Cheap Meat or Luxury Rentals?

Cheap Meat or Luxury Rentals?

by Luxury Real Estate

The newly reopened Western Beef in Queens.
Photo: Peter Castellana, Jr.

The crown jewel in the Castellana family real-estate empire is a 20,000-square-foot Queens warehouse wedged between a Home Depot and a row of mom-and-pop appliance stores. For five decades it was a busy grocery store that offered cheap staples as well as specialty ingredients for the neighborhood’s Asian and Latino residents: dumplings, seaweed, chayote. As the flagship store of Western Beef, its once-orange exterior and its grinning mascot, Charlie the cactus, made it one of the most conspicuous businesses on College Point Boulevard. But in August 2018 it abruptly closed.

When I visited the building last summer, spray paint covered the windows, and the orange exterior had been covered in white. The only evidence of commerce was a man in a black ski mask hawking $15 watermelons on the edge of the building’s empty parking lot. Inside, though, it was loud and bright, as a brigade of construction workers installed copper pipes and rows of refrigerators, part of a plan to bring the grocery store back to life.

Over the last half-century, this boxy building has transferred hands between three men named Peter Castellana. Peter Sr., the patriarch, who died in 2020 from COVID-19, used it as the headquarters for his mobbed-up wholesale meat business, which was accused by the government of food-stamp fraud and securities violations. His son, Peter Jr., who took full control of the company in 1996, converted the meat business into Western Beef and built dozens of outlets in New York’s food deserts, then expanded to New Jersey and Florida. All along, he has tried to distance the company from his father’s criminal associations. Now, at 61, he’s cleaning up after another Peter — his son, Peter III, who replaced him as CEO of the parent company, Cactus Holdings, in 2013. Six years later, Peter III was forced to cede the company back to his father, who came out of retirement to reverse what his son had done. Before his father’s return, the youngest Peter had begun shifting the company toward upscale real-estate development. The 40-year-old scion saw a better future in the dozens of properties that Cactus Holdings had amassed across the five boroughs at low prices and now were worth millions more.

With the grand reopening of the Queens grocery in December, it’s clear that the father has won, at least for now. Peter Jr. and Peter III are both tan, short, and stocky, with jet-black hair and thick New York accents. Both have warm smiles and wear gold chains. The son’s necklace, passed down from his father, features a crucifix pendant blessed by Pope John Paul I. They still meet regularly; on Sundays, the Castellana clan usually gets together for Catholic mass or dinner, and sometimes both.

The two seem to have sworn an omertà-style code of silence over how exactly their disagreements played out in the boardroom. But Peter Jr. is adamant that Western Beef stay in the grocery business for the low-income customers it has always catered to. “You can’t be everything to everyone,” he explained as we walked along a row of empty white shelves in the Queens warehouse. “Let someone else cater to the Whole Foods, to the upper income. I’ll stick to the low income. That’s what I know; that’s what I do.”

Western Beef supermarket in the Foxhurst section of the Bronx on Tuesday March 17, 2020.
Photo: G. Ronald Lopez/ZUMA Wire/Alamy Live News

The rise of Western Beef mirrors New York’s transformation from a city dominated by mob cartels to an above-board mecca of cutthroat capitalism. It begins with a son trying to shed his father’s reputation as a tough guy for the Gambino crime family. In the 1950s, Peter Sr. was convicted of selling adulterated meat. In 1961, his wholesale company, Ranbar Packing, was found guilty of “defrauding the government of $200,000 to $500,000 in a scheme involving stolen food stamps.” During the 1960s, he served four years in prison for bankruptcy fraud. In the 1970s, he lied to the Securities and Exchange Commission about the full scope and growing financial struggles of his business. And in 1981, he was charged with extortion after his employees threatened to break the legs of two small-time meat suppliers over an outstanding debt.

Like other mobsters of his generation, Peter Sr. sought to move beyond this history with generous donations and gifts to those in need. He gave to his church and dropped off turkeys to homeless shelters on Thanksgiving. A former law-enforcement official remembers Gambino boss John Gotti calling upon the Castellanas to provide free food for his annual July 4 blowouts in Ozone Park. “[Gotti] would call Western Beef to send over, you know, 1,000 pounds of hot dogs, and all the works,” he said.

