On a piece of paper, you should write down exactly what you want to do improve, add, or change in your house. When you got the major topics down, for each major topic you should create a two to three page description on what exactly you want changed in that room. Don’t simply say “make bathroom nicer”, but describe what exactly you don’t like about your current bathroom and the specific changes you want done. Hiring a professional can be advised here, but leaving it to yourself and letting your creativity run wild is far more enjoyable, and will tie you in my closer to the project. And the more connected you fell with the project, the harder you’ll work at it, and the better overall result will be. Even so you won’t be doing any of the actually modeling (or maybe you want to? Some people to do-it-themselves), you’ll still be a general dictating a troops. And everyone knows that a good general is the most important part of an army.

Once you have created a substantial report on what you want to change in your house, and by how much, put it all together and let it sit a few days. Come back to it in maybe a week, look it over again, see if you still feel just as strongly about it, and if you do then its time for the next step.

Before you hire your residential Orland Park cleaning service, make a detailed list of every deep cleaning job that needs to be done. Floor and ceiling vents, upper window ledges and blind slats, shower door ledges and curtains, closet shelves, grout in bath and floor tiles and dull pipes under the toilet and sink all need to be cleaned. Many cleaning services specialize in preparing a home for sale. These cleaning services are familiar with deep cleaning requirements, and should have the extra supplies that are needed.

Most residential cleaning services have pay scales based on the demands of the job. Have a very detailed list of what needs to be done on hand, and communicate your expectations directly to the cleaning company and the home cleaner.

After your bathroom is stripped and cleaned, add a few fluffy towels and washcloths to the clean, fresh smelling closet. Hang up a luxurious bath and hand towel set. Display a couple of high quality bathrobes. Buy the best brand of soap and toilet paper. Don’t keep cleaning supplies under the sink or in the linen closet. You want them to think about enjoying the bathroom, not cleaning it.

By delegating deep-cleaning tasks to a residential cleaning service, you can quickly adjust your home to be more enticing to potential buyers while organizing your personal belongings for your eventual move. One small investment in a residential cleaning service could lead to a larger and faster sale. Then, while the new home owners are enjoying your old bathroom, you can start beautifying the bathroom in your new home. But you might want to hire the residential cleaning service again to get it clean enough for you.

When you’re preparing your home to be sold, considerable attention needs to be given to the bathroom. Realtors and home stagers frequently agree that the bathroom can be a decision maker in the home buying process. When you’re selling your home, the bathroom should be impeccably clean, restful, roomy, free from countertop clutter and overstuffed closets, and as luxurious as possible.

Although a bathroom is often the smallest room in a house, cleaning the bathroom to increase your home-selling advantage is not a small job. Because of the details involved, and years of unnoticed accumulations, it is cost-effective and time-efficient to hire a residential cleaning service to help prepare your bathroom to be as inviting as possible to home buyer prospects. A quick cleaning can certainly brighten up primary fixtures, but it also brings attention to lesser-cleaned corners, grouts, edges, curves, and shelves. Buyers will unconsciously see their bare feet on the floor, their head over the sink, their bare behind on the toilet seat, and their exposed body in the bath. They want to see their bodies, not leftover reminders of yours.

Residential Cleaning Services Evanston can take care of the cleaning while you take care of stripping your bathroom of your clutter, and your personality. You want the buyer to be able to envision their decorative preferences, and a place for all of their things to be stored. A counter full of makeup and lotions leaves no room to imagine storage for electronics, and a beach theme can hinder visions for a Paris themed room. Arrange temporary portable storage for your everyday bathroom items so you don’t have to worry about cleaning up for last-minute or unannounced visitors. Completely strip your bathroom before you call the residential cleaning services so everything is exposed for cleaning.

Beautify Your Bathroom with a Residential Cleaning Service to Sell Your Home - part I

Scratches are far easier to repair than dents. A little sanding and painting is all it takes. Get some fine-grit sandpaper and sand the scratched area down until you reach bare aluminum. Then take some aluminum-formulated primer and apply it to the area. Let the primer dry. You can then paint the siding with an exterior latex housepaint that matches the rest of the aluminum.

Fixing dents in aluminum siding takes a little more effort. You’ll have to drill, pull, sand, fill, smooth and paint. If you’ve ever done some body work on a dented automobile it might not seem so daunting. For some dents, it might just be easier to put in a new piece of aluminum siding.

