New Year's Resolutions for Your Home

What are your New Year’s Resolutions for 2014? Planning to lose some weight? Perhaps visit family more often? Donate your time to charity? These are all great resolutions, but don’t forget about your home!

A recent article on HGTV cited five great resolutions for your home, and we just had to share them:

1. Streamline the stuff. We all become subject to a little clutter, especially after the holiday months – so why not declutter your home in the New Year? By scheduling regular purgings of your cabinets, basement bins, and under the bed crevasses (don’t deny it!), you’ll be able to live a cleaner, more organized life. Imagine being able to find that thing you were looking for, without having to spend an hour looking for it. 
2. Make it safe and sound. Now that you’ve worked hard to declutter your home, it’s time to make sure it’s a safe place to live. Maybe it’s time to replace fire and CO2 alarm batteries. Also, did you know lint backed up in your dryer could be a fire hazard? 
3. Shrink your bills. It doesn’t take much to lower your energy bills each year, so start with some of these easy to employ tips:
4. Install fluorescent bulbs
5. (Unless you suffer from outdoor allergies) dry some of your clothes outside on a line
6. Turn off power strips during the day
7. Switch off lights when you leave a room
8. Give composting a try
9. Work out a weekly system for keeping your house clean. This is one of our favorites, because it’s an easy way to give everyone in your home a share of the duties in keeping your house clean and wonderful. Throw dishes in the dishwasher every night, put dirty clothes in hampers and not on the floor, and hang clean clothes in the closet every night. On a weekly basis, try focusing on one type of cleaning each week. Maybe one week it’s fingerprints on surfaces, and the next it’s windows and mirrors. Remember – divide and conquer! 
10. Get your place ready for entertaining! So maybe you did decide spending more time with family is on your resolution to-do list – so how about having them over more to your own humble abode? Even the smallest upgrades can make your home feel more inviting, such as a fresh coat of paint, adding a few plants to keep the air fresh, and rearranging furniture to be more conducive to conversation.