It’s the Easter long weekend and spring is finally in the air! While spending time with family is probably your priority, if you find yourself at loose ends, consider freshening up your home for spring.
If you’re like most humans, you’ve put off quite a few projects during the darkest and coldest months of the year, choosing to cocoon on the couch with Netflix instead. But now that you’re able to go outside and feel the sun’s warmth, you’re likely starting to feel the motivation to finally tackle those projects.
Here are just a few ideas to help get you started.
1. Purge your closets
This is the perfect job to do right now since you might already be moving some of your heavy winter parkas into storage and pulling out lighter-weight coats. It’s a good time to assess what you need for this spring and summer, and what you don’t.
When sorting, ask yourself a few questions. Does it still fit? Are you wearing it? Are you still in love with it? Apply these principles while sorting into keep, donate/sell and toss piles. Once this is done, immediately take your donate pile to a Goodwill or Salvation Army store. If that’s too inconvenient, or you don’t have a car, many of these places pick items up for you. If you have quality pieces you’d rather sell, locate your nearest consignment store.
2. Tidy up the garage
Start this project on a dry, warm day so you can pull everything out onto the driveway. Set aside what you want to get rid of and, just like your closets, organize it into three piles: keep, donate/sell and toss.
Once the garage is empty, use kitty litter, sawdust or cornmeal to soak up any grease or oil. Sweep it up and then use dish detergent, water and a scrub brush to clean any stains. When repacking the garage, put less-used and seasonal items on harder to reach shelves or in stacked, labeled plastic storage containers. Put frequently used items out in the open and in easy to access areas.
3. Clean your patio furniture
It might still be too early to do this for some of you, but if you have a deck or patio that you’ve been keeping clear of snow, it’s not too early to set out a couple of lawn chairs to soak up the warm sunshine.
Whether you store your patio furniture inside, or covered up with a tarp outdoors, your patio furniture will need some spring-cleaning before summer. Use soapy water and a soft brush or sponge to clean dirt and dust off your metal, wicker, PVC or wooden patio set. If your patio set has removable cushion covers, wash according to the instructions on the tag.
4. Organize the basement
If it’s still too chilly outside to work on your garage or patio furniture, tackle your basement instead. The same principles apply. Set up your three zones: Keep, donate/sell, toss. You’ll be shocked at how much easier it is to organize all your useful items after all the useless junk is gone. You know, the stuff you shove onto a shelf in front of that tool you can’t find later when you really need it. Just remember, the ultimate goal is to have more stuff in the sell/donate and toss piles than in the keep pile. Avoid those, “I’ll hang onto it just in case” thoughts. It’s not worth it to hang onto that one weird screw for 10 years.
5. Inspect the exterior of your home
When the windchill was -45°C, the most time you were spending outside your home was to run to your car or shovel. With the weather warming up and the snow starting to melt, now is the perfect time to walk around your home’s exterior and look for any damage that might have occurred during our extreme weather.
Look for signs of damage on your roof, like loose or curling shingles, damaged gutters and downspouts, peeling paint on your eaves and soffits, cracks in the stucco and foundation, loose siding, broken basement windows, etc. Now is the best time to start lining up experts to come do the more complicated repairs, like roofing, before their spring and summer schedules fill up.
6. Brighten your home with paint
You don’t need to tackle entire rooms. Touch-ups make a huge difference and can be handled by almost anyone with a steady hand. Touching up all those scrapes and dings on the door frames, window frames and baseboards will immediately make a home look clean and fresh. The same goes with marks on the walls. If they don’t scrub off with TSP, feather some paint over them with a foam brush and voila! It looks like you painted the entire room.
For a really satisfying job, paint your front door in a fun colour for extra welcoming charm.
7. Liven up your linens
You’ve probably been laundering your bed linens regularly, but you also need to remember all the throw pillows on top of the bed. And don’t forget your couch and dining room chairs. If you don’t have removable slipcovers on your larger furniture, use a fabric refresher spray, mist it on, let it dry, and then vacuum. Do the same to the decorative pillows you have on your couch, and any throws you’ve been using to get extra cozy. Don’t forget the dog bed and blankets. Wash these with hypo-allergenic detergent and double-rinse if you have pets with sensitive skin.
8. Bring in the spring
To really enhance the freshness of your home, open some windows. Yes, it’s time. They’ve probably been sealed up all winter, so let in that crisp early spring breeze to really chase out the ghosts of your cooking odours, pets and damp boots. If it’s chilly outside, open the windows a crack and limit how long you leave them open. Even that will make a huge difference to your indoor air quality.
Adding store-bought flowers is the finishing touch. Think of them as a reward for all your hard work. A bunch of tulips, for example, will complement all the brightly coloured eggs and yummy chocolates sitting in that basket on your kitchen counter.
Here’s the bonus: If you’re planning on selling your home this spring or later in the year, not only will getting some of these jobs out of the way now help prevent that panicked rush to do them after your REALTOR® gently suggests it, they will also help your REALTOR® get top dollar for your home when it sells. Win win!
May you have a happy and productive Easter!