Cleaning Up Your Yard Before the Holiday Season

Decorating for the holidays is one of the best ways to make the coming season more exciting. People tend to spend a lot of time decorating the inside of their home, but it’s important to also focus on the outside of your home, namely your yard. A nice yard means you’ll have room to decorate outside, or just generally be ready for when the season turns cold, and being outside for long periods of time won’t be as enjoyable. Cleaning up your yard now means you won’t have to worry about it while celebrating with friends and family later.

Rake The Leaves

If there are still leaves on the ground, then you should rake them up. Raking the leaves not only makes your yard look better almost instantly but also helps you prepare for spring. You should also aerate your yard. This allows more nutrients, oxygen, and water to reach the roots, even while it’s freezing outside. Keep in mind that the leaves that you rake up can be used for compost, especially the more rotted they are.

Declutter

Clutter of any kind can ruin your yard. You should get rid of everything in your yard that you do not need anymore, whether that be lawn furniture and decorations or children’s toys your kids have outgrown. If something is broken and cannot be fixed, then you should throw it out immediately. You may also want to get rid of things that you have not used in a long time.

Get Rid of the Debris

Debris is another thing that can cause your lawn to look bad. If you have branches and sticks laying around your yard, then you should gather them up and throw them away. You should also clean up any pet droppings that might be hiding in the grass. Look around for trash and pick it up if you see it.

Maintain Your Septic Tank

Septic tank maintenance is extremely important. Not only when trying to clean up your lawn, but because of what it takes care of inside your house. It would be a good idea to check over your septic tank while you are outside working on your yard. If your septic tank is working properly, then it should be easier for you to preserve your yard. A working septic tank will be less likely to flood your yard and cause sinkholes. Maintenance helps keep your septic tank for a long time. A well-cared-for septic tank can last for 40 years or more.

Maintaining your septic tank helps you do your part to protect the environment. The pollutants and bacteria inside of the septic tank can end up in your yard. They can also end up in the air. The pollutants can also end up in your drinking water.

As the holiday season approaches, you should turn your attention to making sure the outside of your property is just as ready as the inside. Cleaning up your yard not only gets it ready if you want to decorate it but also takes care of everything before any festivities begin so you don’t have to worry about it and can instead enjoy being with friends and family.

Clutter Zones: The Most Common Cluttered Areas in Your Home

We all have a few places in the home that tend to collect unneeded items. However, some of them build more quickly than others, and many can go unnoticed until it’s too late. Fortunately, by identifying these clutter hotspots, you can make a conscious effort to organize them and keep your home cleaner in the long run. These are the most common cluttered areas in your home and how to stop the accumulation before it starts.

Clothing Closet

Clothing is one of the most prominent types of clutter homeowners struggle with. These items are easy to obtain and difficult to part with once you have them in your closet. Believe it or not, you might not even wear half of what you currently store. Make sure you occasionally sort through your garments and donate any of them that you don’t wear often.

Bathroom Cabinets

A lot of us can collect hygiene products in the same way. Our bathroom cabinets only have so much space, and it’s common for these shelves to accumulate all kinds of clutter. There’s more here than we often comprehend, from extra skin-care formulas to razors and other grooming accessories. If you want to maintain organized cabinets, purge any expired or broken items.

The Garage

Our garage space is one of the largest offenders. Tools, automotive parts, and ongoing projects can all build up over time, creating a space that’s hazardous to even walk through. In fact, cluttered garages present the most significant risk for injury if you trip and fall on unorganized items. For this reason, stay on the lookout for warning signs that your garage is too cluttered, and act before someone gets hurt.

Under the Bed

Another of the most common cluttered areas in your home that you didn’t know about is underneath your bed. Maybe you’re missing one of your slippers, or you just can’t seem to find the other half of an outfit. Somehow, they all seem to find their way under your bed, and it can overflow before you even realize it. Routinely checking this spot will prevent an abundance of clutter and help you keep better track of your possessions.

The Junk Drawer

No list of clutter spots would be complete, though, without the infamous junk drawer. The entire purpose of a junk drawer is to house miscellaneous things that otherwise don’t have a home. However, years of throwing your odds and ends into this drawer can turn it into such a mess that it’s impossible to find anything in it. Because of this, it’s best to organize this area of your home every few months.

Tidy home, tidy mind: why a clean space is important for your mental health

Whilst it can be difficult to get out of bed or have any energy when you’re struggling with a mental illness, cleaning can be a good way of gaining control over your environment. It allows you to see a visible improvement in your space, as well as offering a task that can be done in bursts, rather than all at once. 

Here, we take a look at exactly how cleaning can be beneficial to maintaining good mental health.

Clutter

For a lot of people, clutter can lead to a lack of concentration, as they get distracted by the environment around them. A study by researchers at Princeton University found that people with objects around them which were irrelevant to the task had an overload in their visual cortex, leading to a lack of concentration.

Being unable to focus when needed can then lead to feelings of irritability and stress. It can also induce a sense of a lack of control, both of which are unhelpful for those already struggling with spiralling thoughts.

However, it is important to remember that you should take care to avoid cleaning becoming a compulsion: whilst cleaning can be satisfying and will help you take control of your environment, creating a dependency on it is harmful. If you’re struggling to relax unless your surroundings are perfect, it might be time to consider if using cleaning as a method of destressing is still working for you. 