His son, Peter Jr., began unloading meat trucks for his father at age 12. He intended to go legit and began the Western Beef grocery chain in 1976. His first store operated out of his father’s Flushing warehouse, which meant free space and cheap meat, but also risked linking him to his mobster father. In the mid-’90s, as Mayor Rudy Giuliani made it his mission to break the mob’s grip on food distribution, Peter Jr. cut his father out of the business, hired former FBI and NYPD officers to work security positions, and contracted with an auditing firm that employed Bart Schwartz, one of Giuliani’s former U.S. Attorneys. In 1997, the firm announced that it “did not find any evidence of organized crime influence or suspicious corporate affiliations or activities” at Western Beef.

Peter Jr. swears he never witnessed his father’s unsavory practices, but found that New York (and its major lending institutions) deemed him a tough guy nonetheless. “I understood it’s gonna take my lifetime to possibly clear up a name for the next generation,” he said.

He operated only in poor neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. National grocery chains were then afraid to touch these Zip Codes, and there was no competition. “The pockets we were going into didn’t have supermarkets,” explained Santino Montalbano, Western Beef’s former real-estate director. He said that they didn’t have the luxury of Google Earth back then, and would instead jump in the car and drive “street by street, block by block.” The company often set up shop near customers in public-housing projects. To save money, they’d scoop up lots just off major thoroughfares, and made aggressive offers for parcels they liked, even if they weren’t on the market.

From left: Some of the properties owned by Cactus Holdings include empty lots like 994 Myrtle Avenue. Photo: Google MapsAnother property owned by Cactus on Metropolitan Avenue. Photo: Google Maps

From left: Some of the properties owned by Cactus Holdings include empty lots like 994 Myrtle Avenue. Photo: Google MapsAnother property owned by Cact…
From left: Some of the properties owned by Cactus Holdings include empty lots like 994 Myrtle Avenue. Photo: Google MapsAnother property owned by Cactus on Metropolitan Avenue. Photo: Google Maps

This strategy, born out of necessity, made Western Beef into a $300 million chain with profit margins that were well above industry norms, and today it operates 20 stores in the New York area alone. By the early 1990s, Charlie’s face had popped up in more than a dozen food deserts in the city. Where the company saved money was in the stores themselves, where lower-quality products and poor conditions prevailed. Shortly after Peter Jr. took over Western Beef, the company was failing 60 percent of its sanitary inspections, compared to a high of 40 percent at other supermarkets.

The company’s sprawling 140,000-square-foot headquarters in Queens, which features offices, a wholesale wing, and a store, has an impressive view of the Manhattan skyline and is now worth more than $16 million, according to the city’s property-assessment database. The family has also scooped up many smaller properties across the five boroughs, from empty lots to modest residential and commercial spaces that bring in passive rental income. One is a three-story building located just under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in Carroll Gardens. Now worth nearly $3 million, it has 1,560 square feet of residential space on the first floor, plus two brightly renovated apartment units above it. To this day, Peter Jr. still drives around neglected neighborhoods, making offers on cheap parcels of land or buildings, even if he’s unsure exactly how he’ll use them. Cactus Holdings, the property arm of Western Beef, now claims to own more than 2 million square feet of real estate in the city.

A 1986 ad for Western Beef.

Unlike his father, Peter III never really wanted to join the family business. He was drawn first to tech, then real estate. He ran a computer-chip business while attending NYU, and later used the profits from that venture to provide loans and investment to hard-up real-estate developers after the 2008 financial crash. While Wall Street firms once sneered at Western Beef, Peter III snagged a college internship at Morgan Stanley. But he always knew that the family expected him, as the oldest son, to step up and run the business. When, in 2009, his father invited him inside the company, he believed that he could bring the business out of the old world. “I can’t help myself,” he told me. “I see something that could be improved, and I improve it.”

For Peter III, the gentrification remaking New York City’s poor neighborhoods was a threat to Western Beef’s low-income customer base, but also an opportunity to test a new business model. He believed that the company was worth far more as a real-estate portfolio than as a grocery chain. Some of those unassuming apartment buildings, modest shopping centers, and warehouses — not to mention the grocery stores themselves — are attached to air rights more valuable than the property’s initial purchase price.

