Weekend Warrior: Taking Care and Organizing Your Home and Car: Adding Comfort and Saving Money in Your Home

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This is the third in a series about “Weekend Warrior: Organizing and Taking Care of your Home and Car.”  This guest post is by  Todd Armstrong, owner of Armstrong Home Services, sharing ideas on adding comfort and saving money in your home.

“Its cold in here!”

“Honey, can you feel that draft?”

Imagine yourself, sitting comfortably in your favorite spot, getting ready to kick back for a couple of hours of mindless relaxation. Your significant other snuggles near, and springs the surprise of cold feet.

“Your feet are freezing!”

None of these statements are pleasant to hear, or experience. All of them are usually easy to remedy. Lets start by looking at your doors and windows to insure that they only let through what you want to get through. Insulation is the key. 

Take a look at your front door. Now open it and look at the insides of the door frame, where the door meets the jamb. You should see some type of insulator. Whether rubber, foam, brass or copper, it has the specific purpose of keeping outside air out and inside air in. If not working properly these easily repairable/replaceable items can make the difference between a comfortable or a drafty home. They can also cause undue strain on your HVAC system and allow dirt, dust and unwanted critters access. 

There are many ways to check the integrity of your door seal. Step outside when it’s dark, leaving several lights on inside your home, and check to see if any light comes through the area around your closed door. Another option is to close the door and run your hand along the door casing on a particularly cold or hot day and feel for temperature differences or moving air. You can even sprinkle a bit of baby powder near the jamb and then open a door or window somewhere else in the house.  If the powder gets blown around or sucked out there is a problem. 

Most gaskets or seals can be changed rather easily and at little cost. If you have a copper or brass seal, look at it closely. The seals are nailed on one side and are shaped like a “V”. The “V” gets closed up by use and time, compromising the seal. Stick a butter knife in the groove and open that bad boy up just a bit. Problem solved. If foam rubber is what is present, many kits are sold at your local hardware store to replace what you have. Look closely and try and get a similarly shaped foam as a replacement.

Windows can be a bit more challenging as the sealing area is also an area where 2 pieces slide together, hopefully forming a seal. Glass is inherently a poor insulator, particularly single pane glass. Most of the problems with air leaks in windows, in my experience, has been where the window latches. Over time, windows can become skewed or not close completely. A simple cleaning of the bottom window jamb often corrects this. Insulated curtains or other window coverings are your best bet for keeping out the unwanted breezes. Be they ever so slight, they all add up to better insulation.

Place your hand over your light switches and receptacles to see if you feel any temperature difference. It’s amazing how many of these little boxes are overlooked when insulating a home. Insulating foam kits made specifically for these are available to make sure the only thing moving through there is electricity. Take note of the shape of your switches and outlets as several styles are made. 

A constant drain of air from your home is no different than a leaking balloon, you must use more energy to keep it properly heated, cooled or inflated.

If the feet are still cold, offer socks.

Todd Armstrong, is the owner of Armstrong Home Services, a home maintenance and repair company in operation since 1999. Specializing in kitchen and bathroom remodeling, Todd takes his clients style and family patterns into consideration creating a comfortable, friendly space in his remodeling projects. 

Whether creating a dynamic space for a child with special needs, a more mobile atmosphere for the elderly, or upgrading an older home to create a modern wonder, every project becomes personal.  

Todd’s work has been featured on HGTV’s Trading Spaces.  Watch for the release of his book “Decorating for Dudes – Don’t Be Afraid of Color,” a guide for the single man who doesn’t want his home to look like a bachelor pad.  

Todd’s goal is to make your project a fun and carefree adventure. He can be reached at (281)220-9056,  or online at todd@armstronghomeservices.com.

 www.armstronghomeservices.com.

Clutter Support Group Forming in Kingwood Spring 2011

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Clutter Support Group Now Forming in Kingwood

Have you had a life long struggle with being organized?  Need support from a community of people who are equally overwhelmed?  Don’t know where to start? Need an affordable organizing solution?  It’s time to get started and declutter your life! Join Ellen Delap CPO® for the Clutter Support Group. A membership based group facilitated by a certified professional organizer, this is a six week, 1 ½ hour program that meets to discuss challenges and work on personal projects.  The group will start on January 25 and ends March 1.  

Clutter support members work on a small project in their home or office for the duration of the group meeting. Together we help each other move forward and be accountable. During this time, we will be reading Linda Samuels book, The Other Side Of Organized.  It is a light hearted and endearing view of organizing. 

The membership fee of $130 includes meeting materials and other resources.  For information and to register, call 281.360.3928 or visit professional-organizer.com.

Weekend Warrior: It’s all about you! Defining Your Own Decorating Style

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This is the second in a series about “Weekend Warrior: Organizing and Taking Care of your Home and Car.”  This guest post is by Leslie Sarmiento, owner of Decorating Den Interiors, sharing ideas on updating, decorating and more for your home. 

