Step by Step Plan to Spruce-Up the Garage in Your Southern NH Home

De-cluttering your Southern New Hampshire home is an important part of preparing it for sale. Buyers want to be able to imagine themselves and their belongings inside your home. However, this idea isn’t limited to the inside of your home. It also applies to your garage.

Cluttered, over-crowded garages turn buyers away. Fortunately, sprucing up your garage is easier than you think. Here are some tips to get you started.

   1. Start with a list. If you’re like most people, you probably don’t even know what’s inside your garage. Take a pencil and paper and walk through your garage, writing down everything you see. You don’t need a detailed list. For example, screws, bolts, and nails can be listed together as hardware.

   2. Reduce the list. Cleaning your garage means getting rid of anything you no longer need or want. Just like inside your Southern NH home, the general rule is that you can toss any item you haven’t used in 1 year. If you don’t use it, it’s only taking up space. Give it away, trash it, or recycle it.

   3. Group related items. It just makes sense to store items together. If all your camping supplies are stored in one place, you won’t waste time anymore looking for them. Place each item on your list in a group, like painting supplies, home repairs, winter blankets, etc.

   4. Create zones. Decide what you want to do with your garage. If you want to park a car inside, designate a parking zone and don’t let anything but your car in that zone. Choose a work area where you can place a workbench or household projects. Garage storage zones should be at different heights throughout the garage.

   5. Give it some personality. Once your garage is organized and clean, make it more attractive with some decorative touches. Paint the garage floor. Decorate it with an automotive theme. Upgrade to an automatic garage door.

With a little work, your Southern NH home will be ready to sell in no time. Let me help you prepare your home to sell. Call me today at 603-821-1134 or email me at Dave@DaveHeeter.com.

5 Tips to Creating Stress-Free Southern NH Homes

 Many people have trouble relaxing, even in their Southern NH homes.  Why?  Frequently, it’s because of too much visual stimuli such as unfinished projects, knickknacks and clutter.

You may think the answer to being able to relax is to move into a “better” home.  However, what usually happens is that you move your unfinished projects and clutter with you.  Instead, if you take the time to get organized, you may find – like many owners who have backed out of a sale – that you don’t need to move, you just need to re-organize.

Take a moment from your busy, stressful life to read these tips and discover how you can improve and de-stress your personal castle:

1.    Add money to your wallet. Unwanted or unused items can be turned into cash. eBay and Craigslist are two heavily-used websites where you can sell your unwanted/unused items.  Make a little cash and clear the clutter.

2.    Be generous. If you don’t want to sell your items, don’t throw them away.  Donate them to places such as Goodwill.  Online, there’s FreeCycle, where you can share your items and give them away to those who really need them.

3.    Keep it clean. Set up a system to decide what to do with mail. Many people end up with piles of mail throughout the house. Rather than letting it pile up, decide the day you get it where that mail goes: trash, take action or file away.

4.    Include your family in the de-clutter process. After all, your spouse and kids live there, too. As well, if others have a chance to give their input, they may be more willing to keep your Southern NH home organized. Let others in your family have a part in the decision-making process and implementation.

5.    Take stray worry off your mind. You may be subconsciously worried about things in your home. Reduce the potential stress by creating a sense of safety. For instance, make sure your smoke detectors are working, that you have a radon meter (if necessary) and a carbon monoxide detector.

You may be thinking, “Home isn’t what stresses me out.”  Are you sure?  You might be pleasantly surprised how relaxed you’ll be when your home is de-cluttered. Your Southern NH home can truly become a place where you leave the stress at the door.

If you’re looking for a home to relax in after a hard day, I can help.  Call me now at 603-821-1134 or email me at Dave@DaveHeeter.com for more information.

6 Essential Spring Cleaning Chores to Make Your Southern New Hampshire Home Shine

If the thought of spring cleaning your Southern New Hampshire home doesn’t bring a smile to your face, you’re not alone.  To help you (and me) get going now, I’ve come up with this short list of the 6 essential, in my opinion, spring cleaning chores:

1.    Store winter clothes:  It’s time to pack away your winter clothes. Coats, sweaters, and your heavy winter clothing need to be inspected, cleaned if needed and packed away.  Don’t skip the step of cleaning, or, when you get your clothes out of storage next fall, you might find that they’ve been damaged beyond repair by insects or set in stains.  Where should you store your clothes?  Somewhere clean, cool, dark and dry. 

