29 Ways to Show Your House Some Love on Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day falls on a Sunday this year, which means you have the whole weekend to shower someone special with love and affection. Or you could spend a couple of days with the one you love getting your house in tip-top shape for spring! These tips are especially useful if you're considering putting your home on the market this spring, but even if you're staying put, doing these 29 tasks (or at least a few of them) will make your home a nicer place to live.
So, let's put on some mood music and get to work...
- Schedule a power wash for spring. Unless you really know what you're doing, we think you should hire a pro for this one. You could fall off of a ladder, or risk getting water where it shouldn't be, or just not do the best job. Let your home shine!
- Clean the baseboards. You sweep and mop regularly, but look closely. Those baseboards are full of dust and scratches.
- Get your lawn mower serviced. The grass will be back soon, and you need to be ready!
DIY → 8 Maintenance Tips to Keep Your Lawn Mower Running from Angie's List
- Touch up the paint in heavy traffic areas. A little new paint can brighten a whole area.
- Paint a whole room. Ready for a new look? Go for it!
- Prune the rose bushes. And everything else. Find out what your plants need to be ready for spring.
- Organize your garage, and install shelving so you can keep it that way.
- Buy new throw pillows for the bed, the sofa, or your favorite chair.
- Or recover the old ones.
- Clean the windows, or hire a pro to do them all, inside and out.
- Clean the gutters. Spring showers are coming.
- Call your insurance provider and find out how to get riders on individual items.
Read more → What Are Riders? And Do I Need Them? (Spoiler alert: You probably need insurance riders.)
- Patch the drive way or walkway, or repair the brickwork.
- Clean out the coat closet. If you have extras, it isn't too late to donate a few warm items to people in need. We don't care what Punxsutawney Phil said, there are still some cold days ahead.
- Organize your linen closet, and go ahead and get rid of any sheets you never use. (Keep the towels if you have room. There's always a use for old towels.)
- Look on top of all your cabinets. Gag a little. Now clean them.
- Clean the grout in your shower, and on the floor, and in the kitchen. Clean all the grout. All of it!
Make a tool → Try this brilliant grout cleaning method from Jeff Patterson, Home Repair Tutor. It's even kind of fun!
- While you're in there, replace the caulking, and do it in a way that will help prevent mold.
DIY → You don't have to live in San Francisco to follow this great advice about caulking on SFGate.com.
- Organize your plastic and glass storage containers in the kitchen. Is the lid long gone? Get rid of it. You'll never find it. Or you will, much later, but then you can pitch that, too.
- Clean out your fridge, and wipe down all the shelves. Don't get too precious about it. Throw out anything you aren't going to eat. Then promise not to buy things you don't want to eat.
- Empty the kitchen cabinets and take stock of your pots and pans, dishes, and glassware. Get rid of what you don't use.
- Now clean the inside of those cabinets and replace the shelf liners if you use them.
- Fix all the running toilets in the house, once and for all (until you have to do it again).
Jeff Patterson does it again → How to Fix a Toilet That Keeps Running
- Got kids? Go around the house with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and get all those little smudges and scribbles.
- Got bigger kids? Patch all the holes in the drywall. Now, prevent future holes by forbidding them to play soccer in the house, or chase each other at top speed inside. For real, this time.
Learn more → How to Patch and Repair Drywall on Lowes.com
- Clean your carpets. Rent a steam cleaner, which can often be done at your nearest grocery store, or hire a pro.
- Add felt or rubber tips to the legs of all of your furniture to protect your floors, especially things like dining chairs that get moved a lot.
- Tackle your tool box. make sure it's stocked with what you need, and that all the tools are in working order.
Read more → 10 Tools Every Homeowner (or Apartment or House Dweller!) Needs
- And the number one thing you should do to show your house (and your family) some love? Here you go...
Fix that annoying thing. You know, the cabinet that has to be opened a certain way so the hinges don't come loose, or the faucet handle that has to be wiggled to prevent drips. You know, that irritating little thing you've (almost) stopped noticing. Fix it! Fix it now!
What are your favorite spring cleaning tasks? Favorite might be the wrong word. What jobs do you think are the most important?