Before he was appointed CEO in 2013, his father sent him to Florida to turn around an underperforming store in Boca Raton. When the store succeeded, his father handed him the keys to the company, then semi-retired to the Sunshine State.

Once in charge, Peter III put his real-estate-first strategy into action right away. He shuttered seven Western Beef stores, nearly all of which he tried to convert into upscale residential developments. At a store in Long Island City, he found a residential developer to lease the property. They tore down the store and erected the Astor, a glistening apartment complex with rooftop views of the Queensboro Bridge. He also purchased a property in the Bronx, partnered with a developer, and hired an architectural firm to plan a nine-story, 159-mixed-unit development, which would have been one of the biggest projects in the borough.

After he emptied out the Queens flagship in 2018, Peter III pushed for one of the store’s two commercial lots to be rezoned for residential use, hoping to put up a 100,000-square-foot apartment building. (He envisioned that the second lot could host a national outlet or a major Chinese grocer, perhaps with more apartments on top.) “I had a business plan, all the numbers worked out,” he told me. “I had some of the best economical minds available to me.”

He also, curiously, started a now-shuttered security firm. Called ISF Security and co-founded in 2016 with veterans of the Israel Defense Forces, the crew seemed to operate mostly inside Western Beef stores. A 2018 YouTube video shows a beefy ISF guard roughing up a Black customer who’d apparently stolen some bread. “It’s for my baby,” the man says before being roundhouse-kicked in the face. Similar stories of violence and intimidation have plagued Western Beef’s internal security staff, which is run by law-enforcement veterans. (In a 2011 lawsuit that was later dismissed, a customer alleged that a guard knocked him unconscious simply for whistling in a store to find his children.)

This new direction didn’t line up with his father’s, who remained board chairman and often popped into company headquarters. Mike Harkins, a former FBI agent and Western Beef’s recently retired security director, told me that Peter III’s short-lived security firm was indicative of a broader strategy that “didn’t make a lot of sense.” Santino Montalbano, Western Beef’s former real-estate director, said he didn’t want to “get into the politics of the family,” but added that, under Peter III, the company “was bleeding.”

Peter Jr., for his part, felt his son was neglecting Western Beef, the family’s bread and butter, while rushing into high-cost, high-risk ventures. Peter Jr. told me he’d always known his son was passionate about real estate, but said that this aspect of the business could only be expanded with profits from the grocery business. He also said he shut down ISF Security, but declined to explain why. “That’s another whole story,” he said. “You’ll need another two days.”

When Peter Jr. took back control of Western Beef, he halted the high-end residential projects that his son was planning. At the site of a recently reopened Western Beef outlet near the Marcy Projects in Bed-Stuy, developers had “offered us big, big money for the real estate,” Peter Jr. said. “They wanted to put huge condominiums over there, like they’re doing in the whole area.” But he rejected their offer, and similarly backed out of his son’s Bronx residential project.

Peter III denied that the business had declined under his tenure, and said that he left the company to focus on real estate and be his own boss. “I can do it on my own,” he said. “I am doing it on my own.” A year after his father’s return, he started a real-estate firm, Cactus Asset Management, with his brother, Andrew. They manage more than 25 mixed-use developments and Western Beef properties where he is a part- or full-time owner (he is still a major shareholder in Western Beef). He expects his company will continue to develop residential projects that are anchored by Western Beef grocery stores and other retail businesses in “ripening” areas like Carroll Gardens and the Bronx. Most of all, he’s relieved at his newfound autonomy. “There’s something about going home on a Sunday and having dinner with my family and not talking about business that is pleasant,” he said.

He’s also open to retaking his former title at some point down the road. However, as we toured one of his commercial properties in Prospect Heights, success as a developer still seemed to be out of reach. The three-unit space had just one tenant, Shining Smiles Daycare, though he said he’d soon announce others, as well as more ambitious projects with more square feet. “Real estate is a time business,” he explained.

The pandemic-fueled grocery-store boom has made Western Beef extremely profitable over the past two years, and Peter Jr. wants to keep growing. Recently, he paid $20 million to purchase a defunct gym in the Bronx to develop into another grocery store, which will largely serve nearby residents of Section 8 housing.