If you want to avoid replacing a piece of aluminum siding and would rather just fix the dent, you start with a drill in hand. If you have a dent that roughly takes on a circular form and isn’t all zigzagged about, find the deepest part of the dent then drill in a 1/8th inch hole. If you have an odd-shaped dent, you still need to find the deepest part of the dent, but instead of drilling one hole, drill a row of 1/8th inch holes that are about one inch apart that follow along only the deepest part of the dent.

Once the holes are drilled, for each hole you’re going to take a ¾ inch long self-tapping sheet metal screw and put two washers under each screw head. Then put one of those screws (with the washers on) into each hole you drilled.

Now comes the pulling part. You need some arm strength for this. Get a pair of pliers and pull on each of those screws to raise the dented surface. Once it’s raised, you can remove the screws and washers.

Next, you start working on perfecting the appearance. Sand the area down to bare aluminum then wipe it down with some deglossing liquid. You can find deglossing liquid at most hardware stores, but the next step might require a trip to an auto supply store if your hardware store doesn’t have an auto section.

Once the deglossing liquid is on, take some two-part epoxy automotive filler and fill in the area. There is a plastic spreader that’s usually sold near the automotive filler to be used just for this purpose. Work with fast strokes so it will be smooth before it hardens. When it hardens you can sand down the area some more to get an even surface finish.

After your dented aluminum siding has been pulled, filled and sanded, you can add the finishing touches. Put aluminum primer on the sanded area and the nearby surrounding area. Once the primer dries, you can paint it with a latex exterior housepaint to match your siding.

Deciding whether to repair or replace a piece of dented aluminum siding is largely a personal preference based on skill, strength and accessibility to materials. Scratches, however, are quite simple to repair. It’ll be a while be self-healing aluminum siding comes off the drawing boards and jumps onto your house, so keep your sandpaper and primer handy.

Removing a stain can be a pain, but it’s certainly not impossible. If your floor doesn’t have a polyurethane treatment, and isn’t a no-wax floor, don’t fret thinking that you have to refinish your entire hardwood floor because of a few stains. Polyurethane floors, and floors that have no-wax treatment, have products manufactured specifically for treating their stains. But if you have a hardwood floor that can take some wax, it just takes a little scrubbing and pretreatment to get the goods looking good again according to Paul from Chicago Hardwood Floor Company. The process is just like treating stains on clothing – but a bit more abrasive.

A steel wool pad that is “grade 2” can help you with light and dark stains that are caused by water and other substances. For a light water stain, simply rub the area with a number 2 grade steel wood pad until the stain is gone. Then apply new wax onto the area. If it’s a dark stain, dip the steel wool pad in mineral spirits first, then rub the stain. After that, dip a cloth in distilled household vinegar and lay it on the spot for about ten minutes. Then take another cloth dipped in mineral spirits and wipe the area down. If the stain has disappeared, you can apply fresh wax.

If vinegar doesn’t work to lighten a dark stain, you can use “oxalic acid crystals” - which is the “oxy” in Oxydol laundry detergent and the numerous “oxy” cleaning products on the market. You can find oxalic acid crystals at a paint or hardware store, or you can substitue Oxydol laundry detergent. Make sure you wear rubber gloves. Take the crystals and mix them with very hot water until the crystals don’t dissolve any more. At that point, you have the proper ratio. Saturate a clean cloth in the solution, then let it sit on the stain for an hour. Then use a damp sponge to sponge the area dry, and quickly blot it dry. Once it has completely dried, you can add fresh wax.

If entertaining left your hardwood floors with alcohol stains, there’s a few tricks you can try. You can rub the area with a cloth that is dipped in a liquid wax that contains cleaner for removing old wax, or you can use a cloth dipped in silver polish that contains whitening. You can also try a cloth dipped in ammonia, but make sure you squeeze it dry first. If the stain can be rubbed through to the finish, apply fresh wax once the area has dried.

If the night of entertaining on your hardwood floor was memorable, and some dancing high heels left black marks on your floor, and marks from furniture being slid out of the way left streaks from black furniture casters, you can get those out with grade 00 steel wood pad. Dampen the pad with mineral spirits, but then squeeze it dry. Lightly rub the area, then apply fresh wax after it has dried.

