This Valentine's Day, why not show your home some love? Your home should be your happy place. The place where you feel most relaxed and at peace. It’s not always easy to make maintaining and improving your living space a priority though. Life gets busy and before you know it, rather than a source of peace, your home’s become a source of stress - everywhere you look all you can see is something that needs be fixed, cleaned, or organized. That's why this Valentine's Day, we invite you to show your home some love with the following tips and tricks. Take care of your home, and it'll take care of you.
Light Up Your Home The Right Way
Lighting can truly either make or break a space in your home. No matter how much effort you've put into picking out nice furniture and decorating the walls with your favourite art pieces, all that effort will be shadowed - literally - by bad lighting. The right lighting breathes life into your space, invites you in, and accentuates every area of a room. The wrong lighting can make your space feel smaller, impersonal, and overall off. Keep reading for our favourite tips for improving the lighting in your home:
Layer light sources
Rooms often have many different uses, so it makes sense to have different light sources for those different uses. Overhead lighting is a go-to for many homeowners, and while necessary in many situations, it doesn't offer the warmth and flexibility of task lighting, like table and floor lamps. Determine all the ways you'd use a room and layer your light sources according to those uses.
Choose the right light bulbs
Lumens indicate the amount of light a bulb emits, and watts indicate the amount of energy a light bulb uses. Bulbs that produce more lumens give off brighter light, while less lumens equal dimmer light. So if you want brighter light, check the amount of lumens your bulb's producing, and as long as you stay under the maximum wattage recommended for your light fixture, you can change out the bulb for one that produces more lumens. The colour of light is also an important factor to consider when choosing your bulbs, this is measured on the Kelvin temperature scale. The lower the Kelvin number, the warmer, or more yellow, the light.
Add strip lights under cupboards
Overhead kitchen lighting often casts shadows over your kitchen counter - right where you need it most . Brighten your kitchen work space by installing under-cupboard strip lighting.
Maximize natural light by keeping windows clean
It's a simple solution, but it works! Keep your windows crystal clear to maximize the effect of natural lighting.
Deodorize Your Home
Make your guests fall in love with your home as soon as they walk through the door by making sure it always smells good. Everyone has a different idea of what "smells good", and different sensitivities to scents though. The key to making your home smell good is really to eliminate all the bad odours, and maybe light your favourite candle or drop your favourite essential oils in a diffuser afterwards.
Eliminate moisture
Moisture is often the culprit of bad odours in the home. If you have musty, bad smells in your home, search for nearby sources of moisture, like leaks, wet sponges and towels. Rugs and mats in areas like the bathroom and kitchen are great moisture traps, so make sure to clean them regularly! If you have a particularly musty room, like in the basement, consider investing in a dehumidifier.
Refresh fabrics with vodka
Did you know that you can use old, unwanted vodka to make your curtains and couches feel brand new? Mist it over fabrics to naturally deodorize and disinfect.
Clean Your Garbage Can
Your garbage can is a hot spot for smelly, well, garbage. Give it a good clean at least once a month with a disinfecting spray to eliminate all the odours of garbage past.
Get Rid Of The Clutter
Don't let piles of papers, clothes you haven't worn for many seasons, and random knick knacks you don't even like that much distract from the beauty of your home. We accumulate so much stuff in our lives. I know that none of us want all those things that you don't-really-want-but-might-someday-need to go to waste, but there are many benefits to keeping a clutter free home, from reducing stress, boosting creativity, and making your home easier clean overall. Decluttering your home can be a daunting task, so don't take it all on all at once, go room-by-room and determine what items should be donated, put away, fixed or thrown out. Keep reading for our favourite decluttering tips.
if it doesn't have a use, get rid of it
Yes, you never know when you'll need that particular thing you impulsively bought three years ago because it was on sale....but you probably won't ever really need it, and in the meantime it's taking up precious space in your home. If you haven't used it in the past six months, and it doesn't hold any nostalgic value, get rid of it! Keep a basket in your closet for items that no longer have a use so that decluttering becomes a part of your normal routine.
