Family Room & Living Room

Living rooms and family rooms perform many functions in our lives: they’re spaces for entertaining, rooms in which to hide away with a good book, and the place for relaxation with the family. But so often the clutter of everyday life prevents us from doing what’s most important in our living and family rooms: living!

Prepping your living and family room for a makeover

If you’re looking for March Makeover ideas for your living and family room spaces, look no further.  At Teresa’s Family Cleaning, we approach home organization with old-world methods so that you can live Long Island style all year round.

Start by emptying out your living and family room spaces as much as is practical. Gather together all of the things that have piled up in the space over time, and as you pick things up, sort them into various boxes labelled “Give Away” (things you no longer want but that are still useful), “Recycle/Trash” (for broken and obsolete items), “Keep” (items that will stay in the living room), “File” (items that need to be taken to their rightful place in your home), and “Store” (those things that belong in long-term storage). You’ll want to evaluate the necessity of everything in your living room, including things like magazines, books, CDs, DVDs, toys, decorative items and nick knacks, games and puzzles, pictures, gadgets and electronics, linens, and lamps. Only items that are used on a weekly basis in your living room should remain in the “Keep” box; everything else should be sorted into another box.

If you’ve done a good job of sorting, the only thing remaining in your living room should be large pieces of furniture. From here, there are several big jobs to complete before your makeover is complete:

• Care for upholstery and carpeting: Take a look at all of the upholstered surfaced in your living: couch, chairs, area rugs, and wall-to-wall carpeting. Start by giving each of these surfaces a thorough vacuum treatment. For furniture, be sure to remove cushions and vacuum every surface. To thoroughly clean carpet, be sure to shift furniture around to get every inch clean. Then using green sealed certified products, spot-treat any stains according to package directions. Follow that with a steam clean of each of these surfaces.
• Clean hard surfaces: Whether you’ve got tile, hardwood, linoleum, or some other hard surface flooring, you’ll want to wash the floors down, including those spaces underneath furniture. Also wipe down hard surfaces on furniture and wash all of your walls.
• Fireplace cleansing: If your living room has a wood burning fireplace, clean that out by removing all of the ashes, wiping down the hearth, and getting a professional to clean your chimney stack.

Your living room is now prepped and ready to be made-over with a new, more organized Long Island look to transform it into a cozy retreat.

Function and form in your re-organized living room

Packing many functions into one room can be a challenge, but here are Teresa’s Family Cleanings most practical top tips for creating a warm, inviting, functional space for your family in the living room.

• Define living room zones: Space permitting, try to organize various zones within the living and family room spaces for the functions they need to perform. If TV watching is one of the functions, organize a couch and some chairs around the television in one end of the room. Likewise for reading or just snoozing.
• Make the most of wall space: Your walls aren’t just for hanging pictures—they can also be re-purposed to store items that will be useful for the activities in your living room. By adding things like shelving units and cabinets along the walls, you can turn once unused space into high-performing spaces where you store books, DVDs, CDs, toys, and other necessary living room items. Use cupboard doors, baskets, and boxes to hide away items that are unsightly.
• Choose multi-function furniture: If you’re like most of us, you’ll need to store all kinds of items for various purposes in your living room—magazine collections, board games, blankets, dog toys, and kids play things. When space is limited, choose furniture that does double-duty, like storage ottomans, wicker trunks, sofa beds, planters with drawers, and coffee tables with extra shelves. Leave no space underutilized and you’ll have no trouble hiding things away.

We’re confident that with these high-powered ideas, you’ll have a multi-functional, welcoming living room that will be the gathering place in your home. Take the time you need to makeover this space and you’ll be rewarded with many happy memories of real living here!

©2010 Teresa’s Family Cleaning

Want to use this article in your newsletter, blog or web site? You have my blessing so long as you include the following complete blurb with it (including links).

Teresa Ward, President of Teresa’s Family Cleaning and New York State’s Small Business Entrepreneur of the Year is often considered Long Island’s foremost authority on cleaning homes and businesses to create a cleaner and healthier environment for all. Our highly sought after, award winning weekly newsletter provides timely cleaning tips and other important Long Island information and charitable events for homeowners, businesses and not-for-profits. Visit us at http://www.TeresasFamilyCleaning.com to sign up and receive your copy today!

Laundry Room

As a catch-all for a good number of to-dos around the house—everything from mending to stain removal to ironing to cleaning—the laundry room can be a frustrating space given the amount of clutter and disorganization that gathers there as time goes on. And since most of us can just close the door and forget about the laundry room, it often is ignored when home organization is considered.

A cluttered, chaotic laundry room can quickly become a pit where socks and other clothing go to die—or disappear at the very least. But no more! As part of our March Makeover, these Teresa Family Cleaning tips will transform your laundry room from a disorganized mess into a highly-functional, workable space in your home.

Getting sudsy in the laundry room

If you haven’t already, start by going through all of the piles of personal items in your laundry room, sorting as you go into piles—the things you need to keep, those you need to give away, items that need repair or stain-removal, and those that need to be recycled or trashed. And don’t just deal with the laundry; be sure to go through everything, including cleaning products, laundry detergents and supplies (clothes pins, laundry bags, and drying rack), cleaning tools (brooms, rags, and buckets), home improvement items (paint, nails, screw drivers), and things that require storage. This room can be a dumping ground so a thorough sort of everything there is a great way to take stock and thin out.

Many of us keep our cleaning products in the laundry room as well, which makes the cleansing process of this makeover simple. Using your green sealed certified products, wash down the entire room, including countertops, drawers, cupboards, walls, and floors, as well as the inside and outside of your washing machine and dryer. You should also clean out the lint trap and air vent on your dryer as a way to improve its efficiency. Once you’re done, your laundry room should appear fairly empty and sparkling clean.

