Guest Post - 3 Must Read Home Cleaning Tips From Professional Home Cleaners

Cleaning the house can be tiresome, and it doesn’t get any easier if you have to do it after coming home tired from your job. If you have the resources available, you can easily hire professional cleaners to take care of the house for you. Hired cleaning services can be pricey but they will definitely get the job done. However, if you belong to the majority of the working class who can’t afford their hefty price tag, you will have to find some time off your schedule to clean the house yourself.

In order to make the task a little less daunting, we spoke with John from Pristine Home, who offers home cleaning services in Sydney, about how you can save time and effort while performing your cleaning duties. This way, you won’t have to spend your entire weekend or days off from work scrubbing and wiping around the house, and you can use the saved time doing things you actually like instead.

Practice Cleaning As You Go

First things first: if you want your cleaning load to lessen, you will need to learn adapting to a clean-as-you-go policy around the house. This is quite simple but it affects your cleaning load significantly because by taking care of the little things from time to time, you avoid piling them into one big workload for the weekend. 

For instance, after you finish eating, make it a habit to clean up immediately - wash the dishes, wipe off any dirt from the table and the countertop, and sweep off any crumbs that might have fallen off while you were eating. Avoiding pile-ups of unwashed plates in the kitchen is also good for your health, as that means there are less chances of bacteria and germs settling in. It is also a lot easier to wash one to two plates every time you eat than washing close to fifteen plates with hardened food particles and stains on your cleaning day.

Another example of cleaning-as-you-go is doing your laundry every day, or at least every two to three days. Once you take off your dirty clothes, place them in the laundry hamper and sort them into two piles for washing priority: one pile is for clothes that need to be cleaned immediately like your uniform at work, and another pile is for clothes that can wait to be cleaned, perhaps those that you only wear on select occasions. 

Your bedroom is also a good starting point for the cleaning-as-you-go habit. Simply making your bed every day after you wake up prevents things like hair and other debris from accumulating and pestering you in the long run.

Try to Clean from Top to Bottom

A lot of people are more accustomed to side-to-side cleaning, which is cleaning the house per room. However, some cleaning experts believe this technique is only good for cleaning specific rooms because certain rooms receive way more attention than others. As a result, favoured rooms like the kitchen or the living room end up being cleaned thoroughly, while other areas like the bathroom are left untouched because there’s no time or energy left for cleaning. To avoid this, you can try to clean per task instead - choose a certain cleaning activity, be it vacuuming, dusting or wiping -  and do it in every room from top to bottom. This way, you will end up cleaning each room equally, plus the uniformity of the task should help you save time since your mind is set on one activity only.

Never Forget to Clean the Floor

The floor is often forgotten during general cleaning because most of the attention is directed towards what visitors often see and interact with - the furniture, appliances, and even the walls and ceilings. However, the floor probably gets the biggest share of dirt in the house, since most of the dirt that accumulates anywhere else eventually falls down as you clean. Therefore, it is imperative that you regularly clean your floor to avoid recycling the dirt and germs around the house.

Vacuuming daily is highly advisable, especially if you tend to receive a lot of visitors at home. If regular vacuuming is not possible, you can try to protect the floor by using carpets or floor mats, but make sure you do research first as there are various types available on the market. There are floor mats recommended for dirt-removal, and there are mats better-suited for stain-removal. Consider which kind of dirt or stain you normally find on your floor so that the mats you buy can better suit your lifestyle.

In conclusion, it would be a lot easier to clean your house if the tasks are divided evenly instead of piling them over one big cleaning day. It might be hard to do at first, but once you have started establishing a daily cleaning schedule, it will feel more like a habit instead of a chore.

Author Bio: Penny Roussis is a stay at home mom that loves blogging about effective home cleaning tips to help struggling moms strike the balance between a clean home and the daily duties of raising children.

Guest Post - Tips to Safeguard Your Furniture When Moving

It wouldn’t probably be an exaggeration to say that the hardest things to move when relocating are the furniture. More often than not, our couches, beds, and tables are the bulkiest and heaviest of our belongings that we have to move. Our furniture also tend to be the ones that sustain scratches or a certain amount of damage when the move is done.

