it for drink! Not only will your house smell better quickly, it is a natural smell that is pleasing.
4. Candle Wax Burner for Smelly Room
Use Gain Fireworks scent booster in your candle wax burner and your house will smell amazing. via Stock Piling Moms – this tip has gotten a ton of bad comments…please use caution and read all about it before using it at your house. You can always use a traditional candle wax burner to deodorize the air.
Related: Make Your Own Candle Wax Melts
5. Make Your Own Room Air Freshener
Make your own room DIY air freshener with natural ingredients and some drops of essential oil so you can make it the perfect scent for YOUR home with your favorite scents. We like to have a small spray bottle of this handy for your room sprays!
6. Crock Pot a Good Smelling Brew to Overcome Weird Smells
The best way to kick stinky smells in your house by filling your crock pot with water and baking soda. via A Year of Slow Cooking
How to Deodorize a Room
7. Homemade Potpourri Smells Great
Make your own fresh scent easily with ingredients right from your kitchen like cinnamon sticks, fresh herbs, orange peels and other natural pleasant smells and simmer in a small saucepan. At first it is your own stovetop potpourri, a personal simmer pot, but later you can use them packaged in mason jars. via The Yummy Life
8. Coffee Beans & Tea Lights Make a Scent Difference
Place a tealight candle inside a jar filled with coffee beans for a vanilla coffee scent which does wonders for removing unpleasant odors from the air. via Smart School House
9. DIY Carpet Deodorizer with Essential Oils
The easiest way to banish carpet odors quickly with this simple carpet cleaner powder that uses drops of your favorite essential oil.
Solution for “My House Never Smells Fresh”
10. Vanilla Extract in the Oven to Banish Odors
Put a few teaspoons of vanilla extract in an oven dish and bake at 300 degrees. Your house will smell amazing. via Lifehacker
11. Dryer Sheets are Not Just for Dryers
A good idea is to quickly get the room smelling good by taping dryer sheets to a box fan. via Society 19
12. Stinky Garbage Disposal Solution
Need some help with a stinky garbage disposal? Check out this short video on getting the smell out of the sink drain and garbage disposal:
Get Rid of Weird Smells
13. Stinky Washing Machine Solution
Washing machine odors can be not only annoying, but penetrate the entire laundry making your clothes stinky too. Yuck! Check out this easy way to fix a smelly washing machine. via Bob Vila
14. Stinky Vacuum Cleaner Solution
What if the unpleasant smells are coming from your vacuum cleaner? This is an easy one! Take some cotton balls and dip them into your favorite pleasant scent, we like essential oils for this and when you turn on the vacuum it will put you into a good mood…guaranteed!
How to Make a House Smell Good Fast
15. Try the Realtor’s Open House Trick!
Another easy trick that most realtors know is to bake cookies! I also like to set the bread machine because nothing smells better than freshly baking bread. One batch can make the whole house smell good making the most wonderful smells…
16. Essential Oil Diffusers
I know this might seem real simple at this point, but a very good option for adding a subtle scent to the room is using essential oil diffusers!
How to Get The Bad Smell Out Of Your House
After trying to make the home smell better without success, you might want to attack the root of the stink and make sure your trash cans are not only empty but washed out and sanitized.
Start with an air purifier and then assess these common reasons a house smells bad and has bad odors with some very doable solutions. It is always best when you can correctly identify the source of bad smells and then try these little hacks.
17. How to get Smoke Smell Out of House
If the source of odor is smoke, try volcanic rock. I know this sounds crazy, but this super smart and surprisingly affordable option can help when complete renovation isn’t an option. via Julie Blanner
18. Boil Vinegar to Reduce Odors
A common suggestion is to boil vinegar and allow it to waft throughout the house. This can also work for steaming clothing with a smokey smell. via Den Garden
19. Use an Odor Absorbing Material
Check out this list of odor-absorbing materials via NACHI:
- vinegar – white vinegar, apple cider vinegar, rice vinegar, etc.
- citrus
- baking soda
- coffee grounds
- charcoal
20. Add Essential Oils to Your Toilet Paper Roll
Try this genius idea to add some essential oil drops to your toilet paper roll to get rid of a smelly bathroom via One Crazy House.
How to Get Rid of Skunk Smell in Your House
21. Make Your Own Skunk Smell Solution
Getting the skunk house smell out is something I am more than familiar with! When we lived in Abilene, TX we had a set of french doors going to the backyard that were obviously not fully sealed. Repeatedly, a skunk who had entered our yard to drink out of the swimming pool and then find our dog, would corner poor Abby next to those doors.
What happened next filled the entire house with that skunky smell.
Now what?
I tried tomato juice. And then the whole house smelled like tomato juice…not to be super weird, but tomato juice doesn’t smell that much better than skunk. I tried water and vinegar solution and didn’t love the vinegar smell either!
The home remedy that really works via University of California Agriculture & Natural Resources…
Homemade Skunk Smell Remover
- 1 quart 3% hydrogen peroxide
- 1/4 cup baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon liquid soap
Warning: Do not bottle or save this recipe. It is unstable and will expand (or explode), but it can change the chemical composition of the skunk strong scents which means your house no longer smells like skunk!
How to Make a Room Smell Good
22. Get Rid of Musty House Smell
This is also a hard one because the musty smell you have to make sure the root cause of the musty house smell is gone or you will never get rid of it. Or like me, you will get rid of it until the next rain…when the damp comes back in and wets the old musty ickyness making the whole house smell.
Steps to Remove a Musty Smell from Your House
- Once you are rid of the source, then do a thorough cleaning of the entire room/house.