Wrangle the cords
A big, tangled pile of cords under your TV stand or desk is so unsightly. There's tons of cord management options out there, but really any opaque plastic box will do. I stuck a multi-outlet power strip with all my cords in this inexpensive box from Ikea and it hides everything perfectly!
everything should have a place
You've probably heard this one before, but it's the most important rule in maintaining a clutter free home. Organize your things so that everything has it's own, easily accessible place, in the room it's most use in. Make it as easy as possible for everyone in your household to keep items off the counters and tabletops by assigning each person a catch-all bin for their items.
use the don't put it down, put it away rule
Maintain your clean and decluttered home by adopting a "don't put it down, put it away" mindset (and encourage everyone in your household to as well!). A cluttered home is often the result of putting something down with the intention of coming back to it later, but as we all know, life gets busy and coming back to that thing can get forgotten pretty quickly.
Make Your Home Sparkle
There are certain less obvious, often forgotten spots in your home that need a good cleaning now and then. Tackle these spots and make them sparkle with our favourite deep cleaning hacks.
Get rid of stains on Stainless Steel appliances with olive oil
First remove dirt and dust with water and dish soap, then buff out stains and fingerprints on stainless steel using olive oil and a microfibre cloth.
clean your mattress with vinegar & Baking soda
Give your mattress a good clean by spraying it with vinegar to neutralize odours. After letting it dry, sprinkle on some baking soda and let it rest for at least 30 minutes. Vacuum up the baking soda and you now have a fresh, clean mattress!
use lemons to remove hard water stains on faucets
Remove hard water stains on your faucets by cutting a lemon in half and rubbing it onto the faucet. Wipe with a damp cloth afterwards to remove the leftover juice.
run a dryer sheet over your baseboards
Wiping a dyer sheet over your baseboards not only rids them of dust and dirt, but also leaves behind a coating that'll keep your baseboards dust-free for longer.
Organize Your Pantry
Don't worry, I'm not saying your pantry has to look Pinterest-perfect. Your pantry or kitchen cupboard doesn't need to be filled with rows of expensive matching containers, each carefully labeled with an expensive Bluetooth labelmaker to be considered organized. Levelling up your pantry organization just a bit can make a huge difference in your every day life though.
Make use of vertical space
I would simply not have enough space for all my pantry items if not for shelf risers. Double your cupboard storage space with these small shelves that go in your cupboard shelves to optimize the amount of space you have to work with.
Group like items together
You may be temped to group item by their shape or size, but storing items that you tend to use at the same time together allow you to find everything you need without searching through every shelf. For example, group all your baking items together - your baking soda, flour, chocolate chips, etc. then your breakfast items together - bagels, peanut butter, oatmeal etc.
Place new items in the back
Don't let things get lost in the depths of your shelves forever! When putting away new groceries, bring your older items to the front and put your new items behind. This will remind you to use up the oldest items first, and prompts you to get rid of expired items that could've spent months hiding behind your new granola bars otherwise.
Invest In A New Houseplant
Show your home and yourself some love with a new houseplant! Whether it's your first or 15th, there are so many benefits to keeping plants in your home, including improving air quality and relieving stress! Here are a few helpful tips for caring for your houseplants.
Ensure your plants are safe for your pets
Many common plants are toxic to pets if ingested. Always do a quick Google search to make sure a plant is pet-safe before bringing it home. A few great plant options for pet owners include spider plants, rattlesnake plants, and orchids!
Re-Use coffee grounds to fertilize
Make use of your morning coffee grounds by adding them to your plant's soil to ward off unwanted pests.
Dust your plants' Leaves
Plants are unable to absorb oxygen if too much dust builds up on their leaves. Every time you dust your home, make sure to dust your plants' leaves as well!
before buying a new houseplant, INspect it for pests
Look for indications of pests on any houseplant before you buy it!
There are so many ways to show your home a little extra love this month! It doesn't have to take a lot of time, and it doesn't have to be a huge project, any extra little task you do to improve your space will leave you with a sense of accomplishment, and encourage you love your home even more.
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