But in a city of increasingly upscale-grocery and specialty-food stores, not everyone is in favor of that ethos. In December 2020, a Western Beef store on the Upper West Side that largely served residents of the Amsterdam Houses projects lost its lease. Local assemblymember Linda Rosenthal tried to save it, arguing that “the community desperately needs a full-service supermarket with lower price points to ensure that low-income New Yorkers can continue to afford food in the neighborhoods they live in and helped build.” But the landowner, Brodsky Holdings, replaced it with Brooklyn Fare, a gourmet grocer that agreed to pay far more rent.

“When you see a store like Western Beef replaced by Whole Foods, the household costs to a poor family go up significantly, which can push them somewhere new,” said Matthew Kwatinetz, a professor of real estate at NYU and director of the school’s Urban Lab. Moreover, when an anchor store like Western Beef shutters, it also sends signals to nearby property owners to either jack up rents or flip their buildings. He believes that the family’s deep and expanding roots in the city are, on the whole, positive.

“Who would think that a once-mobbed-up family would stop powerful market forces and, quite often, be for the people?” Kwatinetz asked me. “It’s confusing, but it kind of makes sense.” The Castellanas’ healthy skepticism of outsiders has kept their massive portfolio out of the hands of developers. One could almost say that Western Beef provides a bulwark against gentrification in the low-income areas where it has set up shop.

Like his father, Peter Jr. insists that this is all part of the family’s mission to feed the poor and support the community. But for customers of Western Beef, that rhetoric does not always mean fresh food. For decades, customers have complained about mislabeled seafood, rotten meat, and unsanitary store conditions. The company has been accused of tax tricks, wage theft, even intimidation. Despite Western Beef’s troubled history, the city selected it in 2011 as the inaugural partner in the Food Retail Expansion to Support Health (FRESH) program, which aimed at establishing more grocery stores in food deserts. While the program’s track record in achieving its goals was less than stellar, according to The City, Cactus Holdings’ aggressive lobbying of Eric Adams, then Brooklyn borough president, seemed to help the company get another round of FRESH subsidies in 2018. On a recent trip to the company’s Prospect Avenue store in the Bronx, I saw rotten produce, expired yogurt, and smelly, questionable meat. Peter Jr. argued that quality is always improving. “If we see a problem, we clean it up, we fix it,” he said.

Last year, more than 100 local customers petitioned Peter Jr. to do better. “Give us a choice,” the petition reads, “or leave our neighborhood!” When the Flushing location closed, in 2018, some residents lamented its loss, but one posted on Facebook, “I’d rather eat a city rat [than] that garbage low-quality beef.” “Sometimes I’ve had to bring [the meat] back because it’s no good,” one elderly customer told me. Food activist Marilyn Moore, who organized and submitted the Bronx petition, accused Western Beef of “food apartheid.” But she also noticed that the company had listened to some of her demands. The Bronx outlet was freshly stocked with organic options, including various oats and flours from Bob’s Red Mill. “I am so happy they have this as an oatmeal option,” Moore said enthusiastically. “This is what joy looks like.”

In late December, Peter Jr. was buoyant as he walked the aisles of his Flushing flagship on its grand reopening on a chilly Saturday. As Christmas music was piped in over the store’s intercom system, customers, most of them Asian and Latino, perused shelves of fruit, vegetables, beef (of course), and, for the first time, live seafood in water tanks.

Peter Jr. told me he’d invested roughly $1.2 million to get this store back in shape, a tribute, of sorts, to his late father. It was the building that his dad had bought and first developed, the place where Peter Jr. learned the family business, then launched his own venture while sleeping on a weathered couch in the building’s back office. (As he’d overseen the finishing details of the relaunched grocery store, Peter Jr. often wore one of his father’s favorite jackets.)

He told me that family members planned to drop by for the opening, including his son, who’d shut down the store four years ago. He reiterated that Peter III has a “good mind for the real estate and developing,” but also that his business strategy had been “premature.” He further made clear that he has no plans of relinquishing company control any time soon. “I just want to get our business back,” he explained. “This is my baby. This is what I live for.”

