Make a clean sweep
It's the 2006 "fix it, dump it, defrump it" guide to everything you ought to be doing around the home. But please, for our sake, go easy.
By JUDY STARK
Published December 31, 2005
Get the new year off to a fresh start by putting your house and your life in order. Here is our occasional list of more than 80 chores, tasks and things to do. Versions of this list have appeared four times in the last decade, and they're always among the most popular features to appear in this section.
This time we offer something new: four big-picture goals for you to consider in the new year: energy efficiency, hurricane preparedness, appliance lifespan and a good top-to-bottom look at your home.
- JUDY STARK, Times Homes editor
THE BIG PICTURE- Start acting on the lessons of hurricanes Katrina and Wilma. Now is the time to order window protection or to prepare plywood panels to cover your windows. Now is the time to reinforce your garage door. Now is the time to make your home inventory, review your insurance, compile a hurricane kit (emergency food, water, tools, paperwork) and prepare a disaster evacuation plan. Don't wait for September.
- Make it the year of energy efficiency. With energy costs skyrocketing, now's the time to weather-strip doors, caulk leaks, fill cracks and add insulation. Utility companies offer free energy audits. Replace your incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents and cut your lighting costs in half. A fluorescent bulb typically uses 16 watts to produce the same amount of light as a 60-watt incandescent bulb. Install a programmable thermostat. Clean or change the filter on your heating system every month. If it has been a while since you had a technician check and clean your heating and cooling system, get that done.
- Look at your appliances. Which of them are on their last legs? Refrigerators have an estimated life span of 18 to 20 years; dishwashers, 10 years; washers and dryers, 12 years. If any of yours are approaching the end of their useful lives, it's time to start setting aside money for the day they die, and to start researching what to buy when the time comes. (And if retirement is in your plans for 2006, think about replacing an aging major appliance while you're still employed.)
- Give your house a once-over, inside and out, as if you were thinking of selling it, suggests Angie Hicks Bowman, the founder of Angie's List, a directory of service providers and merchants evaluated by dues-paying members. What needs cleaning, painting or fixing? Outside, study your home from the front gate to the landscaping, from the mailbox to the doorknob, from the shutters and roof to the exterior lighting. Inside, look at rugs, walls, window treatments, furniture. Come up with a list of big-ticket, long-term projects and another list of short-term, quick fixes, and schedule them throughout the year.
- If you don't have a smoke detector and carbon monoxide detector on each floor of your home, get one. Experts recommend one for each bedroom. Get the new ones that "talk" to each other: When one detector senses smoke or carbon monoxide, all the alarms in the house go off. If you have detectors, test them and replace batteries if necessary.
- You need fire extinguishers in the kitchen, garage, family room and bedrooms.
- Get flashlights for every room.
- Get plug-in night lights for bathrooms, halls and stairs.
- Check the family first-aid supplies. Replenish your stock of adhesive bandages, antiseptic, antibacterial cream, pain relief, burn ointment, cold and indigestion remedies.
- Arm yourself with a screwdriver, a wrench and a can of WD-40. Walk through the house and tighten the loose screws, fix the leaky faucets, silence the squeaks.
- Equip yourself with a cleaning rag and a spray bottle of cleaner and a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Make a circuit of the house, wiping fingerprints and dirt from doors and knobs, switchplates, cabinet fronts. If you have pets, look at animal level for streaks of dirt.
- Clean the windows.
- Clean the baseboards.
- Replace the worn, sun-bleached welcome mat.
- With a hose and broom, clean your front entrance, knocking down spider webs and streaks of dirt.
- Clean the dead moths out of light fixtures, inside and out.
- Dust the fan blades.
- Take down all the art from the walls. You've stopped seeing it. Try each piece in a new location. Bring in a new piece. Put the kids' school photos in an album or scrapbook. The only one you need out is the most recent.
- Replace boring, basic ceiling light fixtures with new ones.
- Vacuum lampshades. Replace what's discolored, dented or tired.
- Wash out the wastebaskets. Replace those that are cracked, stained or rusted.
- Polish or replace brass house numbers. If you live on an alley and don't have numbers at the rear of your house, install them.
- Replace burned-out light bulbs.
- Tie up the back issues of magazines you've saved all year and donate them to a doctor's office, hair salon or retirement community.
