R E S O L U T I O N S
You might have vowed to quit smoking, lose some weight, travel new places or spend some more time with your family. But what about your home – the place where you’ll spend most of your year? Below we present to you seven resolutions for your home this year, in the perfect spirit of new beginnings. They say home is where your heart is but a lovelier, better organized, and more comfortable place to live will surely work wonders. As we count down to 2020, we will share our favorite resolutions for your home.
1. Declutter your home
When your house is untidy and in chaos, it makes you feel overwhelmed, stressed, and frustrated. Your environment affects how you feel, therefore, tidying up and organizing your house may change the way you experience life. It’s easy to let this task be left undone, but if you’re intentional and schedule this as an appointment (even 20 minutes per day), you will feel more organized soon.
Creating extra space for storage is another way to keep your home organized. With added space, you can store your possessions easily without your room looking untidy. So this year, how about making use of your imagination at creating a little more space in the most unimaginable places?
If you still feel overwhelmed, we recommend you contact Angie King Oswalt with House Ready By Maplewood Designs, LLC and she will organize, declutter, take stuff to donate, etc for you!
2. Make Your House Safe and Sound
Your home may look wonderful and it’s properly organized also. How about putting some efforts into making it safe as well? You should ensure you’re not living with a potential fire, health or security risk. Besides installing fire detectors, check your house for gases like radon and carbon monoxide also. The hardware that perform these tests are not particularly expensive either.
Radon is a colorless, odorless gas causes about 21,000 lung cancer deaths each year from the radioactive particles it traps in your lungs as you breathe, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. One in every fifteen homes has elevated levels. Even if your neighbor’s house has a high level of radon, that doesn’t mean yours does. Each house is different, and age doesn’t matter and can be found in new homes. And with test kits costing as little as $20 at your local hardware store, there’s no reason not to get right on that.
While we’re on the subject of deadly gas, make sure you install a carbon monoxide detector on every bedroom floor in addition to fire detectors. If a chimney flue or furnace vent gets blocked or leaks, carbon monoxide could back up in your house and kill you. Like a radon test, this is a small investment — $40 or more — for such an important safeguard.
Watch out for dryer lint. We know you clean the little trap inside the door, but most people neglect to clean the vents and ducts behind the dryer. Lint may seem innocent, but it’s highly combustible, according to the U.S. Fire Administration, accounting for more than 15,000 building fires a year.
Make sure your house is properly ventilated. You could also install door and window alarms, that don’t cost much these days. And also, ensure that your house is up to date with latest safety standards.
3. Work Out a Plan to Keep Your House Tidy
Everybody loves to live in a clean house but almost everyone dreads the act of cleaning itself. Coming up with a solid plan to keep your house clean could be the best thing you did this year. Devise a daily, weekly as well as monthly plan to keep your entire house clean.
It’s best to focus on one particular type of cleaning at a time. You can wipe windows and mirrors first and then move on to sweeping the floors. And also, keep the cleansing utensils like sponge, scraper, cleaning cloths, plastic bags and apron in a place where you can easily find them.
You could also divide the cleaning job among the members of your family. Some of them can do dusting and vacuuming while the others can clean up the bathroom. This way, you can clean the entire house in no time.
This year resolve to go room-by-room periodically clearing anything that you don’t use, wear or love and donate it to charity. After that, think twice about what you bring in.
4. Shrink Your Utility Bills
When people think of going green, they often think it takes solar panels or a hybrid car to make a difference.
Not so, says Bob Schildgen, who wrote the “Hey Mr. Green” column for Sierra magazine. It just takes a little old-fashioned common sense.
The best place to start is by cutting your energy usage in your home:
- Switch off the lights when you leave a room.
- Turn off your air conditioner when you leave the house and dial your heater down to 55 degrees at night and layer up with clothing and blankets.
- Install LED bulbs and low-flow showerheads.
- Try drying some of your clothes on the line during warm months and wait for the dishwasher or washing machine to be full before you run them.
- Turn off your power strips and/or set your home computer to revert to sleep mode when not in use.
- Water your yard less. Put in drought-tolerant landscaping if necessary.
5. Don’t Double Up
Don’t double up – it creates clutter
Vow to check your stocks of toiletries, cleaning materials and other household staples before you go shopping this year. Too many of the same item creates chaos in your cupboards, and will also cost you money. Keep a memo pad in the kitchen or utility room to make a list of what you really need to replace.
6. Check Your Gutters
A 1,000-sq.-ft. roof will shed about 620 gallons of water during a 1-in. rainfall, or about 103 gallons per downspout if you have six downspouts. That’s a lot of water dumped right next to your basement. Although it may seem obvious, clean and properly functioning gutters with downspouts that empty away from the foundation are key to avoiding major and expensive home repairs.
So before you leave for a vacation, take a walk around the house and check your gutters. Check to see if leaves, sticks or other debris are blocking the inlet of the downspout and preventing water from flowing down the spout. Also make sure your downspout extensions are discharging the water far enough from the foundation and that you always reattach them after you mow your lawn.
7. Secure Your Home
Add Inexpensive Door and Window Alarms: Keeping doors and windows locked is your first line of defense. Make wireless alarms your second. Burglars hate noises, so even a small alarm usually sends them running. The alarms are available at home centers. The alarms don’t provide the same security as pro-installed monitored systems since the wireless devices are activated by doors or windows opening (not glass breaking). Use the alarms for doors and windows in ‘hidden’ areas of the house where you don’t normally gather and that are often dark.
Attach the alarm to the door or window (with a screw or double-sided tape) alongside the magnetic contact strip (they don’t have to be touching, but within 1/2 in.). When the door or window opens, breaking magnetic contact, the alarm shrieks (these little units have a piercing alarm). The door alarm has a delay feature, giving you time to set the alarm and leave, then open the door and deactivate the unit when you come home, without setting it off. The window unit has an on/off switch. The alarms will work on any door or window, and the batteries last two to three years.
Put Motion Detector Lighting Anywhere: Put motion detector lighting anywhere. Motion detector lights are a proven crime deterrent, and standard hard-wired models cost as little as $15. If running a power supply would be difficult, buy ones that run on solar power. The downside is the cost. Learn how to build an inexpensive home security system yourself that will make ADT jealous.
For up-to-date information on YOUR Indiana area neighborhood or a FREE Seller Consultation – call The Romanski Group at (765) 293.9200. Using an experienced team is the way to get your home SOLD! You deserve the BEST Realtor in the Lafayette Indiana area!
