As you make New Year’s resolutions, don’t forget to add some for your home as well. Resolving to focus on your home is the same as focusing on yourself and your family’s wellbeing. Here’s how you can create a happier (and more valuable) home one season at a time.
Winter: Create Space for Personal Wellness
If a global pandemic has taught us anything, it’s the need to make our homes a place of peace that contributes to our overall wellness. Winter is the perfect time to make some home changes that will encourage you to keep your focus on your own health — both physically and mentally. The first is to build a home gym.
Building a home gym
If getting more physically fit is one of your resolutions, a home gym can help you accomplish that. Creating a space in your home for working out helps eliminate a whole set of excuses: not enough time, expensive gym memberships, traffic, vehicle coordination and closures, to name just a few. Here are some tips for building a home gym.
You probably have a space in your home that is full of clutter or storage. Start by cleaning that space out.
Once it’s empty, decide what types of workouts you would like to do and outfit it with the equipment necessary to make it happen. The equipment needed can, of course, vary with how you enjoy working out. But here are some other tips for equipment to include to make your home gym even more effective:
Setup a smart TV for workout videos
Install a fan to stay cool
Add a mirror to monitor your progress
Install speakers for motivating workout music
Add some shelving for towels or extra water
Preparing outdoor spaces
Whether it’s a screened-in porch, deck or sunroom, extending your living space into the outdoors is an important step to boosting your mental health.
When it comes to ways to optimize your outdoor spaces, the options are truly endless. Check out some more of our tips for transforming your outdoor living areas to spark new ideas and get some helpful insight on how to get started.
Winter is the perfect time to start a project of this type, preparing for the warmer months when you can enjoy your transformed backyard and its possibilities.
Spring: Optimize Appearances
Once winter is over, we naturally start spending more time with others, gathering with friends and spending time outside our homes. Spring brings beautiful flowers and fresh colors in nature, and likewise we also start considering our appearances. If you made a resolution to take better care of yourself, spring is a great time to consider aesthetics. Maybe that means you need to get a haircut you’ve been putting off or make a spa visit.
It’s also important to make your home look pretty on both the inside and the out.
Spring decluttering/cleaning
Spring cleaning is necessary for a couple of reasons. First, a well-organized home can help you and your family keep a well-organized mind, which ultimately helps you in other resolutions such as saving money or living a simpler lifestyle. Too much clutter can actually hamper productivity.
There’s also the health aspect of cleaning. Eliminating dust in your home can help improve your respiratory system, improve your breathing, and minimize allergies.
Now’s the time to declutter your home. Go through your closets, junk drawers, and garages. Host a yard sale. Donate used items. Throw away items not worth selling or donating. Clean out all the expired food in your kitchen.
Once you’ve decluttered, get to cleaning. Not just your usual cleaning. Deep clean. We’re talking dust the fan blades, scrub those baseboards, clean your oven, vacuum under the couch cushions.
Next, implement an organizational system you can stick to. These areas of your home likely need to be organized:
Kitchen pantry
Underneath the kitchen sink
Entertainment center
Closets and dressers
Linen closet
Bathroom toiletries and makeup
Garage
Increasing curb appeal
The outside of your home is often the first, and sometimes the only, impression people have of you. A strong curb appeal can actually increase your home’s value and make your home more attractive to potential buyers if you’re looking to sell. Here are some tips for increasing curb appeal.
Landscaping
Landscaping is super important to curb appeal. Your landscaping doesn’t have to be over-the-top with sculptures and fountains, but it should be clean and neat. This doesn’t need to cost a fortune, just make sure your grass stays neatly trimmed and any other plants are well-kept. Spring is a great time for you to make landscaping changes and prepare yourself for success in the coming months.Doors
The doors leading into your home should be maintained to boost curb appeal. You should probably give your doors a new coat of paint at least once per year, and spring is the best time to do it. In addition to your front door, make sure you touch up your garage doors as well.Mailbox
Another aspect of curb appeal is your mailbox. A clean mailbox is a subtle demonstration of the care you’ve put in your home. Once a year, you should make sure your mailbox is clean, update the paint if necessary and check that your house numbers are easily readable.Decorate
Adding some new patio furniture, a wreath to your front door or even just some decorative flowerpots are small touches that can go a long way to helping spruce up your curb appeal.
Summer: Health Check-Up
Summer is often a busy time of year, but it’s still important to check in on your home’s inner workings and ensure everything is going smoothly, as well as to help you prepare for any major updates you need to make. Likewise, you should also schedule physical and other check-ups just to make sure you are staying in tip-top shape.
Checking in on plumbing
With kids home from school and summer vacations in full swing, it’s likely your plumbing is getting a full workout, making now the right time to get a workup and full diagnosis of how everything is functioning. Annual check-ups are preventative maintenance that can save you money and heartache in the long run.
A couple of common places to check on are the water heater and the main shut-off valve. Leaks often start at the water heater, so keeping an eye on your water heater is important. Likewise, test your shut-off valve to make sure it works in case of an emergency.
Assessing HVAC health
Like your plumbing, keeping a regular eye on your HVAC health can help prevent any issues or downtime in the future. It’ll also save you from expensive emergency repairs. Getting this checked in the summer ensures your air conditioning is running as prescribed and prepares your unit for heating in the fall and winter months.
Some common HVAC issues include:
Dirty or clogged air filters
Refrigerant leaks
Thermostat issues
Zone imbalances
Loose electrical connections
Fall: Focus on Energy Savings
As you transition into the cooler months, you’ll want to look for ways to eliminate leaks and preserve energy in your home. If you already have a net-zero home, this might not be something you’ll need to focus on. But if you have a typical home structure that isn’t net-zero, now is the time to look for ways to start saving energy as the temperature drops and the heat bills rise.
Upgrading your windows
The right windows can make a huge difference to your home’s insulation and keep the heat in and the cold out. In fact, the US Department of Energy estimates that the average household can save $125-$465 per year by using windows with an ENERGY STAR rating.
In addition to helping you save on energy costs, new windows can also increase your home’s value and marketability when it's time to sell.
To determine whether your windows should be replaced, start by inspecting your windows for flaws on both the inside and outside.
Next, evaluate whether air is coming in around the windows. There are a couple of ways to do this, including purchasing a U-value kit to measure the efficacy. If you don’t want to make a purchase, a simple at-home method of lighting some incense, placing it in the windowsill, and watching to see whether the smoke is blown into the room is also effective.
When you replace your windows, check your home’s climate zone on EnergyStar.gov and look for windows with a matching rating.
For more tips on choosing the right windows, check out our guide to energy-efficient windows.
Keeping your home connected
“Smart” home connectivity isn’t just for convenience's sake, although being able to control home features from the touch of your phone is certainly convenient. Starting to incorporate some smart home features can increase your home’s value significantly, as well as help you save on energy efficiency.
Smart thermostats, for example, can learn your habits and automate temperature adjustments to help you save by not running your HVAC unit when you don’t need it.
There are plenty of other smart home devices that can help regulate efficiency beyond just a smart thermostat. Here are a couple of examples:
Water controller (such as Buoy or Flo): interfaces with your home’s plumbing and alerts you to leaks or other issues
Energy monitoring system (such as Sense): connects with your home’s electrical panel and identifies patterns to become more efficient
Set Your Resolutions Now!
Lock in your resolutions for both you and your home to keep your home’s value on the incline and your emergency expenses to a minimum. Save and download our Home Resolutions .pdf checklist to review at any time!
Here’s to a happy and healthy new year!