New Year Resolution For Your Home
Category Expert Insight
New Year Resolutions for your Home
The New Year brings many changes and new beginnings. We often feel reenergized and make personal resolutions - to be more organized, get that promotion, get fit or learn a new skill. This January, take some time to think about resolutions for your home. Whether you are a homeowner or live in a rented property, these easy resolution ideas will certainly get 2022 off to a great start. Love the home that you live in, and it will love you back.
- Decluttering
Decluttering may seem like a real buzz word, and it is. With the trend to work from home in 2021, people have spent unusual amounts of time in their living spaces. Now, more than ever, is a great time to declutter.
Decluttering may seem like a mammoth task, but it doesn't have to be. Start with the space you use the most - your lounge area, your study or family room. Make a plan, start small and.... Start! It's best to maintain momentum and focus on the area you are decluttering. Don't get sidetracked or you could end up feeling very overwhelmed. When going through your items ask yourself "do I want or need this?" If the answer is yes, keep it. If no, set the item aside. The items that you have set aside can often be sold, there are plenty of secondhand sale sites on social media.
While you are decluttering, it is a good time to go through all your old paperwork. This should be an annual exercise and unneeded paperwork should be shredded and disposed of safely. Needed and important paperwork (certificates, title deeds, bank documents) should be scanned and stored for safe keeping and hard copies kept in a file.
- Rearrange your furniture or spaces
There is an old saying that says "a change is as good as a holiday". This is true for your home. Rearranging some key pieces of furniture can really give your home a fresh feel. You will have newfound pride in the space you call home, even if you have just moved your lounge suite around or rearranged your kitchen worktops.
An important space to look at is your entrance way. No matter if your front door opens up directly into your home or you have an impressive hallway, this space always seems to end up being an area where bags are deposited, shoes are left, and house keys dropped. If you can, look at this area and see how it can be rearranged and ordered to become a warm, clean space to welcome you home.
- Energise your kitchen
When was the last time you did a good stock take and have a thorough clean of your kitchen cupboards and fridge? We all have a jar of suspicious mayonnaise in the back of the fridge or a packet of open pasta in the back of the cupboard that has been there since we moved in. The start of 2022 is a great time to empty out store cupboards and fridges, give them a deep clean and then repack in a logical manner, checking on the sell by dates of all those suspicious looking jars and packets. A great idea is to keep a permanent marker at hand a write the date of opening on the jar / tub so that you can see how long things sit around for.
- Check your appliances
After you have checked through all your food items, it's a good time to check on all your appliances. We are surrounded with appliances in almost all rooms in our home. The start of the new year is a great time to check each appliance and see if it is in good working order. Many appliances don't last forever but their longevity can be increased with a regular checkup. Check the plugs are wired correctly and sockets are not overloaded. Simple tasks like cleaning out washing machine or aircon filters and descaling kettles will ensure your appliances work more efficiently.
Check to see if there are any appliances that will need to be replaced during the year and add these to your expenses budget. This way you can feel better knowing that you have planned expenses rather than getting a nasty shock.
- Plan 2022 home repairs
We all have a list in our mind of things that we should have attended to in 2021... a faulty gate motor, damaged gutters, a dripping tap, overgrown trees and so on. Start the year off on a positive note and assess your home and all these tasks that need attending to. This can be labelled "preventative maintenance". Prioritise and schedule all these tasks - what need to be done urgently, next month, in the next 6 months or by the end of the year. Often the case with these seemingly small tasks, if they are left unattended for too long, they can cause larger problems and more expenses. If planned properly, you can factor these repairs in to your monthly budget and avoid any large bills. If you are a tenant in a house, speak to your landlord about repair work that may need to be carried out.
- Reduce, reuse and recycle
During the decluttering process you may have been able to repurpose (or sell) some of your unused items. However, all homes create a lot of waste on a daily basis - plastics, glass and papers. These can all be easily recycled, giving you a good sense of feeling that you are doing something to help the environment in 2022. Even if you merely manage to set yourself up a system to take old newspapers and magazines to the BSPCA you are doing something good to manage your impact on the planet (this is a great resolution for 2022). A simple search on social media will bring up many people looking for old jars and tins.
Set up a system and make recycling part of your daily habit. But be careful that the items do not turn in to clutter in your home.
Every year, people all over the world want to start the year off as they mean to go on. Resolutions are a great way to do this. If you plan a few resolutions for your home and keep at them, they soon become good habits and no longer feel like "chores". A beautiful, comfortable, and welcoming home is always a pleasure to come home to and you will enjoy spending time there.
It's not how big the house is, it's how happy the home is.
Author: Seeff Properties Botswana
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