 

Whether you are thinking about a decorating project for your home, or you already have one underway, it is always a good idea to stop and ask yourself the following questions:

•    Does the project – and the products you have chosen for it – reflect your lifestyle?

•    What kind of statement would the finished project or room make about you?

As an interior decorator, I truly believe that your home should say something about you and the kind of life that you enjoy. It should showcase your personal interests, the area in which you live, your culture, your talents, whatever it is that you love. In other words, your home should not look like a showroom in a furniture store. Your home should have signs of life – your life!

I also encourage you to keep up with the current trends and fashions in home décor. However, try not to follow the trends to the extent that you leave out any imprint of your own individuality from the design.

It is a decorating myth that good decorating must be limited only to one specific design style. That seems quite absurd if you consider that as an individual, you have many facets to your personality, and that an average household has two or more people living within the same rooms!

So if you are starting a project, give serious thought to your personal preferences, your lifestyle, and then set a budget. Prioritize your needs, and consider that upholstered pieces, floor coverings and window treatments will be with you for a long time. Buy the best quality that you can afford when it comes to these pieces. Accessories, such as pillows and decorative accents, can be trendier, as they do not have to be quite as expensive. As your style evolves, your accessories may be the first elements to reflect any change. And if you’re just not sure what style you prefer at this point, consider consulting with a professional decorator. He or she can start you on your way to finding your own personal sense of style.

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Leslie Sarmiento, owner of Decorating Den Interiors, is a speaker, author and interior decorator. Her business is 5 years old, but her love for design spans a lifetime. Her clientele includes homeowners who know the value of timeless, classic design, and appreciate fresh ideas for accessories and custom home furnishings.

She has been featured on numerous television talk shows, such as Fox 26 News and ABC 13 Houston, and is the author of the “Come on Over – Design Series,” which is a series of decorating guides. Loving to write, she is an ongoing writer for the Yahoo! Contributor’s Network. Her product line includes “The Decorating Dreambook,” a project planner designed to simplify the decorating process, which can be found online at www.DecoratingDreambook.com.

Leslie’s design philosophy is to keep it simple, easy and fun! As a full service interior decorator, she directs her creative energies toward taking care of every detail from inspiration to installation! She can be reached at (281) 686-9293 or online at www.LeslieSarmiento.com. Also be sure to visit her blog at www.MyUnfinishedRoom.com or her Facebook Page at www.Facebook.com/DesignIdeas.

Time Management Tips

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time management tips

How are you? Busy? Busier than ever? Never thought you would be this busy? How is it we never have enough time?

No matter our age or stage, we all feel and deal with time issues.  We lack of control of our schedule with too many demands, too many balls in the air and too many meetings.  Having no time means we have disorganized space.  There are so many interruptions and distractions.  Tasks take longer than we think.  If you are organized, you think you can squish in just a little more.  Is it time for a change?

How we use our time comes down to creating a new awareness of it and a baby step to make change happen.   The first step is the awareness of how you use your time.  Ask yourself some questions.  What is working well?  Are you getting places on time? Are you always on the go, with too much to do? Do you feel like you are productive and get tasks done? Do your planner and task list work well for recording commitments and tasks? Now ask yourself what is not working! That is where your first baby step will start.

Not getting places on time

  • Set a timer to alert you 15 minutes before you want to leave.  This gives you time to gather up and get going.
  • Plan on arriving early.   You get the best seat, you stress less about parking and traffic, and you are in prime position for whatever you are doing.   Bring your magazines to read now!

Always on the go with too much to do

  • Everything can’t be equally important to you.  Assess if you need to join both girl scouts and adventure princesses, volunteer for church and PTA, and work second and third jobs.  Spend time thinking about what you want to commit to for now.  One of my favorite sayings is, “we can do it all, just not all at the same time.”  Simplify your time with one big commitment at a time.

Day to day productivity

  • Put the big rocks in first, as said by productivity guru Stephen Covey.  Be sure you know what the big rocks are for your job and get these done early in the day.
  • If you are smothered by small tasks at work, group them together and consolidate to be more effective.  Having a call list, an email list, and an errand list for work to group and conquer!

Your Calendar and Task list

  • First decide if you are a paper or technology person.  See what works best for you and all the jobs you have, including parenting.  You can cover a  lot of ground with the google calendar to match up to your partner.  If you love paper, think about www.plannerpads.com.  It consolidates your tasks and your calendar.
  • Find a work flow that works with your style.  With your family, host a family meeting weekly to update your calendar.  At work meet with your assistant or colleagues to be sure you are on top of dates.  Having partners makes the process more effective and fun!

This is a long list!  Please pick just one of these baby steps to own this year.  You will be glad you did!  Please share with us your choice and how it is working for you! We want to help you get this done.

