Declutter Your Home After Winter

Declutter Your Home After Winter

In our homes, we all have a little “junk” sitting around. Well, some of us more than a little. Throughout the years, we collect gifts from our loved ones, photos, furniture, and items that we don’t need anymore. It does not matter how much stuff we have, we can all benefit from decluttering our lives and homes. Decluttering will make your life much more organized. We all have areas in our homes that become cluttered, and they can harbour dangers for you and your family. Therefore, decluttering will not only make your home look and feel more organized, but it will also create a safer environment for you and your loved ones. Here, Bent Nails will give you tips for decluttering your home for safety in all areas of your home.

# Begin with your kids’ room
Even though all those toys and clothes your kids possess are part of a joyful childhood, keeping it all organized is essential for the health and safety of your little ones. Ever kids’ rooms have that overflowing toy box where all the toys are just crowded together. The toys settled in the bottom of the toy box can become damaged or they can break and leave small, jagged parts. Therefore, from time to time, you need to remove broken or unused toys. Also, it is important to designate a place for the toys, clothes, and backpacks, so that the items are not left on the floor. If they are left recklessly on the floor, someone might trip on them. Another important thing is to properly pack electrical equipment in the kids’ room, and use outlet covers in younger children’s rooms and conceal cords in all children’s rooms.

Start decluttering your home for safety with the kids’ room

• Don‘t forget to declutter bathroom for your home safety
  When you decide to finally eliminate the clutter in your home, you must not forget the bathroom. You need to clean out the medicine cabinet and properly dispose of the expired or unused medications. When disposed of properly, there will be a small chance to misuse the medication. On some occasions, storing unnecessary items is wise, but it is not the case with medications. When you store unnecessary medications in your home, you will increase the risk of family members mistakenly using a drug that they weren’t prescribed.

If you are storing cleaning supplies in the bathroom, make sure you clean out the cleaners and allow brushes and sponges to dry completely before storing. If you tuck away toilet brushes or cleaning sponges in a storage closet before they can dry, you will create an environment where mold and mildew can flourish.

• Declutter your kitchen regularly
  Kitchen storage is a place you have to declutter two or three times a year. Having a messy and cluttered kitchen is not practical, and it is also a mistake to avoid when selling your home. Remove all the food from the shelves, toss away the food with an expired date, and clean out any crumbs and spills in the pantry or fridge. Don’t leave unpacked food or crumbs on the shelves, because they can cause mold growth or serve as an invitation for insects or pests. Cleaning the kitchen will not just make your pantry and fridge look neat, but it will also create a safer space for food storage.

It is essential to keep the sharp items in your garage out of reach

• Recycle the trash from your garage
  We all have items that we don’t want to put in the trash, so they end up piled in the garage, waiting for their destination. Some of these items include:

• Motor oil and paint – these items shouldn’t be accessible to children and must be properly stored or you can donate the excess to prevent fires in your home

• Electronics and batteries – the most environmentally way to dispose of these items is to donate them for use or drop them off at a recycling centre; thus you will declutter your home for safety

• Smoke detectors and thermometers – take these unneeded items to any electronics recycling facility

Don’t forget to store the sharp element and tools in high places. You can add a pegboard wall in the garage to hang the drills and handsaw up high and away from children. In this way, your children will be protected.

Regular maintaining of your backyard will prevent accident and will make you and your family safer

# It is important to maintain your backyard
Don’t leave small, loose toys, gardening tools, or fallen branches in the backyard. You need to pick these items and store them neatly. Otherwise, they can be a tripping hazard if they become hidden by falling leaves. Also, make sure that outdoor toys are in proper working order, by checking safety measures. Check out the tires on the bicycles and riding/driving toys, and make sure that they are inflated and that the brakes are functioning.

Decluttering your home regularly has multiple benefits. T****he most important thing is the safety in your home. All you have to do is to set aside some time and to address these areas in your home.  So follow our tips for decluttering your home for safety and make your home cleaner and safer place for you and your family.

If cleaning your home feels stressful, it may be time to declutter. We often have items we rarely use or don’t need. Your belongings can take over your home, causing stress and making it tough to keep a clean house. Here are three steps to declutter your home.

How to Successfully Declutter Your Home

1. Prepare Yourself for Success

Before you dive into decluttering, prepare yourself mentally and physically for the task at hand. You’ll have to accept the reality that you can’t keep everything and still have an organized home. Of course, you can keep things that are important to you. You get to decide what can stay and which items you no longer want or need.

Once you’ve accepted that getting rid of things is part of the process, you’re ready to do the work. This involves sorting items into categories. Use baskets, boxes, or bags for this and label them as things to keep, items to donate, and trash.