Moving furniture without them getting a scratch is tricky, but it can be done, especially when you have a local moving company helping you out. Here are some tips that would ensure your furniture will get to their destination in one piece, with nary a scratch.

Measure everything

Few things are as frustrating (even maddening) than taking great pains to move that extremely heavy and bulky, but favorite couch of yours from your old house to the new one, then finding out that the latter’s doors aren’t wide enough to accommodate it. In such a situation, the only one at fault would be you, since you didn’t bother to take measurements of both your couch and that front door of your new home. So always have a measuring tape on hand, and take those before moving day comes so you can make the necessary adjustments, like not bringing that couch along in the first place.

Wipe your furniture down

Before packing your furniture, you have to make sure that the surfaces are dust and debris-free. Your furniture gathers a lot of dust, debris, and even tiny pebbles over the years, and leaving them on the surface can lead to scratches while it’s being moved. You can use a damp cloth for the task. A vacuum cleaner would come in handy too.

Protect your furniture

One of the biggest mistakes people make when moving is leaving their furniture unprotected when loaded onto the moving truck. They might be bulky, but they also need protection. Bubble wrap, mattress covers, heavy-duty blankets, sealable plastic bags, and even shrink wrap can go a long way in safeguarding your furniture, so go to your neighborhood supply store and buy the necessary protection. The bubble wrap should be suitable for your wooden furniture. Your upholstered furniture, meanwhile, can use some shrink wrap. And it doesn’t need any further explanation which furniture will need the mattress covers.

Disassemble your furniture

Moving your furniture will be so much easier if they can be taken apart and put back together when they reach their destination. Just make sure you can actually reassemble the whole thing. So if your furniture came with an instruction manual, study it. If you can make a video of yourself disassembling the entire thing, then that would be better, because you can refer to it when you make your furniture whole again

Hire professional movers

As mentioned earlier in this post, you can make moving furniture from point A to B a whole lot easier when you have the staff of a reputable moving company doing the heavy lifting. Big, bulky furniture require strength, and professional movers don’t have any lack of it. Aside from strength developed over years of helping people relocate, professional movers can also offer all possible tricks for moving furniture. Such methods require skill, experience, and the right tools, and professional movers have them in spades. Most importantly, you can also get full value protection insurance from legitimate moving companies. That kind of coverage could pay for the repair or replacement of your furniture that might get damaged or lost while in transit.

Moving furniture the DIY way is good. It’s just that enlisting a professional moving company to take care of your furniture on moving day is so much better.

About The Author

Art Lopez is the founder and owner of A&C Brothers Moving & Storage, a Phoenix moving company that helps residents from all over Arizona take the stress out of local and interstate moving.

Guest Post - Prepping for Patio Weather

Prepping for Patio Weather: 8 Innovative Products to Bring Your Smart Home Outdoors

Alexa, set the outside temperature to 75 degrees, add a pleasant breeze, bring out the sun and crack a cold beverage for me.

Didn’t work for you either, did it? Oh well—the warmer weather most of us love is back on its way anyway! And for gadget hounds, that might mean finding new enhancements for your patio setup. From a rockin’ new Bluetooth speaker to outdoor lighting to a brand-new way to bird watch, what’s truly innovative this spring and summer in the Internet of Things? Grab your flip-flops and your grilling spatula and let’s go see.

U-Tote AC600 Dual Band Outdoor Wi-Fi Access Point

Before you start springing for the cool new patio devices you just can’t live without, make sure you’ve got that sweet, precious Wi-Fi that those devices need. If your outdoor Wi-Fi can be charitably described as “spotty,” you probably need an outdoor range extender/access point. These come in many flavors. Some high-end models are housed in an outdoor weatherproof box that has a NEMA 4 rating or higher to protect from wind and rain, while others offer more basic protection.

A good compromise is the U-Tote AC600 Wi-Fi Access Point, which has a very solid IP65 waterproofing rating and boasts a cooler-load of other features as well. Plus, honestly, the thing just looks cool, with an unusual vertical design that sets it apart from its competition.