- Cancel subscriptions to magazines you no longer read.
- Learn how to operate your home: how to turn off the water and gas; where your electrical box is and how to turn off the power. If you have no "map" of which circuit powers which outlets, spend an afternoon with a friend or family member creating one. Do you know how to operate your home security system?
- Learn how to handle some basic repairs and tools: how to hang a picture, fix a leaky faucet, stop a running toilet or clear a drain. If your spouse is usually the one who handles these chores, don't be helpless when he or she isn't around.
- Go through the medicine chest and get rid of medications you'll never use. Flush them down the toilet so kids or pets can't pick them out of a wastebasket.
- Similarly, go through your lotions, potions and cosmetics. Give away or throw away those you'll never use. Throw away dried-up nail polish, crusted tubes of who-knows-what, and bottles with the last quarter-inch of something-or-other.
- Do the same thing with cleaning supplies. Dump what you don't use, replace what you need. Sort them into baskets or dishpans under the sink. Get a caddy for cleaning gear.
- Clean the mildew from grout and the scum from soap dishes and shower doors.
- Replace the shower curtain, bath mat, tumbler and toothbrush holder. Replace your toothbrush every three months.
- Would a robe hook, magazine rack, over-the-toilet storage system, or back-of-the-door towel rack make the bathroom more functional? Add them.
- Clean the showerhead by soaking it in warm vinegar. Poke out sediment with a pin or toothpick. Or replace it with an adjustable head for an invigorating spray.
- Take a critical look at bath towels and, in the powder room, hand towels. If they've seen better days, it's time to replace them.
- Take everything off the front of the refrigerator.
- Dust the top of the refrigerator.
- Roll the refrigerator away from the wall and vacuum or mop behind it. Vacuum the refrigerator coils. Clean the drip pan underneath.
- Clean the inside of the refrigerator: wipe down shelves, wash out bins, throw out food you no longer recognize or won't eat.
- Buy a roll of masking tape and a felt-tip pen to mark leftovers before they go in the freezer.
- Clean the range and burner bowls. Clean the oven. Roll the range away from the wall and clean behind it. (You'll be amazed.)
- Clear the clutter off the countertops and give yourself room to work.
- Replace old, cracked or stained cutting boards.
- Go through your collection of storage containers and get rid of topless bottoms and bottomless tops. Dump the dozens of yogurt containers or spaghetti sauce jars you've been saving. Buy the sizes and shapes of storage containers that work for your family's needs.
- Sort through the kitchen towels, throw out those that are stained or worn (or recycle them as cleaning rags) and buy new ones.
- Take an inventory of pots and pans: Get rid of unused duplicates. If the turkey roaster won't make another appearance until next Thanksgiving, store it in a remote location. If a small saucepan or another medium-sized saute pan would make it easier to get dinner on the table every night, get it.
- Do the same with china and glassware. No need to keep a service for 12 at your fingertips if you're typically cooking for two or three. Put the rest in remote storage. If your collection of drinking glasses or mugs looks like the bargain bin of mismatches at the thrift shop, treat yourself to a new set of matching glassware.
- Throw away aging spices and herbs. Replace with fresh ones in small amounts you'll use quickly.
- Think about adding under-counter lighting so you can see what you're doing.
- Go through the kids' clothes and footwear and donate items they've outgrown or won't wear. Toss the truly worn-out stuff.
- Do the same with books, toys and games the kids have outgrown or lost interest in.
- Provide appropriate storage. Open baskets and small containers make more sense than closed boxes (kids won't lift the lids) or one giant toy box (small parts and pieces get lost).
- Provide a stepstool in the bathroom so kids can reach the sink.
- Install an automatic faucet in the kids' bathroom: Water runs when they hold their hands under the faucet, shuts off when they remove them. No faucets left running, no difficulty turning the handles. (You can program the temperature to avoid scalding.)
- Replace worn linens and limp or lumpy pillows. Pillows have a useful life of two to three years.
- Turn the mattress.
- If you've been sleeping on the same mattress forever, it may be time to replace it. The industry says a mattress and box-spring set should provide good support and comfort for five to seven years.
- Replace wire hangers with plastic or wood and with specialty hangers for skirts or pants.
- Take family shoes to the shoemaker for repairs. Get new shoelaces.