If you have some oil and grease stains on your kitchen hardwood floor, you can doctor it up with one gauze pad saturated in hydrogen peroxide, and one gauze pad saturated in ammonia. Place the pad with hydrogen peroxide on the stain, then place the one with ammonia over it. Let them sit for at least 15 minutes. If it’s a bad stain, you can repeat the method until you see results. When the stain is gone and the floor is dry, you can put on some fresh wax.

Don’t use these methods to no-wax floors or floors with a polyurethane finish because a new finish might not take to it later. But for many hardwood floors, spot treatment and a little scrubbing can get rid of life’s little stains.

Paul S. - Hardwood Floor Refinishing Chicago

When you are discussing your home improvement specifications with the construction crew, specify that there needs to be adaptations for asthma or allergies. An electrostatic furnace filter should be replaced with a High-Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filter. This will prevent dust circulation. Temporary plastic walls that are manufactured to zip closed will securely seal off the room that is being remodeled. Make sure that exhaust fans are used for “negative pressurizing” - and work to move contaminated construction air from the construction zone to the outside. These steps will likely add to the cost of your home improvement project, but they are necessary if anyone with breathing problems is inside the home.

Even after the construction crew has finished, steps need to be taken to keep the air clean and free from lingering harmful particles. Make sure the house is cleaned with HEPA filter vacuums, and use only cleaning products that are free from “volatile organic compounds” (VOC) – toxic air pollutants.

There are other choices that can be made during the planning of a home improvement project to accommodate allergy and asthma sufferers. Instead of knocking a whole wall, consider a partial knock-down – and try to avoid moving walls. This can save money that can be reallocated to the cost of protecting the breathing-impaired during the construction phase. Choosing solid wood instead of particleboard for kitchen cupboards keeps the toxic formaldehyde of particleboard far away from the sufferer’s breathing passageways. To compensate for extra cost, consider not moving a sink – which entails added plumbing expenses.

Carpets can be an invisible nightmare for serious allergy and asthma sufferers. Consider making plans to eliminate carpets. A combination of Sheetrock with cork liner under a floor will even improve upon the sound proofing capabilities of a carpet. If you’re remodeling a bathroom or kitchen, keep in mind that fans that exhaust air to the outside are healthier choices than fans that recirculate air. Keeping moisture to a minimum by upgrading windows and installing water-impervious flooring is a long-term healthy investment that will improve your budget and the value of your home as well as the health of your home.

Even if you or your household members don’t suffer from allergies or breathing difficulties, a healthy home and a protective home-improvement construction process will benefit the health of everyone – and your healthy home will be a breath of fresh air for everyone that lasts long after your home improvement project is completed.

Foam weatherstripping, sponge weatherstripping and felt weatherstripping only costs a few dollars a roll (technically, a coil). In fact, one roll is less than the cost of a value meal at a fast-food restaurant. Durable vinyl rubber weatherstripping is only slightly more. Skip the drive-thru one day a week and buy a package of cheap weatherstripping. It’s as easy to install as it is to cut and tape wrapping paper for a gift – probably even easier. And you’ll start saving money on your energy bill immediately after its installed.

It’s rare for a window in a newly built home not to have weatherstripping, but the majority of homes standing today didn’t come with the luxury of having weatherstripping pre-installed. Over 10% of your energy bill can be saved just by installing weatherstripping on your windows. Of course, the exact amount of savings will vary based on your style of windows, choice of weatherstripping, and environmental factors. If you’re interested in more accurate averages to help estimate your investment and savings, there are government websites that are overflowing with statistics on household and state energy use.

Once you decide to skip that value meal and finally weatherstrip your windows, you might find yourself gawking at various weatherstripping types. Before you head to the hardware store, measure your windows and your gaps - weatherstripping comes in many different sizes. If that sounds like too much work, start with buying a package of plastic foam tape. It comes with a self-adhesive, and is the easiest and quickest to install – and likely the lowest priced. You will have to replace it in a couple years, but you can then decide whether to upgrade or continue replacing it. Plastic foam tape is meant for windows that aren’t used a lot, and they can’t handle a lot of friction or they’ll wear out. Chances are you won’t be opening your windows in the dead of winter anyhow.