If you are worried about compulsivity but still want a clean space, it could be worth considering hiring a cleaner. You shouldn’t have to sign a contract with them, so you can book a one-off clean and assess if you need them the following week, or go back to doing it yourself.

Physical and mental health

If you’ve ever felt your arms ache after holding up a duster, or from pushing the hoover around, you’ll know that cleaning is definitely a physical exercise. Exercise releases endorphins, which are chemicals in your body that trigger feelings of happiness. They also work with your pain receptors to dim your perception of pain.

Regular exercise has been shown to be an effective treatment for mild to moderate depression, as well as being beneficial for anxiety management. No matter what size your home is, there are places to clean. As well as dusting, try squatting when you put items away, lunging when you hoover or wash the floor, and using circular motions to wash plates for longer than you usually would. Adding music to your cleaning routine can be a great way of getting you moving.

Cleaning and the bedroom

Creating a tidy environment in your bedroom may also help you sleep better. As well as creating a visually calming environment, you should ensure that you air out the room so that it smells clean, and not musty. In addition to just smelling nicer, fresh air has been shown to be beneficial, because it contains more oxygen than stale air that has been trapped in the room. By doing this, you make sure that if you are spending time in bed, you’re helping your brain at the same time.

To sum up

Whilst cleaning might be the last thing you think of when it comes to mental health, they are actually closely linked. Creating a clean, safe space around you so that you can rest, whilst also getting your endorphins up through gentle exercise, can be a helpful way to support yourself at a challenging time.

Living Simple and Savvy: Downsizing Unlocks Financial Advantages

The trend toward living smaller and simpler has drawn as much notoriety for its novelty as for its utility. There’s a certain humor to the idea of full-grown adults living in homes that look like converted dollhouses. While the “tiny house” movement may represent an extreme manifestation of a much broader movement, there’s no doubt that downsizing offers many benefits, both financially and in terms of lifestyle. Those who are willing to make the transition benefit from conserving energy, saving money and more leisure time that would normally be spent on cleaning and upkeep. 

Back to basics

Downsizing and moving to a smaller space will discourage you from wasting money on things you don’t need. After all, there’s no point in buying expensive furniture or artwork if there’s no room for it. If you decide to downsize by moving to an apartment, keep in mind that one-bedroom apartments in and nearby Stamford rent for an average of $2160/month while two-bedrooms are an average of $2843. If apartment living isn’t for you, you can also look at buying a small home in the area.

A simpler lifestyle also means less waste and more savings, money you can use to travel, pay down your debt, or contribute to your favorite charitable causes. And it’s a good way to “go green” and show your support for the environment through a more sustainable lifestyle. 

Less to clean

With a much smaller space to clean and declutter, there’s less to feel burdened by and get stressed over. Your friends and family will enjoy seeing more of you, and you can look forward to starting a new hobby or activity and spending more time exercising. Getting more exercise means your blood pressure will be lower, your cortisol levels will be reduced, and you’ll have a much easier time losing weight. 

Light landscaping

If you’ve ever lived in a home with a large yard, you can probably remember how much you dreaded wheeling out the lawn mower and spending three sweaty hours cutting the grass. Then there was all the mulching, edging, trimming and pruning that goes with landscaping a big lot. Downsizing can free you from all that. You’ll actually have time to watch the ball games you used to skip because you had to rake acres of leaves before it rained. 

Low-impact decorating

A smaller space makes decorating easier and less expensive than when you lived in that five-bedroom house. If home decor is your thing, you’ll enjoy a tighter, more coordinated look in a home with less space to fill. It’s more coherent than trying to tie together all those rooms and that floor space. 

Cozy, not cluttered

A less spread-out floor plan means your family will enjoy a more organized mode of living and storage. If you’re a warrior against clutter, you’ll enjoy not having to venture into those hall closets that everyone tends to use as a storage purgatory for objects they don’t want to throw away but don’t know what to do with. Digitize your old photos and papers, CDs and more to preserve space. There’s also the joy of knowing where everything is and not having to ask anyone within earshot if they’ve seen your cell phone charger or your hair dryer. 

When it comes to the causes of clutter, furniture is often to blame.  Certainly you want to get rid of pieces that are no longer useful or pleasing, but what if you have something you truly want to keep but think it has become too soiled or worn to hold onto?  Consider hiring a professional furniture cleaner to brighten up items you truly cherish.  Be sure to use someone with good references and/or plenty of positive online reviews, as a poorly cleaned chair or sofa will not bring the joy you seek in a comfortable, intimate home. 

Family reunion

A smaller home increases the chances that your family may spend more time together. If you’re downsizing the number of TVs in your home, everyone will have to gather in the den or living room and agree on what to watch (as unlikely as that may seem). If you’ve given up on eating dinner together, this may be your best chance to encourage true family togetherness.

If large homes and expensive belongings haven’t shown you the route to happiness, downsizing may help you find a lifestyle that suits you better. It’s an opportunity to live smarter, save money, and free up more time for the things you really want to do. You may be surprised at how easy it is to make the transition. 

A smaller home means you need to be well organized. Get help from House 2 Home Organizing getting your home in tip-top shape by calling 203-571-9412 today!