2. Declutter Your Home One Room at a Time

Choose a room or a small space to start, and concentrate on just that area. If a room seems overwhelming, pick a closet or drawer to begin the process.

While sorting each shelf, drawer, and cabinet, ask yourself if each item serves a purpose. Also, think about the reasons you purchased items. Do you need all those fancy soaps in the guest bathroom, or will one or two do?

Place items that need to be put away in the box of things to keep. Remove the trash from the house once you’ve filled a bag so it’s not taking up space. Move the donation boxes to the back of your car so you can drop them off next time you run errands.

3. Create a Space for Everything

Get creative with storage options for the things you need or want to keep. Add cabinets, bookshelves, or baskets in rooms as needed. By establishing a place for each item, you’ll know where it goes and will be more likely to put it back after each use. This will make tidying up a room quicker and less stressful.

While the thought of decluttering your home is daunting, the results of actually doing it are well worth it. Your home will be more appealing, orderly, and much easier to clean.

Bent Nails Home Inspections offers home inspection services to the Ottawa area. Contact me to request an appointment.

Like using a drill on your tub (why didn’t we think of it sooner?!)

Ahhh! Sparkling floors, gleaming windows, and zero dust bunnies. A thorough cleaning can make your abode feel brand new. But that immaculate house comes with a price — sore biceps.

Instead of skimping on your annual deep clean because you’re zonked, use these brilliant hacks for nine of the most pain-in-the-butt tasks. You’ll get the same pristine results with half the time and energy.

#1 Break Out the Drill on Your Bathtub

Cleaning a grungy tub can be back-breaking work. But here’s a genius idea that’ll save you time and sweat: Use your drill. Simply attach a scrubby (or a foam ball polishing attachment if you happen to have one) and use it to do the scrubbing for you. Look in the automotive section for the attachment, which is made specially for tackling grime without scratching surfaces.

Related: Clean Your Bathroom for Just Pennies

#2 Soak Stove Burners in Ammonia

Your stove burners take the bulk of the greasy, gunky mess during cooking, so do them a favour and give them a good cleaning. Don’t worry: No scrubbing involved. To clear the crud, combine your stove burners and 1/4 cup ammonia in a plastic bag and let sit overnight. They should come clean with a light sponge the next day.

#3 Run Floor Vents Through the Dishwasher

Scour as you might, removing all the accumulated dirt and dust from your floor and ceiling vents can be a spring cleaner’s nightmare. If yours are made of aluminum or steel, there’s a shortcut to spic-and-span: Just run them through the dishwasher on a water-only cycle.

#4 Iron Out Bad Carpet Stains

Don’t spend an hour scrubbing out that nasty, set-in carpet splotch. Iron it out instead. Spritz a solution of one part vinegar, three parts water on the stain, and lay a clean cotton cloth on top. Turn your iron to its highest steam setting and run it over the stain for about 10 seconds to transfer the stain to the cloth and off your carpet.

#5 Tie a Bag of Vinegar Around Your Shower head

Mineral build-up on your shower head can cause low water pressure and wonky water streams. But it’s easy to clean them without removing them. Using a rubber band, attach a bag of vinegar to your shower head, making sure all the holes are submerged in the vinegar, and soak it overnight. Voilà. Good as new.

#6 Make Your Leaf Blower Multi-Task

Forget the broom and rags when you’re cleaning out the garage. Whip out your leaf blower and let it blow all the dust, debris, and dead bugs (yuck!) away from the floor and shelving. Just be sure to put away light-weight things could accidentally get blown out with the trash.

#7 Get Rid of Crayon Marks with Goo Gone

Removing evidence of your toddler’s overactive imagination from your gorgeous white walls can be a struggle, but a little bit of Goo Gone (traditionally used to clean sticker residue) will remove the crayon and your headache. Spray it on the drawing, wait a moment, and wipe it off cleanly — without exhausting your arms.

#8 Boil Your Range Filter

There’s no need to scrub the grease and grime off your range filters. Use a bit of baking soda and your largest pot instead. Set the water to boil, slowly add 1/2 cup of baking soda, and submerge your filters for about five minutes. (Make sure to dump the water somewhere safe. Grease in the drain is even worse than grimy filters.)

#9 Sprinkle Your Mattress With Baking Soda

Your mattress needs a springtime refresh, too, but you sure can’t toss it in the washing machine. Cleaning gurus recommend dragging your mattress outside, beating it, and letting the sunshine help freshen it, then dragging it back in. But who has the muscle for that? This is much easier: Use a kitchen strainer to sprinkle baking soda over its surface and let sit for an hour or longer. Longer is better. Then use your vacuum’s upholstery attachment to suck up the odour-absorbing soda.