- As you develop piles or bags of items to be donated, get them in the car and on their way to their destination. If they sit around the closet or the hall, they're likely to become part of the landscape.
- Have the car washed and the inside vacuumed. Clear out trash. Clean out the glove box. Dig out whatever's under the seats.
- Get a good mug holder and a trash container.
- Replace tattered, coffee-stained, out-of-date maps with new ones. Buy a street finder.
- Find the owner's manual and learn how to change the clock and program the radio.
- Put together a car emergency kit: some change for tolls and meters, a couple of envelopes, pad and pen, first-aid supplies, needle and thread, hand sanitizer or premoistened towelettes or a canister of wipes, paper towels, umbrella, flashlight, motor oil, window-cleaning solution, flat fixer, tire gauge, flares or snap lights, duct tape.
- Are you always running out of pencils, pens, scratch paper, sticky notes, envelopes, stamps, scissors, tape? Make a trip to the office supply store and stock up. While you're at it, sharpen all your pencils and throw out the stubs and the pens that don't work.
- Buy a supply of greeting cards so you're ready for birthdays and get-wells. (You could address and sign cards for the first few months of the year and really be ahead of the game.)
- Sit down with your 2006 calendar and mark birthdays, anniversaries and other significant dates. If someone's birthday is at the beginning of the month, note it with a sticky note on the previous month so you have cards and gifts in plenty of time.
- Buy several books or a roll of stamps.
- Photocopy the contents of your wallet. If it's stolen, you'll know what you've lost. Check your credit-card statements and make a note of whom to notify and how if your card is lost or stolen.
- Print address labels for frequent correspondents. It's easier to pop a quick note, card or clipping in the mail if you can just stick on a label.
- If you don't have a will, make this the year to write one. If you do, review it. Make sure it still reflects your wishes.
- Sit down with family members to discuss end-of-life issues. Do you want to be kept alive by mechanical means? Under what circumstances? Name the person who will make medical decisions for you if you are unable to do so, and talk to that person about what you want. Have you filled out the paperwork for a living will? To obtain free living will and health-care surrogate forms, call the Florida Registry of Living Wills toll-free at 1-800-624-5498. Or contact the nonprofit Aging with Dignity for its "Five Wishes" living-will form: toll-free 1-888-594-7437 or www.agingwithdignity.org Talk with family members and spiritual leaders about the kind of funeral you want.
- Older persons may want to start conversations with family members about how they want their possessions distributed after they die. Sometimes parents are surprised to find that the family heirlooms they treasure are of little importance to their children and grandchildren. Have those conversations now so you can make alternate plans. If downsizing is in your future, give some of those items now. You'll know they got where you intended them, and you can enjoy the recipients' pleasure.
&- Have your pets visited the vet recently? If not, schedule an appointment for a checkup and necessary shots.
- Ditto the groomer for a bath, nail clipping and flea dip.
- Wash bedding, blankets, leash and collar. Replace worn gear.
- No tag? Shame on you! Get one so your pet is legal and more likely to be returned home if he or she should stray.
- Have your pet microchipped for the same reasons.
- Get rid of exhausted, leggy or scrawny houseplants.
- Find a new home for plants that need more care and a greener thumb than you can provide.
- Survey your trees. Do they need professional trimming? Now's the time to think ahead to hurricane season and start getting your yard in shape.
- Ditto for shrubbery. Is your house so overgrown it can barely be seen from the street? Time for a haircut. Ask a landscaper to develop a plan for an exterior makeover.
- Survey the premises: Does your fence need repair or painting? Have the corners become drop-off places for toys, junk and debris? Clear them out.
- Take advantage of cool winter weather to start a garden or improve the one you have.
- Sweep the floor.
- Figure out what kinds of storage equipment will help de-clutter: racks to get bikes off the floor, big baskets for sports equipment, shelves with labeled boxes for small items, pegboard for tools, plastic baskets for cleaning cloths, a locker for household chemicals, mops and brooms.
- Go through the chemicals, paint, sandpaper and scraps of lumber you've been accumulating. Dispose responsibly of the chemicals and dried-up paint (not down the drain or in the sewer, please; check with your county for disposal sites). Get rid of the scraps and leftovers you know in your heart you'll never use.