- Use an odor absorbing material like vinegar, citrus, baking soda, coffee grounds or charcoal.
- Then use the tips in the beginning of this article to make your house smell better!
23. How to Handle “My House Smells Like Rotten Eggs or Like Gas”
Make sure there are no sources of fire on – fireplace, gas stove, etc. and open up a window.
If the smell is strong or seems diffuse (meaning it is not just in one small location), then get out and call 9-1-1 and then your utility provider.
That rotten egg smell is added to the odorless/tasteless/colorless natural gas to alert us about leaks.
So don’t play around with this house smell! It can be serious!
24. Place Candle Wax Melts in Warm Place Like Window
This car freshener bomb is genius for making your car smell good, but don’t overlook it for a sunny window sill!
25. Stop Bad Bathroom Smells Before they Start
This DIY toilet spray also known as poo pourri DIY is super easy to make and will keep those bad odors at bay.
Clean Smell means Good Mood
When you can breathe deeply in your house it goes a long way to making your house feel (and smell) like home sweet home! Making sure you have good indoor air quality helps lay a foundation of calm for your entire family which is a good reason to assess your house for a sense of smell.
More Sweet Smell Ideas from Kids Activities Blog
- We have the real solution to how to get rid of smelly feet.
- How to get your house to smell like the holidays with the smell of Christmas.
- Get that real Christmas tree smell from your fake tree.
Do you have any tips or tricks on how to make your house smell good?
Really great advice! Somethings I would have never thought of! I read once you can put a cotton ball dipped in essential oils into your vacuum cleaner’s bag to release a lovely scent when you vacuum. A deep clean for your carpet every once in a while by professionals is a great way to freshen up too, if you don’t have the time! Thanks for these tips!!
I’m going to give these things are try, I tried the downy unstoppable pearl’s and the purex crystals, I really loved the scent but they only lasted for a day, then the scent was gone, any suggestions on how to make the scent last longer, I have one in my kitchen and one in my dinning room two in my living room and one in each bathroom, Thank you for your ideas
I can’t take artificial scents or perfumy stuff so I spray white vinegar in the air and lightly over the carpet. I use white vinegar for a lot of things. I think I read somewhere that you can infuse vinegar with dried herbs over several weeks, strain and put the strained vinegar in a spray bottle to sprits in the air. I haven’t tried that, but I plan to! Otherwise plain white vinegar works to get rid of odors. The vinegar smell only lasts a short time, but the freshness remains.
A bit off subject but I like to keep a couple wax
melts in a small lidded jar that stays in my car.
I use a glass toothpick holder since the lid
already has holes in it but any jar would work,
just punch holes in the lid and voila! Living in
the Deep South, my car has no problem getting
hot enough to melt the wax, even in the shade!
Nothing can make getting in your hot car enjoyable
when its 100’ outside with 90% humidity but this
little hack takes some of the crappiness out of it
when you get in your hot car after a hot, gross day
and it smells amazing…my favs are lavender or
ocean/beach based which are great at helping me
relax on my drive home after a long, stressful day
at work.
Love the smell good ideas
Dont ever put toxic stuff in your candle warmer!!
Those things are toxic! I’m surprsed it’s being advertised in a kids website!
The Mt Sinai Children’s Environmental Health Center advises to avoid perfumes and scented products.
“Artificial fragrance contains up to 100 chemicals that may disrupt hormones and alter brain and reproductive development”
Here’s a link. Mt Sinai Hospital cares for 9/11 first responders so they know something about toxic chemicals.
Why would anyone EVER promote the use of air fresheners and dryer sheets?! They’re TOXIC for you and the environment. They don’t belong anywhere near us.
Really excited to do these activities. We clean our carpets every year to get the smells out of the house, but after quarantine we’re going to need to do a little bit more haha Thank you so much for sharing.
I use the perfume samples in magazines. You can put them in drawers, on the bottom of trash cans, in the vacuum cleaner, on top of heat/air vents, tape to a fan, put in shoes, put in closets and other places.
I love this idea!!! THANKS for sharing.
AGREED. NEVER put flammable chemicals in burners or vacuum cleaners. They are not designed to be breathed in. If your house smells, CLEAN IT!!
Thank you for your feedback!
Great ideas, I think you can pick and choose what you want to do in this article based on your own personal feelings or beliefs and move on. There is a lot of helpful information in this article and I for one am glad I read the whole thing. I get headaches from strong perfume or air fresheners, so I go the natural approach whenever possible, but I don’t condemn those that do.
Anyway, thank you for the tips 🙂
I’m the same way! I can’t handle strong scents and prefer the natural route. So glad that these tips helped you!
How do you get a burnt smell out of a microwave?
Hi, Donna! If it’s burnt from something being wrong with the microwave (like a plastic or electrical burning smell) I would get rid of the microwave, to be safe! If it’s a burnt food smell, I would unplug the microwave and then take out the spinning plate, etc and hand wash and dry those. Then, wipe down the inside of the microwave (while still unplugged). You can also place a ramekin full of baking soda and let it sit in the microwave between uses to soak up all aromas. I hope that helps!
Use caution when using herbs and essential oils when pets are in your life.
Animals metabolize things differently than we do. Some essential oils (even just in the air) can cause liver damage and other health problems for pets.
Do your homework!
Thank you for your feedback.
I tried the wax melts in the summer in WV. My car didn’t get hot enough for the wax to melt. So before you use this hack. Make sure your car will get hot enough. But then you have a wonderful scent in your car. But then you can’t breathe where it’s so hot. So even though this seems to be a good idea. It just doesn’t work unless your car temp is very very high.
Thank you for the feedback, Charlene!