Spring Clean Up!!!!

Hi All,

With Spring officially arriving on Friday - tomorrow - at 6:45pm - now is a good time to blog about 'Spring cleanup'.Oh wait...its going to snow tomorrow...how can it be the beginning of Spring when we're going to get about 2"-4" of snow? 

Crazy weather...that's all.  In any event, folks can still get a jump on their spring cleaning by reading the rest of this blog entry.  And when you are done with the spring cleaning you can go to the next job on your list of things to do - like taxes...

Some articles and ideas that will make your Spring cleanup faster, easier and less unpleasant.   Click on this link from About.com titled 'Spring Cleaning For Lawns and Landscaping'.   And from the ever present Martha Stewart comes this entry in the form of a checklist - specifically a 'Spring Cleaning Checklist'. Wikipedia even got into the act with an article on Spring cleaning. 

A fairly well known name is house maintenance/repair/upkeep is HouseBeautiful.  This next link comes from their site and includes '13 Spring-Cleaning Tips'.

Believe it or not, Vogue has also gotten into the act as well with an article titled, 'Spring Cleaning: 8 Beautiful Items to Help You Tidy Up'.

And, finally, click on this link from Imperfect Homemaking for a 'Thorough Spring Cleaning Checklist'.  The author of the site - Kelly - has organized the cleaning by rooms of the house: foyer, bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen, dining room, living room/family room/playroom, laundry room, stairwells, outside the house and reminders.  A printable version of this Spring Cleaning Checklist can be found by clicking on this link!

Here's to fast and easy cleaning!

Regards,
Stu

Spring Home Maintenance

Hi All,

Attention home owners, attention home owners. Spring is here - heck after the winter we had it is a very, very good thing that spring is here already! Enough of that wintry, rainy, cloudy, cold weather. Be gone with you bad weather!

That being said, homeowners should be constantly vigilant about home maintenance at any time of the year; but spring especially is known for maintenance. What with rain, wind and the thawing of rivers, streams and canals it is a good time to take a once over look at your house.

So, without further ado a few good websites (and some comments and narrative about the sites) about spring maintenance for a single family dwelling (aka a house).

Straight from Consumer Reports is this link -and any time you can get something free from CR its a good day. Click here for the link entitled "Spring Checklist For the Home: Don't Let Problems Around the House Turn Into Money Drains'. The article talks about dirty air conditioners, hazardous decks, foundation fissures, faulty garage-door openers, clogged gutters,
leaky roofs', weakened trees, and cracked pavement. Good basic stuff for the homeowner.

Next on our list is a site from HGTV entitled, 'The Slackers Guide to Spring Home Maintenance'. This is my kind of article!

The article talks about diverting water, retaining the roof, checking the paint job on the exterior of the house, cutting shrubs and trees, lawn maintenance, maintaining windows and doors (an interior issue), pest control, plumbing issues (leaky and or sweaty pipes) and tile maintenance in the kitchen and the bathroom (check that grout!)

From a website by the name of Handyman Matters comes this site - click here. What's so good about this site you might ask? Indeed, good question!

For starters the site has a checklists for each of the four seasons - its a simple list but very handy if I might say so myself! What else does the site have? Click here for a DIY (Do-It-Yourself) section that has some Tips and Tricks on various home repair projects. Each tip is a sentence or two in length but combined they are darn useful. There is also a section of DIY videos which you can view by clicking on this link.

Finally, since we reopened the remodeled library we have created a separate section for home repair and home maintenance books. We thought that this would be a great way to help our patrons find material (think books and DVD's) on home repair and maintenance more easily.

Note that the material is down the first aisle next to the Children's Room in the library. Also, don't forget that the books and DVD's in this collection are further broken down into sub-sections like gardening, fireplaces, plumbing, landscaping, plants, trees/shrubs, home repair, home organization, furniture, storage, kitchen, home improvement, indoor structures and outdoor structures and probably a few others that I've mistakenly forgotten.

Enjoy the sites and the home maintenance advice - hope you don't need it!

Stu

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