Spring is on its way (I swear), and it’s a perfect time to clean the garage, organize your home for summer projects or get your house set to host friends and family members for graduation parties, weddings or summer bbq’s.
Hah, my wife, Cindy, would fall off her chair laughing if I told her I was going to write about the virtues of spring cleaning or any cleaning for that matter. The kids would be hiding because they know I’d search them out and enlist them to keep my actual cleaning involvement to a minimum.
Let’s just say that we are in perfect agreement that I have a very high clutter tolerance. Sweeping out the garage is good on one of the first really nice weekend days of the year. Plus with all our rain this year there is definitely major dirt accumulation on the garage floor.
This year might be slightly different though since we’ve got a wedding coming up this year. I’ve already seen hints that I may be enlisted to think about projects that would be “necessary” if we are going to host a wedding celebration.
Spring is a time lots of families are planning forward and laying out those projects as they are sweeping, cleaning and planting everything that’s makes it so beautiful here in the summer.
All right at the risk of being mocked by my bride, here are a few tips to consider:
Analyze the situation. Walk around your home with a notebook and pen and make a list of problem areas that need the most attention. This might include junk drawers, garages, closets, storage spaces, etc. Ask yourself, what is it about that room that really bothers you or where will the guest be hanging out? This can help you prioritize your list of rooms to tackle first.
What can you give away to a great charity? Moving things around doesn’t do much of anything except move the problem from one room to another? There are charities that need most any kind of item that you are no longer using and you can eliminate the clutter once and for all.
Stay off of ladders, stay off of ladders, stay off of ladders. My joke is that nothing good can come from a ladder and it’s right about 90% of the time. The reason it’s right so frequently is that most people don’t have extensive experience using ladders and they are often used incorrectly. People are very nonchalant about how far up they are and the surface they are using ladders on. I’ll just jump up there and do this, becomes a trip to the emergency room and months of rehab. According the National Institute of Health, over 97% of the ladder injuries occur in a non occupational setting (home) and ladder injuries rose more than 50% from 1990 through 2005. Check out how to safely use ladders at www.laddersafety.org.
Know when to do it yourself and when to hire a professional. See Ladder Safety if you want to know when to get a professional. Okay, maybe not any time you have to use a ladder but stop and think if you have what it takes to visualize, design and implement a project. You might be able to help but is it really something you (and/or your brother in law) are qualified to do yourself. In my case, the Q and A is pretty short but for lots of my friends, they are quite qualified to do a lot. Ask yourself before you get in too deep for two reasons, things go bad when we don’t know what we’re doing and it usually cost more to fix than it would have to get the right people to do it in the first place.
Remember to call us if you make additions or updates to your home. Updates often result in premium discounts for you and we can’t cover additions if we don’t know about them!
Spring is coming, spring is coming, spring is coming!
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