48 Cheap Home Improvement Products That Save You From Having To Buy Expensive Stuff

48 Cheap Home Improvement Products That Save You From Having To Buy Expensive Stuff

by Home Improvement

Sometimes, your home just needs an upgrade. Whether you want to fix the little things around the house or completely transform its aesthetic, there are a million different ways to make your home look refreshed or brand new. However, while it’s easy to whip out the tools or a can of paint, many ideas for home improvement can oftentimes run up a high price tag or require too much of your precious time. That won’t be the case with the help of the Amazon products on this list, though.

With that being said, you don’t have to give up on all of your home improvement goals. Fortunately, there are ways to revive any room in your home — and even the outside of it — without sacrificing too much time or money. If you’re searching for items to maximize storage space, solve a pesky problem, make your home more tech-friendly, or just make any area look better than before, I’m here to help you. On this list, you’ll find amazing products that’ll help improve your home in a multitude of ways — and they won’t cost you all of your hard-earned funds.

Scroll to find your new favorite home improvement products.

These Gorgeous Sconces With An Industrial Look

This set of two wall sconces will look amazing inside your home while adding industrial vibes to your space. They look expensive, but they’re only $24 — and many reviewers wrote they’re both super easy to install. They’re also adjustable and can be moved 240 degrees so that you can easily achieve any desired look — just add a lightbulb.

These Garage Door Accents That Neighbors Can’t Tell Are Fake

Give your garage an easy makeover with these magnetic garage door accents that look 100{d4d1dfc03659490934346f23c59135b993ced5bc8cc26281e129c43fe68630c9} real from the street. Each magnet in this pack of six is strong enough to adhere to garage doors — and they’re weather resistant, meaning they can make your garage look great no matter how hot, cold, or rainy it is outside.

A Filtering Shower Head That’ll Give You Spa-Like Soaks

This easy-to-attach shower head gives your shower an instant upgrade that you won’t regret, all while filtering water as it flows through the system. It seamlessly increases water pressure by 200{d4d1dfc03659490934346f23c59135b993ced5bc8cc26281e129c43fe68630c9} and comes with three soothing settings: jetting, massage, and rainfall. Just screw it onto your standard shower hose and you’ll have a spa-like experience in seconds.

These Shower Curtain Hooks That Glide Easily With Beads

These hooks for your shower curtain are the perfect replacement for your old ones. They’re made of quality metal, and they can glide across your shower rod easily without getting stuck (thanks to the spinning beads). Plus, they look super sleek with any minimalistic shower curtain. In other words, they’re ideal for both aesthetic and practical purposes.

A Wall-Mounted Toothpaste Dispenser That Helps You Get Every Last Drop

Never waste toothpaste again with this automatic toothpaste dispenser that adheres right to the wall of your bathroom. This is the perfect product for anyone who needs an easier way to dollop toothpaste onto their toothbrush (or anyone who wants to create more counter space near their sink).

This Roll-Up Dish-Drying Rack That Clears Up Your Counter Space

This stainless steel drying rack could not be a more convenient item for your kitchen. Not only does it roll up and store away when you’re not using it, but it doesn’t take up any counter space when you are using it — it fits beautifully over your sink instead. This is an essential especially if you’re living in a small apartment or have limited counter space, and it can double as trivet for hot serving plates as well.

A Sleek Layered Organizer For Your Silverware

If you’re on the lookout for a cutlery organizer but can’t find one that suits small drawers, you need this super compact one. This organizer is designed to stack the silverware on top of each other instead of side-by-side, and the downward angle allows for easy access of up to 24 pieces of silverware. It even has little icons next to each compartment, so you know exactly which cutlery item you’re reaching for every time.

This Expandable Rack To Organize Your Kitchen Essentials

Optimize your counter or cabinet space with this expandable storage rack for your kitchen. This rack is the ideal storage option for both function and style, as it easily stores any of your kitchen essentials without looking too busy on your countertop. If you buy a bunch of these racks, you’ll have a great way to organize all of the items inside your cabinets or pantry as well.

