LetsGo2 Blog

It’s so easy (and so unfair) how quickly your entryway can go from clean to chaos – and that chaos makes trying to get out the door brutal.

Think of all that time wasted hunting for your keys and umbrella, or digging through a pile of coats to find the one you need. Five minutes spent searching for stuff each morning becomes 35 minutes a week, or more than 30 hours a year!

Corralling your clutter can feel overwhelming, but with the right mindset and a few clever hacks, your entryway can be what helps you get out of the house on time — not what slows you down.

Here are seven ideas to help you out:

#1 Personalize Buckets

How do those hats and gloves end up all over the entryway? Half the time, it happens when someone tosses them aside while searching for their own stuff. That’s why separating each person’s storage space is so ingenious.

“Susie has her own basket, Tommy has his own basket,” says professional organizer Yve Irish. Assigning space and responsibility to each individual family member saves you – and your kids — time digging through other people’s belongings.

#2 Hang Your Purses and Bags

Digging through a forest of coats to find the right purse for your outfit is a hassle. It’s also not great to shove your bags onto a cluttered closet shelf or (ugh) pile them on the floor — a practice some believe is bad luck. There’s a feng shui saying, “A purse on the floor is money out the door.” So hang your bags from the closet rod using S-hooks instead.

#3 Create a Charging Station

While you might charge your primary smartphone overnight by your bedside, creating a charging station in your entryway can save valuable time, especially if you have a work phone or use the kids’ tablets for car rides. When they’re always charging in the same spot, you won’t waste time in the morning hunting down chargers.

Assemble tech storage using assigned baskets with neatly-organized cords, or go big with a built-in. At organization blog “A Bowl Full of Lemons,” a cabinet with plugs inside was installed in the mudroom to serve as a neat home for laptops, tablets, and smartphones, which all charge up inside.

Continue reading here.

Source: www.houselogic.com

(Courtesy of Porch.com)

Many believe that to lead a more organized and inspired life, the clutter around you must be cleared. It’s simple: if your home is organized, your mindset will be too.

A clean and balanced home is actually a launching pad for many other goals and resolutions. So if you’re already starting to fail at some of your other resolutions, try this home resolution instead: find more space in your home by clearing out the clutter! Follow these ten tips and I promise you it will inspire you to complete your other resolutions and lead you to a more organized and happier year!

Pantries
Create room by removing the large and awkward food packaging. Purchase clear, air-tight containers, take the box of your food item, and cut out the product name, nutritional facts and expiration date. Tape them to the inside of your clear container and then seal the food.

Pantry Shelves
Arrange the food on your shelves to help keep your resolutions. Make “first choice” shelves for the food that you want to stay on that diet. Make shelves that are for the kids snacks or foods that you’re just not going to have on a regular basis anymore… You get the idea -some shelves are just for the once a week treat. Some are for every day.

Pantry Storage
If you like to buy in bulk, put the bulk of your paper goods in another location, perhaps a closet or the garage, and place only what you need in your pantry- restock as needed.

In the Kitchen
When storing pots, pans and other durable items, stack them on their sides like files. This simple step not only creates more room, it also allows you to see exactly what you need. Caddies or sorters from a shelf or container store are great tools for vertical organizing. Have all this in mind in your next kitchen remodeling as well.

Continue reading here.

A little shelf here, a big shelf there. You’d be surprised where they can fit.

Here are five unexpected places shelves can boost your home’s storage and personality:

#1 Over the Bathroom Door
Seems like your bathroom can never have enough storage, especially for that recurring avalanche of towels in your itty-bitty linen closet. But if your ceiling is high enough, you’ve got enough space to tuck those extra towels you only need for overnight guests.

Opt for larger items that are easy to see and grab, such as towels, bedding, or bath tissue. “If this were filled with tiny boxes or soaps, it would look like you needed more storage and had to start building down from the rafters to hold stuff,” says Lorraine Bohonos, professional organizer and owner of HomeFree, in Rochester, N.Y. says. Plus, it’s impractical to store tiny things up high where you can’t see them.

#2 On Windows
Gasp! Who would put shelves in windows and block the light?!

You would, if they’re glass shelves. Adding glass shelves in a sunny window for indoor plants is a great way to allow light and nature to filter into your home. Plus, glass shelves have such clean lines, Bohonos says, so they don’t overwhelm the room.

As with those pictured, keep the bottom shelves and floor space relatively open to let in plenty of light. “It gives an airiness and it’s inviting,” Bohonos says. You get some storage without having to give up privacy or natural light.

Continue reading here.

Source: www.houselogic.com

It’s been proven. Clutter is a bummer — literally.

It turns out that clutter has a profound affect on our mood and self-esteem.

But there are some simple things you can do to de-clutter your home and raise your spirits.

Adopt the Rule of Five
Every time you get up from your desk or walk through a room, put away five things. Or, each hour, devote five minutes to de-cluttering. At the end of the day, you’ve cleaned for an hour.

Be Ruthless About Your Kitchen Sink
Pledge to clear and clean your kitchen sink every day. It takes a couple of seconds more to place a dish in the dishwasher than dump it in the sink. A clean sink will instantly raise your spirits and decrease your anxiety.

