Search Results for: blog save money while spring cleaning use what you have

Low Cost Ways to Party

We are planning to have a birthday party for my youngest son at our house in less than a month. We are in the middle of some chaos at the house (nothing new), so we have our work cut out for us to get everything ready. If money was no option, we might just hire things out, but as it is, we are opting for low-cost or no-cost ways to get it all done. Here are the ideas I am batting around today, as we start to make our plans. Cleaning in Pieces In the last few weeks, we have … Continue reading →

Staging Your House for Less

Something about spring makes me start watching all of those home shows. You know the ones where couples and sometimes singles look for the perfect house, fix up and put their homes on the market or just do some renovations. Maybe it is because spring is the most popular time of the year to list a house and get a buyer. While the housing market has promise of turning around, there is still quite a lot of “stock,” houses on the market. This means that in order to make yours sell, it needs to shine. One thing that helps house … Continue reading →

Cheap Ways to Freshen Your Home for Spring

While the calendar is promising spring, here it still seems like winter. I can’t wait until I am able to open the windows and let the fresh air circulate through the house for hours. It is one free way to instantly freshen up our home. While the new catalogues that come in the mail are promising all sorts of ideas for freshening up a home and getting it ready for spring, I think I am going to stick with the free and the cheap. This way I can still have a nice fresh house, but can also save my money … Continue reading →

Supplies for Seasonal Cleaning

I kicked off 2013 with a determination to conquer what I call a lost art in society, housekeeping.  My way of defining housekeeping is cleaning, repairs, decorating and organizing. January’s focus is on cleaning, which I blogged about the three main types of cleaning:  seasonal, deep and maintenance.  Last week I introduced you to a seasonal cleaning plan and today we are going to talk about the supplies you need. As a reminder, seasonal cleaning targets those areas inside and outside the home that you are likely to get to once-a-year.  Examples include washing windows and cleaning out the garage. … Continue reading →

Spring Clean Your Scrapbook Space

Have you seen the viral video featuring the woman who lives in a 90-square-foot studio in Manhattan? Sure, it’s located across from Lincoln Center and a block from Central Park, but the place is smaller than most suburban bedroom closets. Lucky for her, she’s a professional organizer and her dad’s a bankruptcy attorney, so she knows how to make do with few things, and the items she does have are perfectly placed throughout the tiny apartment. Her story got me thinking about spring cleaning my scrapbook space. Sadly, my little scrapbooking nook is about the same size as the woman’s … Continue reading →

Overhaul Your Scrapbook Space

Part of my New Year’s ritual is to purge my home of unwanted and unnecessary goods. I’m not big into New Year’s resolutions, but this annual pre-spring cleaning ceremony comes pretty close to the formal promises people make at the beginning of a new year. I take one room or fraction of a room at a time. The process takes a few weeks, but by the time I am done my home is much more organized. Currently, I am working on overhauling my scrapbooking space. I don’t think there is a right or wrong way to organize your space. After … Continue reading →

Great Home Tips

I’m always searching for great tips that I can use around the house. Sometimes the simplest solution is the most ingenious. When faced with a common problem, little household tips can come to the rescue. Here are some ideas that I have been thinking about or practicing lately. I keep a spray bottle with a half vinegar and half water mix under the bathroom sink, along with some soft rags. The spray bottle and rags make it easy to clean up the shower doors, the sink and anywhere in the bathroom in just a few minutes. Plus I know that … Continue reading →

Organizing Shoes

I admit that I have never been addicted to shoes. While friends of mine have overflowing closets full of footwear, I have exactly five pairs of shoes and sandals, plus two pairs of sneakers (one of the pairs is for yard work) and one pair of work boots that double for the winter. I’m always worried about the expense and the practicality of treating myself to shoes. My daughter has no such qualms about acquiring shoes. At four-and-a-half, she has never met a pink, feminine, or sparkly shoe that she does like. Church shoes, jelly shoes, sandals, princess sneakers and … Continue reading →

The Biggest Home Storage Mistakes

If you want to save yourself some big headaches when it comes time to organize, then avoid these common storage mistakes. You don’t want a big mess on your hands. Storage Containers When people are ready to organize then tend to run out and purchase lots of storage containers. A bette idea is to first figure out what you need to store and then plan out what types of containers you want to use to store all of your stuff. You may find that you can de-clutter enough items to require fewer containers than you thought, or you may have … Continue reading →

Easy Tough Love Tips for De-cluttering

While getting rid excess stuff seems like an easy thing to do (just start in one place and keep going), for many of us de-cluttering is tough to do. From not knowing where to start to having an emotional attachment to our stuff, we can be our own worse enemies when it comes to having an organized home. One thing that may help in your de-cluttering efforts is to practice some tough love with yourself. Practicing tough love means that you establish certain rules for yourself and then follow them most of the time. Notice I said most of the … Continue reading →