Klipsch AWR-650-SM Rock Speaker

Are you ready to rock? If so, are you also ready to listen to music from a stereo shaped like a rock? We’ll give you a minute to think about that one, but in the meantime, check out this awesome rock-shaped Bluetooth speaker. This is no low-quality novelty. The 6 ½-inch woofer and dual ¾-inch tweeters provide serious sound, and it can handle up to 50 watts. If you’ve got some particularly great landscaping you’re proud of, these speakers can enhance it even more with a hefty dose of bass.

Grillbot

“A Roomba—for your grill!” You wish you’d thought of it, right? The Grillbot is a handy little guy that’s perfect for cleaning the gunk off the grill after a hard day of barbecuing. With the power of three heavy-duty wire brushes powered by electric motors, it’s the fastest and easiest way to get your grill looking brand-new. We only have one piece of advice: Don’t mix it up with your regular Roomba, or you might be refinishing your hardwood floors.

Weber iGrill Mini

Imperfection? Uncertainty? There’s no room for those when you’re working the grill! With the Weber iGrill Mini, you can easily monitor the temperature of any burger, steak, chicken breast or whatever you’ve chosen to throw on the barbecue. Just get the thermometer in the meat and then go grab a drink by the pool. The sensor will ping your app when the meat’s at the perfect temperature. Whether you like it still mooing or you’re the well-done type, the iGrill Mini will help you get it just exactly perfect.

Philips Hue Smart Outdoor Lighting System

The Philips Hue is the gold standard of smart patio lighting systems. Take a look at the features and it’s easy to see why. You can embrace your inner Monet by choosing from a full palette of 16 million colors via the Hue app—or, if that sounds like a nightmare of option paralysis to you, Philips also provides some very nice presets. The accompanying app allows you to set your outdoor lights to turn on automatically when you get home or turn off when you leave, and you can use it for outdoor security lights as well.

Lightning Cornhole Electronic Scoring Boards

This one might not count as a proper smart device since it has no Wi-Fi or app features, but we still think it’s pretty cool. Cornhole is a classic patio game, and the Lightning Cornhole Electronic Scoring Boards will make for some awesome competition at your next barbecue. They come with a wide variety of vinyl decorations, and the large digital display makes tallying your score easy—just hit the up/down button whenever you score. The best feature of all? Both the scoreboard and the hole light up, so you can keep the game going after dark!

Bird Photo Booth 2.0

For true nature lovers, the Bird Photo Booth 2.0 is where it’s at. This ingenious device is a motion-activated camera attached to a bird feeder that helps you get up close and personal with the feathered friends in your backyard. When a bird comes to visit, the camera sends a notification to your phone—so you can snap images and record 4K video! It’s an awesome tool for bird lovers, kids and anyone who wants to get to know nature a little more closely.

Spyra One Next Generation Water Gun

Should you find yourself in a water gun arms race this summer (and who hasn’t?), the Spyra One is a near-guaranteed key to victory. This futuristic water gun would look right at home in a sci-fi video game, is apparently capable of shooting water up to 40 feet under ideal conditions and features a digital display that tells you when you’re about to run dry. It’s not available yet, but a Kickstarter page is up with a pictured prototype (featuring a picture of a woman whose face threatens murder if the guy holding the Spyra shoots her with it).

Dreaming of your feet in the pool, a beverage in your hand and a delicious meal sizzling on the grill? We figured, because that’s what we were doing while writing this article, too. So, when you’re planning your next warm-weather event, whether it’s a garden party soiree, a beer-and-brats barbecue or a little of both, keep these options in mind when you’re thinking of how to make your party a little smarter. Have fun, be safe and don’t forget the smartest gadget of all—sunscreen.

Author Bio: Kate Began serves as the Sales and Marketing Manager for Polycase. Kate oversees the customer service representatives, assists with product development and leads the marketing efforts from the Avon, Ohio headquarters. Kate has a Business degree from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Before joining Polycase, Kate was an investment banking analyst. Kate is an avid Cleveland Indians fan.

Guest Post - 5 Health Conscious Additions You May Want For Your Home

We are all being encouraged to stay or become physically fit today. We see ads for weight loss programs, where you can buy all your meals from a weight loss company and have them delivered to your home. There are fitness centers popping up all over, and many of them are open 24 hours a day, so you have no excuse for not exercising every day. Female celebrities are designing their own line of workout clothes so you can look great while you exercise. Male athletes are endorsing fitness products and hosting shows that pit athletes against each other to complete extraordinary feats of strength and endurance.