These Clear, Reusable Hooks That Won’t Budge

If normal adhesive hooks aren’t doing the trick in your home, these vacuum suction hooks are here to help. These sturdy hooks can hold up to 6 pounds each, and the more angled curve makes them suitable for bigger items. They blend in easily with any space due to their transparent design, and the plastic shouldn’t yellow overtime. These hooks are also reusable, so you can move them around again and again.

A Set Of Storage Containers For All Of Your Dry Goods

Let your dry goods last longer with the set of eight airtight storage containers. Not only does the super seal design of these containers help stored foods or ingredients stay fresh for longer, but their see-through design and cute chalkboard labels make organizing all of it ridiculously easy. Say hello to a newly organized pantry with these life-changing containers.

A Lazy Susan To Access All Of Your Items In A Flash

Need organization items for the other items in your kitchen? Try this lazy Susan that fits perfectly in any cabinet or pantry. This 12-inch lazy Susan can easily fit all of your spices, baking supplies, or oils, granting you quick access to any of them in a matter of seconds with its non-skid, turntable design.

This Mop & Broom Holder That’ll Save You So Much Space

If your storage closet or garage is becoming disorganized with all of your different mops, brooms, and buckets, this mop and broom holder will make a difference. The wall organizer frees up much-needed space in any closet, room, or garage and securely stores cleaning tools with its five broom-and-mop slots and six hooks. Just mount it on any wall or door with a drill, and voilà.

These Strip Lights To Illuminate Anything In Your Room

Transform any room with these LED strip lights that you can attach to your TV, bed frame, computer monitors, mirrors — anything you want to have a colorful glow around it. They’re super easy to attach to any surface and can turn 16 different colors and be made brighter or dimmer. They can even jump or fade to different colors for an even cooler effect.

These Ultra-Bright, Motion-Activated Porch Lights

If you’re looking to replace the outdoor lights outside of your home, look no further than this four pack of motion sensor lights. These 400-lumen (extra bright) outdoor lights are perfect for stress-free illumination of your yard or porch, and will quickly turn on at the detection of any motion within 16 feet at a 120-degree angle.

An Outlet Extender With A Built-In Nightlight

If you’re always struggling to find outlets in your home to accommodate all of your devices, these outlet extenders can help. These extenders are perfectly compact, so they won’t crowd the space of the outlet next to them like other extenders. Each in the pack of two is also equipped with a built-in LED nightlight that turns on automatically once it gets dark.

A Garbage Disposal Cleaner That’ll Eliminate Unwanted Odor

This scrub brush can help you easily clean your garbage disposal when needed. This durable, 11-inch brush will fit down your drain to reach the old food and debris caked onto the sides of your garbage disposal. You can even throw it in the dishwasher in between uses.

These Cabinet Pulls That’ll Give Your Kitchen An Upgrade

Sometimes the biggest home upgrades can result from subtle fixes, like the addition of these satin nickel cabinet handles in your home. These 5-inch-long cabinet pulls are super sleek and easy to install with the screws included in this pack of 20. Tons of reviewers are obsessed with the way they look in their kitchens and bathrooms; one even wrote that “the transformation was unbelievable!”

A Magnetic Screen Door To Help Keep The Bugs Away

This magnetic screen door is perfect for anyone who wants fresh air without leaving the door open all day long. The magnets in the center of the screen allow it to open and close easily without the risk of letting bugs or the elements from outside into the house. It also installs onto your door frame in four quick and easy steps.

An Over-The-Door Clothes Rack To Save Space In Your Closet

If your closet is overflowing (but you still need a place to hang the remainder of your clothes), this over-the-door rack will help solve all of your problems. This heavy-duty rod can hold up to 35 pounds, and it adds over 3 feet of closet space. Plus, installation will only take seconds with no tools required. Just adjust it to the size you need and you’ll be grateful to have more space for your wardrobe.

These Hanging Shelves For Your Closet That Optimize Space

Need more ways to add space in a tiny closet? Try these hanging shelves that add three layers of shelves. This organizer will not only maximize your clothing storage space by adding more room to organize your wardrobe, but it’ll also help keep your items neat, organized, and easily accessible for when you need them.

These Grippers To Help Prevent Your Rugs From Curling Up

If you’re tired of the rugs in your home curling or moving around too much, you might need these rug grippers. These V-shaped grippers fit perfectly under the corners of your rugs to help prevent them from sliding or curling up at the corners, making any indoor rug look expensive and high-quality.

