So, you've finally decorated your home. That's it, right? Now you can sit back, relax and never buy or do another thing in your home. Hold on. Not so fast. Your home is a constantly changing mirror of your life and needs little tweaks to keep it feeling fresh. While some of us will do more and some less, after the jump you'll find a minimum schedule of things to do to keep your home working for you, whatever your style...
Making Changes In Your Home
A Schedule for Improvements
Weekly
- Buy fresh flowers. Buying seasonally helps you bring in colour and variety. Try different vases, different settings and different arrangements.
- Attend to repairs immediately.
- Cook at least one meal to keep the energy in your home in your kitchen and home moving.
- Dust, vacuum, cull papers, change sheets, put away clothing.
Monthly:
- Examine all knick knacks and small objects. Weed out what you're no longer excited by. Rearrange the remainder.
- Replace magazines.
Quarterly:
- Consider seasonal changes including new pillows for your couch, changing your bedding, swapping out summer rugs for winter ones, bringing in new scents in the form of candles or diffusers.
- Turn your mattress.
- Cull your media collections -- books, cds, dvds.
- Deep clean
Yearly:
- Make one capitol improvement to one room (painting, new furniture, rearrangement).
- Launder your pillows and duvet.
Bi-yearly:
- Purchase new pillows for your bed.
- Consider a new duvet.
Every Five Years:
- Repaint your main rooms.
Every Ten Years:
- Make major capitol improvement (i.e. kitchen or bathroom makeover, furniture replacement, wall or floor repair)
What do you do to keep your home from turning into a museum?
[image: koko sexton, from her flickr, with a Creative Commons License. To order the One Thing pads click here]
Comments (7)
Daily Email
Top Tours
- Corey's Converted Barn
- A South Austin Sunny and Sophisticated Home!
- Lezlee & Kirk's Beverly Modern Manor
- Laura's Smallest Coolest
- Jen of Made By Girl's Vintage Chic Home
Top Posts
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
I need that "I will do one thing today" pad.
Does it really exist, and where can I get it?
view suewanda's profile
It does really exist.
http://www.prettybitter.com/category-s/27.htm
They're cheap, too!
view mediocrates's profile
Really helpful post. I could so use some new pillows. Does anyone know where I can recycle my old ones?
view bookgirl's profile
bookgirl - depending on the kind of filling and the condition you could consider donating to an animal shelter, they are often in need of fresh bedding for animals under their care. Although bedding designed for animals is preferred they usually don't turn away anything in good shape, after all a soft cushion is a soft cushion.
view adamwa's profile
Something I try to get to twice yearly is deep clean the kitchen with amonia, get the cabinets, the counters, outside of stove and fridge, do the walls etc - all of it, do inside the cupboards, pull out and wash anything that's dirty if you have the time and/or the energy.
Then go through and cull for donations, dump expired food goods into trash and give the fridge a good cleaning and get the oven and under the burners too. if I think about it, I'll inventory what I have to replace and/or simply stock up on and finally take out all recycling and trash and then finish up w/ a good mopping of the floor.
This is especially true if your kitchen is old and had no exhaust fan of any kind but even if you do, dirt and grease still permeate everything.
I need to vacuum really bad and plan on doing so this weekend.
view ciddyguy's profile
Oh this is brilliant! it makes keeping control of stuff look so manageable!!! I really need to work a little more intensely on culling the media... magazines done, cd's why do I have this stockpile when I really only listen to about ten - twenty max... and books - oh boy, tons of books... I think cull is tooo kind a word... but now the problem is out there maybe I could face it a bit by bit ... hmmm, maybe this should be my one thing a day - everyday!
view se7en's profile
Get a life!
view silversurfer's profile