On the home front, many companies are encouraging their employees to get fit by rewarding them with lower insurance cost if their BMI shows their weight is appropriate for a male or female of their height.

Let’s face it. We all are pretty aware of the importance of watching our weight and keeping physically fit. Everyone would like to look their best and feel rested, energized, and stress free when they wake in the morning—but the truth is you might have been up a couple of times last night to feed the baby or care for a sick child.

Maybe you had a very restless night and are dealing with maximum stress because you have to make a presentation to the CEO of your company this afternoon. Or how about the morning your back is so stiff you can hardly bend over to put your shoes on, after spending the day before getting the yard ready for a family birthday party this weekend. We want to get in shape and eat right but, sometimes, life just gets in the way.

Maybe your reality is that you don’t have the time to drive to a gym or fitness center. It’s harder to take the time for exercise when you also have to add travel time. So, what is the answer? Change your thinking! Instead of thinking that you should go work out, think that you could walk two miles in the time it would take you to get your gear and drive to the fitness center.

You could jump in the pool and swim laps.  Instead of sitting in your chair during the commercial break, get up and run the stairs five times. While you are waiting for the water to boil for the pasta, grab the can of tomato sauce and do some arm lifts. You can achieve a lot in just a few minutes if you think about it.

There are also ways to incorporate fitness into your lifestyle. Here are a few:

Biking.  Get a bike. Join your kids and ride to the park or try out the city’s bike trails. Use your bike instead of the car, whenever possible, to run errands. You’ll help the environment as well as yourself.

Swimming. If you don’t have a backyard pool, think about getting one. Besides the obvious fun you and your family would have for years, a pool provides an excellent exercise opportunity. Swimming laps is a great way to get in shape. It is easy on the joints if that is a problem for you. Learn the different strokes and alternate swimming with each. Every stroke will use different muscles.

Water aerobics is also very beneficial. The buoyancy of the water will protect your joints while the resistance of the water gives you a good workout. Even just playing in the water will provide a workout. Above ground backyard pools come in all different sizes and are much more affordable than an in ground pool but just as much fun for the whole family.

Yoga and Tai Chi. You don’t need much equipment for yoga—just a yoga mat and a space to work out in. There is no equipment needed for Tai Chi. Both yoga and Tai Chi will improve your balance and help you tone. Movements are slow and thoughtful. You will receive the benefits of both even if you can’t complete the entire movement. You just go as far as you can into the movement.

If you are unfamiliar with yoga and Tai Chi, check out YouTube. There are videos that teach you each of the individual movements, and then there are videos that put the movements together for a peaceful, very centered experience. Besides the physical benefit, both yoga and Tai Chi can provide a great benefit to your spiritual and emotional health.

Meditation.  Meditation also requires only a mat. Meditation is very calming and can provide real stress relief. Meditation is a learned technique, and it may take a while for you to learn to quiet your thoughts. Give it time. If you have never tried meditation before, think about a long-distance runner who, while running, is very aware of the rhythm of his feet at each step but not especially aware of the scenery he is passing or the noise surrounding him. That is the state you want to strive for.

Sauna. Saunas are usually associated with Finland, where they are still very popular. A sauna is a closed room or building with super-heated dry heat. The person using a sauna will derive several benefits from it. Saunas are associated with stress relief. The heat is a muscle relaxer and has been used by athletes after vigorous workouts. You will leave a sauna after 10-20 minutes, feeling relaxed and calm. Until recently, saunas were usually only available at larger fitness centers or athletic training facilities. Today, you can purchase a home sauna for use by you and your family.

If you are ready to invest in your health and well-being, try some of these methods. With time and commitment, you will be healthier physically—and spiritually and mentally as well.

Author bio: Chris Hoffman is the founder of Backyard & Pool Superstore currently based outside of Dallas, TX. Backyard & Pool Superstore is an e-commerce leader in backyard, pool, spa, grill & patio products. Before starting Backyard & Pool Superstore, Chris has had 10 years of retail, construction, manufacturing and distribution experience in the swimming pool & spa industry. When Chris isn’t working, he moonlights as baseball coach, dance recital standing ovation specialist, husband, and German Shepherd enthusiast.