2.    Wash window treatments:  Spring is the perfect time to inspect and clean the window treatments in your Southern New Hampshire home.  Clean window treatments brighten any room. Wash blinds, launder curtains that are machine washable and send drapes to the dry cleaners. While you’re at it, dust the window casing, wash window sills, and clean any window hardware.  You’ll be surprised at the huge amount of dirt and grime that a thorough window cleaning removes.

3.    Clean carpets and upholstery: Deep clean fabrics that have absorbed a winter's worth of dust and dirt.  Shampoo your carpets; clean cloth furniture.  Open windows to speed the drying process, which can take a day or more.

4.    Wash woodwork, walls, baseboards and cabinets: Even if your Southern New Hampshire home’s walls don’t look like they need cleaning, they do.  Just enough dust clings to vertical surfaces to warrant a seasonal bath.  Using a sponge and hand dishwashing detergent, wash the surface in sections to make sure you don’t miss a spot.

5.    Clean light and ceiling fixtures: clean your light fixtures, remove the light bulb and fixture if possible.  Wash glass fixtures in soap and water.  If the fixture cannot be removed from the ceiling, use a damp cloth to wipe it off.  Dry the fixtures.  Wipe the light bulbs with a rag.  The easiest way to clean your ceiling fans is to use a vacuum with a soft nozzle attachment.

6.    Check your coils: Caked on dust can cause your refrigerator to overheat, so take the time to clean the condenser coil.   It’s usually found behind the toe grille.  Clean it with a long-handled bottle brush and a vacuum cleaner with an attachment hose.  If the condenser coil is on the back of your refrigerator, carefully pull the fridge out several feet and vacuum thoroughly. 

Put on your favorite music and start your spring cleaning.  It’ll be done before you know it.  Then you can relax and enjoy your sparkling clean home.

Spring is also a great time to shop for a new Southern New Hampshire home, especially this year with the home buyer tax credits still available until the end of April.  Call me right away at 603-821-1134 or email me at Dave@DaveHeeter.com to find out how you can get the $6,500 or $8,000 tax credit.

Get Rid of Clutter in Your Southern New Hampshire Home

Getting rid of clutter in our Southern New Hampshire homes can be a challenge for anyone.  We are overwhelmed with junk mail, paper from our children’s school, bills, magazines, trinkets, toys and clothes.  It can be difficult to sort through the mess to determine what we really need.  Even when the clutter is all sorted, new clutter seems to replace it overnight.  There are several ways that you can get rid of the mess in your home.

·    Start in one room and finish it.  It can be overwhelming to try to organize a whole house.  Start in one room and go through it.  Discard things that you have not used in the last six months (or the past year if a seasonal item).  If you have not worn it or used it in that time, then you don’t need it.  Discard all broken or stained items.  You aren’t going to fix them, or you would already have done it.

·    Throw things away.  Don’t set things aside to sort later, just in case you may need it.  When sorting, make a bin of items to keep and a bin of things to throw away.  Getting in the habit of discarding unneeded items can be difficult at first, but it will drastically cut down on clutter in your Southern New Hampshire home.

·    Give things away.  Get rid of clutter and help those in need by donating items that you're no longer using. 

·    Label your storage bins.  Many times clutter develops because there is no set place to put things.  For instance, in the toy room, have individual storage bins for toy cars, railroad tracks, dolls and crayons.  Each bin should be clearly labeled so that all family members can participate in putting things where they’re supposed to go.  With young children, it may be helpful to take a picture of the items that go in the bin, and tape it to the front of the container.

It’s easy to have clutter free Southern New Hampshire homes using these organizing tips. 

If your home is already organized, but you still don't have enough room, it may be time to buy a larger home.  I can help.  Call me today at 603-821-1134 or email me at Dave@DaveHeeter.com for more information.