Arming your laundry room with high-performing organization

Your clean slate of a laundry room is now ready for you to put it back together to create an efficient, hassle-free space in which to work. Basic tools for a functional laundry room include two to three sturdy laundry hampers, a trash can, storage containers, a laundry drying rack, hangers, and laundry products. Once you’ve got that together check out these top tips for getting the job done:

• Organizational tools: Using the storage containers, replace all of the items in your laundry room in an organized fashion, keeping frequently-used items easily accessible and other items neatly tucked away in well-labelled containers. If necessary, add shelves or cabinets to increase your storage capacity.
• Clutter-cutters: Make it easy to deal with little things that come with the job of doing laundry, like loose change, keys, lip sticks, and extra buttons. You can use old containers or tins with labels for quick separation. You may even want a container where individual socks can live until you find the mate.
• Air-drying options: Make it easy for you to save energy by hanging laundry to dry by setting up the tools you need. You’ll want a durable drying rack and hangers and an easy way to store them while not in use. One simple option is to install a clothes pole that extends over the back of the dryer area.
• Folding and ironing necessities: Space permitting, you may want to set up an area for folding and ironing of laundry. You can set up a table as a work area and install an ironing board as well. Under this area will be ample space for more storage containers or laundry baskets in which people can deposit their dirty clothes, sorted by color.

You’ll save tremendous amounts of time and energy by bringing order to your laundry room. Happy laundering!

©2010 Teresa’s Family Cleaning

Want to use this article in your newsletter, blog or web site? You have my blessing so long as you include the following complete blurb with it (including links).

Teresa Ward, President of Teresa’s Family Cleaning and New York State’s Small Business Entrepreneur of the Year is often considered Long Island’s foremost authority on cleaning homes and businesses to create a cleaner and healthier environment for all. Our highly sought after, award winning weekly newsletter provides timely cleaning tips and other important Long Island information and charitable events for homeowners, businesses and not-for-profits. Visit us at http://www.TeresasFamilyCleaning.com to sign up and receive your copy today!

Home Office

Feng Shui organizational principles aren’t just for bedrooms and front entrances. They can also be applied to your place of work, whether you work from home or outside of the home. A home office in particular is a great place to apply Feng Shui concepts as a well-equipped work space will promote feelings of positive energy, wellbeing, and prosperity.

Cutting clutter to boost productivity

As with any space in your home, the key to producing a high-powered home office environment is to free it of clutter. Of all the spaces in your home, the office is likely one of the spaces in which the most clutter builds up. If you’re like most of us, you have stacks of old magazines, piles of bills waiting to be filed, boxes of photographs requiring sorting, workout equipment that rarely gets used, and plenty of other miscellaneous stuff. These are the things of home office nightmares.

 At Teresa’s Family Cleaning, we almost always start a room makeover by creating several boxes for sorting through the clutter in a space, including “Keep” (items that will stay in the living room), “Give Away” (things you no longer want but that are still useful), “Recycle/Trash” (for broken and obsolete items), “File” (items that need to be taken to their rightful place in your home office), and “Store” (those things that belong in long-term storage). Put nearly everything in your office into one of these boxes, with the exception of furniture and larger items and then deal with them accordingly.

Of course, you’ll also want to clean your office from top to bottom, including washing all hard surfaces, steam cleaning carpets and upholstery, cleaning drawers and cupboards, and so on. You now have a clear palette on which to begin building your Feng Shui home office.

Feng Shui office organization

Before putting everything back into your office, be sure you’ve got some systems and principles in place that will help to maintain a clutter-free, organized work environment for many months or years to come. We’ve collected the top tips for making your home office as productive as possible:

• Filing organization: Purchase an automatic labeller and regular files (we assume you already have a filing cabinet, but if not, get one of those as well). Organize and label all existing paper materials and file alphabetically in your cabinet. Then any time something new comes in, make a practice of handling it only once: deal with it right away and file it. And if no folder exists for that item, quickly make one with your labeller.
• Minimize visual clutter: There are numerous small items that go into an average office. Hopefully by now you’ve weeded out the things that are not necessary, but what’s left can still block positive energy, so find ways to store it out of sight using cabinets, attractive boxes, baskets, and closet space.
• Orientation is important: You’ll want to place your computer facing southeast to generate income, but remember that your back should never be to the door. Instead, putt your desk in the corner away from the door facing the entrance if possible.
• Wire control: An office will inevitably have wires and cables connecting the computer, printer, monitor, mouse, fax machine, and more. But these, too, impede efficiency, so find ways to organize and hide them as much as possible.
• Flowing water: A fountain can be an excellent way to stimulate positive energy as flowing water tends to uplift the mood and calm the mind.

One of the golden nuggets of office organization is to leave your desk uncluttered at the end of your work session. By cultivating clean desktop policy, you can leave your work space feeling calm and come back to it without a feeling of dread and frustration.

©2010 Teresa’s Family Cleaning

Want to use this article in your newsletter, blog or web site? You have my blessing so long as you include the following complete blurb with it (including links).

Teresa Ward, President of Teresa’s Family Cleaning and New York State’s Small Business Entrepreneur of the Year is often considered Long Island’s foremost authority on cleaning homes and businesses to create a cleaner and healthier environment for all. Our highly sought after, award winning weekly newsletter provides timely cleaning tips and other important Long Island information and charitable events for homeowners, businesses and not-for-profits. Visit us at http://www.TeresasFamilyCleaning.com to sign up and receive your copy today!