You can also find more organizing ideas at http://www.organizewithsandy.com/2011/01/10/organizing-mission-monday-link-party-week-4/

Weekend Warrior: Taking Care of Your Home and Car: Carpet and Wood Surfaces

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Starting off the new year with a blog series on Fridays, “Weekend Warriors: Taking Care of your Home and Car.”  This week kicks off the series with Kevin Pearson, owner of Pearson Carpet Care, sharing information about your carpet and hard wood surfaces.  

There is a misconception today that if you were to put in a hard surface floor into your home or office that it would help the indoor air quality.  This is not necessarily true, especially if the carpet is maintained properly from day one.  Carpet by its very nature acts like a filter or a trap, keeping dust and allergens out of the air we breathe. 

Generally dust, pet dander and other airborne particulates that fall to the carpet will tend to stay trapped in the carpet until they are removed through vacuuming or hot water extraction.  This is assuming that they can reach the carpet.  If there is an abundance of furniture, boxes, or other things on top of the carpet then the dust and airborne particulates will not be able to reach the carpet for it to do its job.

Hard surface floors would be similar to a room that had too many boxes, furniture and other things in it. By this I mean that the flat surface of a box, magazine, or plastic storage container would still collect just as much dust and other allergens as a hard surface floor.  So the next time the ceiling fan was turned on or you walked by the stack of boxes the dust and allergens would to be disturbed and kicked up into the breathing zone.  However, only properly maintained carpet will actually contribute to improved air quality.  A carpet that is neglected and already “full” of trapped dust and debris will not yield as healthy of a breathing environment. 

An independent test done by Professional Testing Laboratory, Inc., Dalton, GA., (Asbury, G. Cleaning and Foot Traffic Emissions Analysis. Test Number 0072198 in May of 2002), compared the distribution of airborne dust associated with normal activities, such as walking, on hard and soft flooring surfaces.  The findings show that walking on hard surfaces puts more particles into the breathing zone than walking on carpeted surfaces. They also found that carpeted surfaces trap more particles so that walking on carpet results in less dust, pet dander and other debris that gets kicked up into the breathing zone.  

The end result is that a properly maintained carpet that is able to trap dust and airborne particles will lead to a healthier and cleaner environment than a poorly maintained carpet or a hard surface floor.  So periodically you need to have your carpet cleaned to prevent a build up of dust and dirt in your carpet.  

Kevin Pearson is a Master Cleaning Technician with the IICRC and has been in the cleaning and restoration industry since 1992.   Kevin is presently working on a committee to rewrite the carpet inspector standards in our industry and has previously served on the carpet cleaning standards revision committee.  He also serves on two other committees at the IICRC and is on the Board of Directors of the Professional Cleaning and Restoration Alliance.  For information Call Pearson Carpet Care at 281-548-7200 or visit our website at  http://www.pearsoncarpetcare.com.

Organizing and Exercising

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Thinking about those new year’s resolutions and your exercising? Over and over again we know we should exercise, we think about exercising, we think about getting the right “gear” to exercise, and on and on.  So what about getting organized to exercise and getting going?

There are many parallels of exercising and organizing.  Both are lifestyle changes that mean a commitment.  One trip to the gym will not make me svelte, and spending an hour in your kitchen junk drawer will not make you organized. Being committed means finding a compelling reason to organize or exercise.  The list of reasons can be a mile long, but pick one that is most meaningful to you.  Post it where you will see it, feel it and make exercise happen.  For me, exercise means really feeling good about my clothes. It is not just for looks, it is for comfort.  I want to zip up my jeans comfortably.  Your reason will be a very personal one, but be sure to tap into it to create an undeniable need to get going.    Still need a compellling reason? Check out this article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-carter-phd/how-exercise-can-boost-intelligence_b_794601.html.

Both exercising and organizing require partners and accountability.  In a world where we share online all the time, put it out there!  Find others who are also struggling and partner for your accountability.   It can be as simple as a text to a partner, “going to the gym today?”  If you are very brave, get it out there on Facebook!  You will find that others who share your struggles feel compassionate, and they will want a partner too.  Most importantly find partners who will exercise with you.  So I am going to put it out there for myself.  My exercising is attending a weekly one hour pilates class.  I am also committing to walking five times a week for 30 minutes with one of my walking partners or by myself. 

Both exercising and organizing require baby steps.  In an all or nothing world, it is easy to think about the big stuff.  But really think about how you can make a small change for yourself.   For me it is the 30 minutes of walking. For you it might be playing Wii fit for 15 minutes every other day, parking your car at the far end of the lot, taking the stairs instead, or any other small change.  So let me know, what is your baby step for exercising or organizing this year?

Goal setting for the new year

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Trying to make a change?  Here are some thoughtful resources  to begin the process!