These Furniture Stoppers To Help Protect Your Floors

These furniture stoppers are helpful for any of the items in your home that are sitting on wheels. Just slide a stopper under each wheel, and you’ll be amazed at how easily your furniture will stay in place. Not to mention, the nonslip rubber underneath the stoppers help protect any floor — hardwood, ceramic, tile, and more — from getting all scratched up.

This Peel-And-Stick Paper That Spices Up Any Surface

If you ask me, this marble-patterned paper is the best way to spruce up any surface that has been looking a little “blah” lately. Its peel-and-stick design makes it easy to add this paper to any dry, flat surface in your home (like a countertop, shelf, or dresser). You won’t need to buy new furniture when you have this to help you upgrade in a flash.

A Bidet Attachment With Temperature Control

This temperature-control bidet is designed to cater to your preferences with its hot and cold functions and adjustable jet nozzles, all while providing a thorough clean for your posterior. There’s even a self-cleaning feature, and the system is easy to install. You can kiss your toilet paper goodbye after one use of this.

A Sleek Desk Lamp That Also Charges Your Phone

You can give your office space an upgrade with this desk lamp and phone charger all-in-one. This versatile lamp comes with both a USB port and a wireless charging pad so you can achieve all of your charging needs. It can also change to five different color settings and nine brightness levels, and its sleek design prohibits it from taking up too much space on your desk.

These Adorable String Lights To Spruce Up Your Backyard

These outdoor string lights are both stylish and functional, adding some ambiance to your outdoor space while ensuring it’s illuminated enough to spend quality time with your family and friends (even after the sun goes down). They’re available in three different lengths and are even weatherproof.

This Vacuum Attachment That Helps Clean Out Your Vents

This vacuum attachment is meant to remove the dust and lint from your dryer or AC vent. The long and nimble hose works to get into even the trickiest of crevices in your vents to help ensure there’s no debris left behind, and it can attach to different types of vacuums.

These Liners To Help Keep The Inside Of Your Oven Clean

These BPA-free oven liners can help keep your oven clean while cooking. Just place one of them on the bottom rack of your oven — not the bottom of the oven itself, per the brand — and bake or cook away without any spillage or mess. You can throw it in the dishwasher when you’re done, and you’ll want to use it again and again.

These Protective Furniture Leg Covers That Couldn’t Be Easier To Put On

If the chairs in your home are scratching up all of your floors, these chair leg covers can help solve that problem. The silicone design of these covers — along with their felt bottoms — allow for easy installation work to protect the chair as well as the floor beneath it. You can even choose from different colors to match your furniture.

These Decorative Faux Plants That Look So Real

Do you love the look of real plants? Well, these artificial hanging plants (that actually look real) are perfect alternatives. They’re ideal for achieving a natural aesthetic for any room in your home with little effort. Just attach them to any wall and your home will be instantly transformed.

A Macrame Pot Hanger For Your Existing Plants

For those who prefer real plants but are struggling to find ways to display them in their homes, look no further than these beautiful macrame pot hangers. This plant hanger can be used indoors and outdoors and is suitable for any planter up to 9 inches in diameter. Its subtle design also allows it to fit in with the aesthetic of nearly any room.

This Gorilla Glue For All Of Your Home’s Quick Fixes

This Gorilla Super Glue is an essential for any home, and the brush and nozzle applicator is a game changer when something in the house requires a quick adhesive fix. This tough glue works beautifully on various types of materials and surfaces, such as plastic, metal, ceramic, stone, and fabric — and it dries clear in up to 30 seconds.

This 14-In-1 Tool That You Can Use For Anything & Everything

This 14-in-one multitool has anything and everything you might need for a variety of home improvement tasks. This stainless steel bundle comes equipped with three different pliers, a sharp and serrated knife, four different screwdrivers, a hook remover, a double-sided file, and a small scraper. It even includes a can and bottle opener. Plus, it even comes with a little carrying case.

