Ever wondered how to make your house smell good?
I sure have.
Especially when you’re working with a broken kitchen ventilator and you have no other way of getting rid of fried fish smells and full trash cans than opening all the windows and taking the trash out.
But that might not be too practical if you live in a particularly cold area, or its dead in the middle of winter.
So how can you make your house smell good without freezing? Or without spending too much money?
A weekly cleaning schedule
Now, nobody likes talking about cleaning. Who am I kidding. No one likes the time you spend cleaning.
But cleaning and cleaning well doesn’t have to be a hassle. You can actually work out a system that can help you with all your cleaning plans.
A good base for having any house smell good is making sure you’re keeping up with the housekeeping at LEAST weekly. That way the dust that gathers around in all those nook and crannies doesn’t contribute to your house smelling old and musty.
Related: A Beginner’s Guide To Essential Oils
I’ve found its always a great idea to keep a cleaning routine. Either point out key areas you’ll get in the habit of cleaning once a week or keep yourself a cleaning schedule on paper.
I personally like to do a deep clean once a week, and then an upkeep here and there throughout the week.
If you’ve ever found yourself saying, ‘my house NEVER smells fresh’ I’ve come up with 12 ways to make your home smell better that don’t require tons of extra spending that make for an even cleaner place you can cozy up in and not have to worry about all the funkiness.
Let’s get to some best smelling home tips!
Boil a few ingredients after cooking
Sometimes cooking is what gets us in trouble when it comes to stinky house smells, so it would make sense to combat it with cooking something else.
Something else that is more pungent and actually SMELLS good. Making a stove top simmer to help you do away with unwanted smells can help you do this.
Here are a few recipes to help your home and kitchen smell better after a smelly cooking sessions!
Cinnamon, Ginger, Lemon Blend With A Hint Of Mint
Cut up and smash a few pieces of raw ginger, along with a medium sized lemon, and a few sprigs of mint. Bring it to a boil and see how the smell in your kitchen and the surrounding area changes!
Star Anise And Lemon Slices
This pungent combination can help make a difference in the smells in your kitchen. Try it out once you’re done with all your cooking for the day!
Lemon, Lime, Orange, Blend
If you’re looking for a tangy scent, combine some lemon, limes and orange slices into a small pan with a few cups of water. Bring to a boil and smell the change in your home’s scent. Let it sit until it cools. You can use it a few times before throwing it away and starting over.
How to make your house smell like a spa
To make your home smell like a spa, first you have to decide what your ideal spa would smell like. Most spas have a combined smell of a blend of essential oils and their lotions and remedies. So your best bet at a spa like setting is using a diffuser and lots of candles.
The Green Air Spa diffuser and essential oils humidifier is a great diffuser for a desired ‘spa’ like effect.
Use a diffuser with your favorite essential oils blend
Using a diffuser is hands down one of the easiest way to get your house smelling on point. It’s a pretty powerful way to encourage your house to smell better, because the essential oils are SO pungent. This is especially true if you know how to mix them well.
Diffusers come in all shapes and sizes, and each of them vary differently depending on what type you’re looking for. For me, they for sure beat an electric Glade fragrance sprayer because the aroma is longer, lasting, more widespread, and stronger.
A great diffuser to start with, if you’re new to diffusers, is a basic waterless essential oil diffuser with auto shut off. It’s convenient if you want to leave it running and come back to a clean smelling and fresh house. And it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to get.
Best smelling essential oils blend to get rid of smells
Now, if you’re keen on using essential oils to help clean up the smells in your house, then you need to know the best smelling essential oils to get rid of smells.
Some popular essential oil combinations for a sweet home scent are:
Tea Tree + Mint + Lavender
Orange + Sandalwood + Grapefruit
Vanilla + Lavender + Mint
use a crock pot baking soda lemon mix w a bit of essential oils
News flash: Crock pots are NOT just for cooking quick and easy meals, they can help you deodorize your house too!
To make a crock pot smell bomb, mix half a cup of baking powder with some lemon slices into a few cups of water in your crock pot. Plug in and let sit in the desired area and let the good smells begin.
You can play around with the scents that you create in your crock pot. You can even make some essential oil blends to try as well. Just be careful to wash it thoroughly if you’re also using the pot to cook in later.
Boiling some combinations, like the citrus combination I mentioned earlier, can definitely help bring in a new smell to your home.
Best home fragrance products
Essential Oils Aromatherapy Set
A good set of essential oils along with your favorite diffuser can help you eliminate and improve odors in your home in a pinch. Its just a matter of figuring your favorite oil blends.
Fragrance And Oil Candle Warmer
A candle warmer can be another great way to deodorize your home. Scented warm candle wax tends to give off a massive amount of scents around the home.
Art Naturals Essential Oil Diffuser
An essential oils diffuser is an essential part of making your home smell better without too much work.
Lysol Disinfecting Wipes With Lemon and Lime Blossom
Disinfecting wipes are great to have handy at all times. Especially when they smell like lemons and lime blossoms!
Arm And Hammer Pet Fresh Carpet Odor Eliminator
Hands down baking soda can do wonders to help eliminate odors especially if you have carpet at home. This fortified Arm And Hammer Pet Fresh Carpet Odor Eliminator is perfect for that.
Make a DIY home spray
If you don’t like buying those aerosol sprays from the store you can totally make your own DIY home spray. Here are a few to get you started:
Summer Inspired DIY Home Spray by Oily Design
10 Homemade Air Freshener Recipes by The Prairie Homestead
DIY Natural Air Freshener With Essential Oils by Hello Glow
All Natural Room Spray by Martha Stewart
Bake!