10 Questions to Ask Yourself

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/levi-benshmuel/tired-of-new-years-resolu_b_801668.html

My Specific Goals by MomAgenda

http://www.momagenda.com/printable/index.html

Organize to Revitalize

http://dallisonlee.com/blog/2010/12/27/resolutions-are-a-waste-of-time/

Zig Ziglar’s Seven Steps to Goal Setting

Time for a Picker Upper from the Houston Chronicle

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Most of us have too much stuff.

It’s tough to resist the latest gadget in a consumer-oriented society. Sentimental attachments are difficult to break. And often, we’re simply too overwhelmed to declutter. Life transitions and work overload get in the way.  The situation has fueled a growing demand for professional organizers to help sort through the forests of paper, boxes of junk stuffed in the garage and the dark cave of half-used cleaning products lurking beneath the kitchen sink.  Fall’s an opportunity to get the house in order so you can show off seasonal decorations, have spices in easy reach for holiday baking and welcome company to a guest room without outdated computers shoved into the corner.  “Start with the end in mind,” says Ellen Delap, owner of www.Professional-Organizer.com.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/main/7185854.html

Organizing your new gadgets

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In holidays past we were all about assembling toys and reading instruction manuals.  Now it is setting up your wireless and using your new smart phone!  We each have a different way of getting started on our new technology.  Some of us like to read on the internet, some of us like to play with the technology, others like our friends to talk us through the set up.  Let me offer a few hints with baby steps to get organized.

New Kindle or Nook

New mobile device like a smart phone

  • Verizon offers a class for their customers with blackberries, droids or other new phones. It is well worth the time to attend! I did! After struggling for 2 weeks with a new phone, it was great to get specific instructions on common tasks and shortcuts. 
  • Google instructions for your specific smart phone. There are an incredible number of online resources to suggest how to get started.
  • Just do it! It may be painful for the first 2 weeks, but the transition is worth it.  Remember when you travel to a new country how quickly you learn the language? When you “just do it,” it is the same immersion process. 

New computer, laptop or other hardware

  • Find a reliable, knowledgeable and trustworthy source to help with installation.  If you work with technology regularly, you know the shortcuts.  Consistently rely on the same source for set up for all your devices.
  • Before you transition, think about backing up all your data. I use www.carbonite.com and it has been a great resource.

New ipod,  ipad, itouch or iphone

  • Online resources will be a great help here.  Of course Apple offers a great resource here. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4053. 
  • The Apple Store offers one on one, workshops and other training.
  • There is always the old fashioned way: by phone at 1-800-MYAPPLE. 

Calendar technology

  • Choose a calendar that will work well with your smart phone or find an app that will add your existing technology. With my smart phone, I added nitrodesk to be able to view my Outlook calendar.  You can use Google calendar automatically with your gmail accounts on Verizon products.  If you have an iphone, you can also sync with the google calendar.  Every phone is different, so check your provider for  more information. 
  • Set aside an hour to add as much current or upcoming information as possible.  Add dates from school, church, Boy Scouts, and any other events between now and June.
  • Begin adding in dates for birthday and anniversaries as recurring events.
  • Remember, each time a new date comes up, check your calendar, and enter the date.

Getting started with your new gadgets may take a few extra minutes but it will be well worth it! Remember, there are always a few glitches so be sure to persevere.  If you get stuck, talk with friends, google or call.  

What are your ways of organizing your new gadgets? 

Lifehacker’s link for shiny new gadgets  http://lifehacker.com/5717749/

Keep It Simple Santa

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It is the happiest of times and the busiest of times!  The holiday season is here!  Sharing a few ideas to help you celebrate this special time of year! 
 
Choose one

Whether is it choosing gifts, baking holiday cookies or sending Christmas cards, we often have complicated choices.  Choose one biggie and make it your best.  Simplicity is a powerful way to do your best and de-stress. 

Also, think about taking one task off your list this year.  Throughout the year we are busy, and the holidays are extra busy.   Take off that one task you dislike the most, you are least prepared for, or one you can delegate easily. 
 
Share the joy

Holiday time is filled with ways to share time and tasks.  Partner with family members to get tasks done, such as wrapping gifts, baking, or decorating.  Put aside perfectionism so your partners can be creative and have fun.  These moments make the holiday  most memorable.  

Think of others to share the joy too! Set a time and date in the next few weeks for family decluttering.  This is the perfect time to declutter with your kids help.  Have them help you load the car and go with you to donate too.  Used toys in good condition are appreciated by Goodwill now and all year long.
 
Spend time with people, not preparations

Nurture time with family and friends at this time of year.  Set a date and create a simple gathering with those who are most important.   Time together can be a visit to a museum, a picnic in a park, or a watching a holiday movie together.  Here is where the true joy of the season really shines.

Wishing you a very merry holiday season and the happiest of new years!  Hugs, happy organizing and happy holidays!