This Repair Kit That’ll Make Your Furniture Look Good As New

If the wooden furniture or floors in your home are looking worn and tired, you might want to try this repair kit. The kit does it all: It can fill cracks or holes, remove scratches, and tidy up spots on the furniture that make it look stained or damaged. It works on many colors of wood, whether it’s painted or natural, and comes with instructions that help you perfectly match the putty to the color you need.

These Garbage Deodorizers That Help Prevent Unwanted Odors In The House

These charcoal deodorizers will become your new best friends if you have garbage cans that always seem emit unwanted odor. These deodorizers work great in any 8-gallon (or larger) trash can, while the activated charcoal absorbs scents within the garbage. They’re even biodegradable.

These Covers That Seal All The Annoying Gaps On Your Kitchen Counters

If you’re always dropping food into the gaps between your oven and kitchen countertops, add these counter gap covers to your cart ASAP. The silicone gap covers fit seamlessly between your stove and countertops without shifting once in place, and they help prevent crumbs as well as spills falling through. They’re easy to clean, too, with either a wet cloth or in the dishwasher.

These Stovetop Covers That Help Keep Your Burners Mess-Free

With these burner covers, cleanup is nothing short of a breeze when it comes to gas stovetops. Just fit them around each of your burners (there’s a special hole in the middle for the burner itself), and experience the effortless cleaning of sprayed oil, dripped sauces, and charred foods. They’re even dishwasher safe for when it’s time to wash them.

This Colorful, Hardening Silicone Glue For Repairs, Leaks & More

Make home improvement fixes fun with this multi-purpose glue that hardens into silicone when it’s in place. The ways to use this product are endless — use it for repairs, bonds, sealing, or even for mounting things without tools. This glue is heavy duty (it can hold up to 4.4 pounds in weight), and it’s waterproof. There are also many colors available.

A Pen That Masks Grout & Makes Floors Look Good As New

You won’t need to break out the scrubber and rubber gloves to clean your tile after purchasing this grout pen. The marker easily covers up the presence of grout on your tile floors or walls, using nontoxic, water-based ink that mimics squeaky-clean tile. The narrow tip of the pen also allows for careful precision when using.

These Soft Cotton Towels That Come In Amazing Colors

This set of six towels are the perfect replacement for the ones you’ve had in your bathroom for years. They’re made with soft 100{d4d1dfc03659490934346f23c59135b993ced5bc8cc26281e129c43fe68630c9} cotton — and the set comes with two bath towels, two hand towels, and two washcloths. Plus, you can get them in a multitude of colors so they suit the style of any bathroom.

A Pack Of Super Soft Pillowcases Your Whole Family Will Want

These pillowcases are incredibly soft and high-quality for a super low price — and they come in different colors so you can pick and choose which ones best match the bedding you already have in your home. They’re made with polyester that shouldn’t wrinkle, and they’re even machine washable.

This Rechargeable Lighter For Any Candle Lover

If you’ve never owned a rechargeable lighter like this one, now is the time to buy one. In my opinion, this lighter is better than any regular one due to its flexible neck that can move 360 degrees, as well as its ability to last long after one charge (it can be used 600 times before needing another charge). It even boasts a windproof design. One reviewer said this lighter is “probably the most used item [she’s] ever purchased from Amazon!”

This Easy-To-Install Button Pusher You Didn’t Know You Needed

Control all of the devices in your home that require buttons to activate with this button pusher. This product is great, especially if you’re often on-the-go and need to make sure your devices turn on or off when you need them. Just control the pusher through the SwitchBot app or with your Amazon Alexa or Google Home device.

A Popcorn Popper That Makes The Perfect Bowl In Minutes

You never have to buy bags of microwavable popcorn again after using this popcorn popper. This adorable popper couldn’t be easier to use: Just add your kernels into the measuring lid, place them in the popper, and stick it in the microwave. You’ll have the perfect bowl for yourself in a flash, and you’ll help reduce paper and plastic waste when you use this instead of store-bought microwave popcorn.

This Smart Plug That You Can Control With Alexa

If you have an Amazon Alexa, this smart plug needs to be added to your cart. These plugs are voice-controlled through your Alexa device, meaning you can turn your gadgets on and off or set them on a timer, all with simple, hands-free voice commands. After witnessing the magic of these smart plugs, you’ll want to get them for every room.