15 Affordable Products From Harbor Freight That Serve As Useful Home Decor

When you think of Harbor Freight, you mostly think of tools. Yet a good number of items on the store's shelves have real home decor value. With the right pieces, you can add warm lighting, clear clutter, or give a room a focal point without straining your budget. You just need to know what to look for. Every pick here is easy to place, easy to use, and easy on the wallet. That's because we had simple criteria: each item had to look good, do something useful, require little to no setup, and be easy to find at your local store.

On this list, you'll find practical items like solar bollards for your garden pathways and sturdy shelves that can hold your books and houseplants. There are canvas drop cloths you should be repurposing into stylish curtains. Small industrial parts like magnetic hooks are sturdy enough to hold coats or anything else you don't want lying around creating a mess. We also added a few convenience upgrades, like step stools, and crafty reuses, like adhesive fabric dots as fragrance diffusers. We've pulled together a number of affordable Harbor Freight products that actually look good out in the open. Beyond face value, they earn their keep.

Installing outdoor walkway lighting adds ambience and makes your yard safer. Pick up the Luminar Outdoor 19-Inch LED Solar Path Lights, which cost $20 for a two-pack and have a 4.6 of 5 stars rating. They have a high-quality aluminum head with a glass lens. However, the stake is plastic, so in loose soil you may want to reinforce the lights with a short piece of rebar. Output is modest. At 8 lumens each, they're for ambience only — bright enough to outline a sidewalk or frame a flower bed but not for security lighting.

With the walkway lit, consider adding Harbor Freight's Foldable Aluminum Sports Chair in Green so you can enjoy the view. It's light to carry, folds flat, and adds small comforts to any outdoor setting. Each chair has a side table that flips up when you need it, a bottle holder, and three pockets for a phone, keys, or a book. At about $30 and rated highly by buyers, it's easy to use as a balcony reading chair or a movable seat for backyard movie night. Because it folds, you can bring it out for guests and stash it behind a door or into a closet when the party's over.

One way to make your entryway more functional is to go vertical. The Yukon 65-Inch Multipurpose Wall-Mount Tool Organizer, sold by Harbor Freight as garage or garden shed row hooks for about $15, can help with that. It can be repurposed as wall-mounted hooks for hanging coats, scarves, and totes. If your storage needs require it, use it at full length. Otherwise, you can split the organizer to create two storage stations — one at kid height. Make sure you hang it with light items only.

Since we've figured out a system for the big items, let's give the small stuff — keys, pins, and coins that always seem to go missing right when you need them — a home too. For just about $3, the Pittsburgh 4-Inch Magnetic Parts Dish corrals those metal bits and bobs. It's stainless steel with a rubber base that clings to ferrous metal. Place one at the door as a key drop, set another on the vanity for hair pins and tweezers, and stick a third to the washer for pocket finds.

For things that don't fit a tray (think leashes, bags, and umbrellas), a magnetic hook does the trick. This about $5 U.S. General Magnetic Hook lets you hang just about anything up to 25 pounds in weight without drilling. It's a clever renter-friendly upgrade you can try for less. The hook sticks to ferrous metal, so you can place it on the front door for wreaths, the fridge for aprons or shopping lists, the bathroom cabinet for hand towels, or a steel railing for hanging planters. If you care about matching hardware, it comes in eight colors: gray, red, black, blue, green, orange, yellow, and white.

In small kitchens, designers like Joanna Gaines rely on a simple lighting fix: under-cabinet bar lighting. The $15 Luminar Everyday 12-Inch 450-Lumen Linkable Bar Cabinet Light fits the brief. It has three color temperatures, but there's no built-in dimmer. On the bright side, you can link together up to 30 bars to cover long rows of cabinetry. Most buyers find these lights easy to install and useful beyond the kitchen. Install them in or under desks, vanities, and closets, so long as there's an outlet nearby to plug them into.