Put Photos Away

Return to yesteryear when only photos of ancestors or weddings earned a place. Put snapshots in a family album, which will immediately de-clutter many flat surfaces.

Continue reading here.

Source: www.houselogic.com

Outfitting your basement and attic with efficient storage can be life-changing. Not only will you get more living space, it can give your home an edge over others when it comes time to sell.

Try these ideas to get the most storage out of your home, while freeing up more floor space for you.

Conceal the Mess With Built-Ins
Expand your idea of built-ins: they’re not just for your upstairs living room, and this value-adding upgrade is easily DIYed. Break out your power tools or work with a carpenter to craft wall-to-wall shelving for this über-useful storage idea.

Take Advantage of Rafter Space
Don’t let imposing rafters limit your imagination: This awkward space is eager for a smart storage solution. Long, wall-to-wall shelves provide plenty of horizontal space for those pesky must-haves you don’t need every day, like picnic supplies, seasonal dishes, and niche cleaning supplies, leaving your other spaces neat and tidy.

Go Modular Beneath the Stairs
That behind-the-stairs space can be tricky to fill: nothing quite fits right. But this ingenious modular basement under stair storage idea fits any sloped space, no matter the size. Use wooden crates or build your own stacking boxes to fit all your storage needs. Paint the back of the boxes to add color and interest, or to clarify whose stuff goes where.

Continue reading here.

Source: Houselogic.com

Don’t spend a dime until you consider these cheap-and-easy options.

Wanting to spruce up their plain entry (and needing a bit of organizational space), these homeowners created faux wainscot by nailing up $65 worth of 1-inch-thick boards and painting everything white. Hooks screwed into the boards provide storage for coats and bags, and a flat board at the top creates a small shelf for artwork and knickknacks.

If you’re looking for ways to add a bit of dazzle, do it with paint. An interior door is the perfect subject — it’s a single architectural element that won’t look out-of-place when finished with a bold paint color that contrasts with your walls. Some inexpensive, glued-on moulding gives this hollow-core door some added jazz.

If you’d like to give your kitchen cabinets a regal touch, add crown molding where the upper cabinets meet the ceiling. If you have a custom paint job on your cabinets, such as this antique glaze, try painting the molding before installing it.

Continue reading here.

Source: Houselogic.com

Away From Home

If you are away from your home for an extended time, the Punta Gorda Police Department can conduct periodic home checks and notify you of any concerns or problems that arise.

The Away from Home Program is an invaluable courtesy service offered by the City of Punta Gorda to its residents. The primary purpose of the Away from Home Program is to offer vacationing, seasonal, and year-round residents the reassurance that if a problem exists at their property such as suspicious activity, utility emergencies, or other emergency conditions, the resident or their designated key holder can be contacted expeditiously.

Members of the Punta Gorda Police Department’s Volunteers on Patrol may also conduct periodic House Checks on your home while you are away and immediately notify you or your designee of any problems or concerns at your residence. Participants can provide contact information for themselves or a key holder which will enable the Police Department to more quickly remedy emergency situations.

It is important to note that the Away from Home Program is not intended, or designed, to replace home security systems or other security services. Rather, it is a courtesy service designed to further protect your home and enhance the Police Department’s ability to rapidly respond to, and remedy, an emergency at the homes of our residents.

Find out more here.

See our March newsletter here! Every month, we hold a $25 American Express gift card drawing and the lucky winner will have their card mailed to them. Find out how to enter by reading our newsletter below.

Take a look at our January newsletter here. Also, be sure to like our Facebook page to automatically be entered into the next American Express gift card drawing.

I wanted to share this article from CookingLight. I had never heard of this before but it’s good to know!

All of the most terrifying stories begin with “a Florida man,” and this one is no exception-earlier this month, one West Palm Beach resident woke up to a bed-rattling noise and rushed into the kitchen to find his four-month-old refrigerator in pieces. The explosion not only blew his kitchen into disarray: it rattled and cracked his ceilings, walls, and blew out windows in different areas around the home, according to a Realtor.com report.

In all seriousness, the man was lucky to be uninjured, as fridge explosions have caused dozens of deaths in the United Kingdom over the last few years. While the circumstance is rather uncommon, home cooks could be living with a faulty fridge and not be aware of it-which turn into a life-threatening situation if left unresolved over a longer period of time.

How does a refrigerator explode, anyway?

While the cause of most of these infrequent disasters can’t always be calculated, Neil Everitt, former editor of ACR News, a business-based air conditioning and refrigeration publication, says that’s what makes them so dangerous. Everitt noted a toaster or stove fire can usually be caught by a fire alarm, but refrigerator explosions happen in a matter of seconds rather than minutes, so there isn’t any time for a warning.

The problem typically begins in the compressor, which is located in the back of your fridge. The compressor functions like a car radiator, Everitt explains, absorbing all the heat in the freezer and fridge, and cooling the interior to keep your groceries at perfect storing temperatures.

Sometimes, the rear of the fridge can get extremely hot, as the gas that cools down the fridge returns through the compressor and becomes trapped inside. That trapped gas, stuck within the fridge’s compressor, leads to a pressure build up silently-and, eventually, an explosion.

Continue reading here.

Source: www.cookinglight.com