Baking can be a quick solution to a smelly house. No, really!
Especially when you’re having guests over and need a quick smelling fix. Even fixing up a quick box of brownie mix can help you get there. When I like to get really nifty, I like to make some snickerdoodle cookies.
You can’t beat their cinnamon scent!
Add some bleach to your toilet wand holder
This one is probably the easiest to do and one that works! If you have a constantly funky and stinky smelling bathroom look to your toilet wand holder. You might have to wash it out initially.
I know, it might be very yucky, and you might even be tempted to throw it away (I wouldn’t blame you) but once you get it cleaning out, and add some pure Clorox to the wand holder, you’ll have a source of clean smelling goodness in your bathroom without trying too hard.
It’ll be ready for you to give the toilet a good swish every now and then, and it’ll STAY smelling like a clean bathroom.
If you don’t like the smell of bleach for your bathroom, make your favorite cleaning recipe and use that in your wand holder instead!
Make a scented mason jar candle
We all know that candles are pretty practical and a good scent can help with getting rid of bad house smells. This can be a great shot term option if you can afford a few dollars per medium sized candles.
Or better yet, with a few ingredients, you can make your own for less money.
Some great places to keep candles are in your kitchen, on your dresser, and in your bathroom while you bathe.
How to keep your house smelling good with pets
Baking soda is basically your best friend when it comes to pets. It helps you eliminate odors you might not want lingering in your house. It works great as carpet powder before a good vacuum, and can help eliminate odors deep in your couch.
Some good rules of thumb to keep your home smelling good with pets are:
Make cleaning a priority
This one might be as simple as using baking soda and vacuuming everyday or every other day. This helps you keep up with pet hairs and any dirt they drag in. But for this you need to make sure you’ve got a good vacuum that is specifically geared for pet care and cleanup.
Make pet grooming a priority
To minimize pet odors you want to make sure you keep them as groomed as possible. Meaning brushing their mane constantly and keeping it short and groomed as best as you can. In the long run, it’ll make a big difference in how your house smells. Since smells tend to pile up.
One good idea, especially if your pets like to hang out on the couch, is to buy removable couch covers that you can remove and wash with baking soda and plenty of borax on the weekends.
This way the couch covers catch most of the pet odors and you can wash them off when you want. This keeps you from throwing the whole couch away if your pets start getting particularly messy!
Invest in odor eliminating home deodorants/diffusers
One of the best ways to freshen up the smells in your house is to make sure you invest in a diffuser. You don’t have to spend TONS of money on one and it can help not only fill your house with great scents of your choice but help relax you as well.
I wrote a complete beginners guide to essential oils and diffusers to help you get your very first home diffuser to help you tame the pet smells in your home!
Use a vinegar apple soap mix to clean
Want your house to smell like fresh green apples? Make a vinegar and apple scented dish soap mix to clean the tops of your counters and floors. When I first tried this I was skeptical about it smelling bad because of the vinegar.
By itself, vinegar can have an unpleasant smell for some. But when you mix it with some green apple dish soap, you get
Add essential oil drops to cheap candles
If you’re like me, and you like to shop at the 99 cent store almost every month for odds and ends that you might need, you might be tempted to pick up a candle.
Not necessarily because they smell so good but because they are SO cheap. Usually, if you’re looking for a good quality candle with a nice pungent smell that lasts and wafts through the room, you’re looking at spending upwards of $10 for a single often-not-so-big-candle. And if you’re on a budget, buying expensive candles every week is probably not at the top of your to do list.
What I like to do then, is to buy my cheap 99 cent candles and pour a few drops of my favorite essential oil, like lavender, in the melted wax for a bit of extra umph and smell. It works and the smell sticks around for a few hours!
How to make your house smell good with vanilla extract
Honestly, sometimes just leaving a vanilla bean cut in half sitting somewhere in your room can do the trick. Vanilla is awesome like that.
I found a cool post on how to make perfume with vanilla extract that can help you with the whole ‘how to make your house smell good with vanilla extract’ situation.
You can use it as both a perfume AND a spray in your room as well!
indoor houseplants help lots
Indoor houseplants is a great way to make your house smell good naturally. Lots of indoor houseplants already have the natural ability to clear the air around them and make for a fresher and cleaner area.
Not to mention, indoor houseplants are just downright gorgeous. Who wouldn’t want to have them in their home to both beautify and add some natural scent to the air they breathe.
You can find affordable indoor plants at your local Wal-Mart. Or if you have a neighbor who is savvy with plants, you can always ask them to propagate one of their plants for you.
But all in all, for cleaner and fresher air, indoor plants are a must have.
Have a fan? Use dryer sheets
I’m not sure where I saw this trick but when I did, I thought it was GENIUS. If you have small fan anywhere in your room. Tie some dryer sheets to it. When its running, you’ll get wafts of the dryer sheet smell around your room.
I find this works nicely with fresh linen scented dryer sheets and also lavender scented sheets!
How to make your house smell good all the time
To make your home smell good all the time, you probably have to get used to doing some or all of these smell hacks throughout the week, to make sure your house stays smelling as best as possible.
Like I mentioned in the very beginning, cleaning on an at least semi constant basis is a must. Its the foundation for making sure your house stays smelling as good as it possibly can.
While yes, you can try masking the smell of unclean surfaces and things with Febreeze sprays and the likes, there is nothing that smells better than an up-kept house cleaning wise, with a little extra effort of added scents.
Is there a way to make your house smell good that you loved? Join the conversation and leave a comment below!
Happy homemaking! ?