Make more efficient use of kitchen space with a mobile island that gives you a prep area wherever you need it and hides bulky appliances. That's where the Yukon 46-Inch Mobile Workbench comes in. It features a welded-steel case with a solid-wood top and nine drawers. If you've already maximized your kitchen countertop space, it's useful elsewhere. Owners have put this product to work as a laundry counter, craft table, and BBQ prep station. It retails for about $370 and carries a 4.8-star rating.

Harbor Freight's Wood Stove Style Electric Heater adds both physical warmth and an interesting focal point to almost any room for almost $75. It mimics a cast-iron stove (even though the body is mostly plastic) with a pretty realistic flaming log effect. It's easy to set up. Right out of the box, all you need to do is attach the legs and plug it in. Although supplemental, it provides just enough heat to make a small living room, bedroom, or reading nook cozy. It's compact, lightweight, and easy to move. While there's some fan noise, most users find it tolerable.

How a corner of your house smells is just as important as how it looks. While diffusers work great, you can't put them everywhere. These Franklin Adhesive Felt Pads fit in almost anywhere. Yes, they protect floors from scuffs, but you can also spritz a few with your favorite perfume or drop on some essential oil, then stick them wherever you want the fragrance to linger. That could be inside closets, drawers, shelves, storage bins, and trash cans. For just about $6, you get 133 pads in a mix of sizes and shapes.

Another item that's incredibly useful to have at home is a service cart. You're restocking the pantry and would rather make one trip than five. Use it for grill nights when you need to move prep ingredients to the patio. The cart comes in handy when deep cleaning: Fill it with cleaning products and tools and move it from room to room. For about $70, you can end the shuffle with the U.S. General 30 by 16 Inch Three-Shelf Steel Service Cart in Red. It works parked, too. Stack cookbooks, cluster plants, or set up a bar.

The Franklin One-Step Folding Stool is a small platform you can use anywhere you need a little extra reach. With an almost $8 price tag and a 300-pound weight limit, it's cheap enough for most people and sturdy enough for most tasks. It can help you reach the top shelf without dragging out a ladder, wash the roof of your SUV, or give the kids a boost to reach the bathroom sink. When it's not holding you up, it also works as a plant riser, a stand for speakers, or a side table for books and magazines.

If you're a military enthusiast, you can add a bit of flair to your home with this almost $18 Metal Ammo Can. Use it to store video games and movies — even cooler if it's a war film collection. You can also take inspiration from others who have turned theirs into a first-aid kit, an emergency box for flashlights and batteries, or a grill-side stash for spice jars. The sturdy cans can also serve as a keepsake or document box. Just note that the factory sticker is hard to remove, so be sure you're okay with keeping it on before heading to the checkout.

The pantry, living room, and basement are some of the most obvious spots for sturdy shelves. But here's the thing. You can put them wherever you need them. They're particularly helpful for getting items off the floor. This almost $60 Yukon Five-Tier Shelf is a solid pick. Each individual shelf can support up to 150 pounds of weight, so it's sturdy enough for most boxes, books, and small appliances. Just don't overload it. To prevent the whole thing from tipping over, keep the heaviest items on the bottom and, if you have kids or pets, consider anchoring the unit to a wall.

You can use the Voyager Round Canvas Bag almost anywhere you don't want clutter. Use it in the living room to stash toys, in the bedroom for hair and skincare gizmos, or even on the dining table as a wine bucket. Most customers say it's sturdy for just under $14 price tag. The bottom and handle are reinforced with leather, making it easy to load and carry. Just remember that it's made out of canvas, which isn't waterproof.

This Voyager 4-by-12-Foot Canvas Drop Cloth for about $9 is something you'd usually grab to catch paint splatter. But the quality of the material means it works just as well for decor. Hang it as a curtain outdoors around a patio or indoors as farmhouse inspired drapes. It's also handy for projects: sew with it, embroider it for wall art, or use it to reupholster old furniture.