To install plastic foam weatherstripping, just use household scissors to cut a piece of weatherstripping to fit the window side or sash, peel and stick. Just make sure the surface you’re putting it on is free from dirt and oily substances or it won’t stick. And the foam weatherstripping won’t adhere well if you’re trying to put it on during a cold weather, so plan accordingly. If it’s winter and you have to get something up quick, try some felt weatherstripping.

Felt weatherstripping is an old classic standby, and holds up a little better than the foam. Try and get a wool pre-shrunk felt instead of hair felt because it will last longer. You can buy felt weatherstripping lined with thin aluminum stripping for even better protection. To install the felt weatherstripping, you’ll just cut and tack it on instead of sticking it on – thereby eliminating any problems caused by dirt or grease. Of course, you can buy felt weatherstripping that has a self-adhesive just like the foam weatherstripping.

If you can spend just a couple more dollars, vinyl covered rubber strips will last a lot longer and give you more protection, so you’ll start saving more money, sooner. Vinyl rubber weatherstripping also comes with a self-adhesive and has the same easy “cut, peel and stick” installation process.

Any weatherstripping is better than no weatherstripping. Start getting ready for the upcoming seasons and put up some weatherstripping to control the outside breeze. The innocent breeze will soon learn that its welcome through an open window, but it can’t rob you of your money when your window is closed shut. Soon, your house will start feeling comfortable, and you’ll be able to afford dessert after splurging on an extra value meal.

 
Jerry K. from SMB9, inc. - Chicago Vinyl Siding Company.

Sometimes there is damage, and sometimes there is just a darkening from heat. Wash the area first to expose the true nature of the burn. If it’s a discolored piece of clothing, try washing it in chlorine bleach if you can. If the clothing is dry-clean only, try sponging on a neutral detergent solution, then rinse it off. If your clothing article is now more see-through than it ought to be, - give it up and use it for rags or cleaning up other cigarette burns. (You can also donate ruined clothing to your local animal shelter. Dogs won’t nag you as much as your mother about your smoking habits.)

If you’re dealing with a cigarette burn in a carpet, your best bet is to put on your hunting gear and try a little camouflage work. Instead of a gun or bow and arrow, your tools will be a steel wool pad, neutral detergent, scissors and a vacuum. First, try scrubbing it lightly with a steel wool pad, then vacuum up the ashes. Then rub and scrub with some detergent and rinse. If black char still remains, perform surgery and try to precision cut what charcoaled pieces are left. If worse comes to worse, find an inconspicuous part of the carpet, cut out a hole the size of the burn, and hot glue the pretty carpet piece into the ugly burned carpet piece.

If your friends and visitors are to blame for the cigarette burns in your carpet – practice saying the words “smoke outside.” Or scatter an abundance of ashtrays at your next get-together to keep your rug safe. Smoke is ugly and not your friend. If you burned your clothes and carpet – it’s time to quit smoking. You can’t hide the black in your lungs. Clean up your clothes, your carpet and your air, and you won’t have to waste time playing hide, scrub and seek with malicious cigarette burns.

Wood loves to engorge itself with water, mold, sap, rot and insects – just to name a few things. It is equally gluttonous when it comes to absorbing finishes and paint. Protecting your exterior woodwork keeps your wood from consuming rot and insects and keeps your paint from succumbing to Mother Nature’s moods. Your neighbors will likely appreciate your healthy looking home as much as you do.

Wood finishes and wood protectors are not synonymous. Some wood finishes protect, and others do not. Varnish is an interior and exterior finish that also protects. Dye is an interior finish that does not protect. However, exterior varnish can be applied over a dye finish for outside protection. You will get about 600-900 square feet coverage from a gallon of varnish, but only 400-750 square feet from a gallon of dye.

A stain finish may or may not offer protection, depending on the brand, but it is available for interior and exterior woodwork. You can apply an exterior varnish over an exterior stain to give it the protection it needs. A gallon of stain can get you anywhere from 400 to 1,000 square feet per gallon.

Don’t consider using wax for protecting your home’s exterior woodwork – it’s generally interior only. Oil can be used on interior or exterior woodwork and serves as a wood protector. Wood Preserver is an exterior-only wood protector that prevents rot and insect damage.

Small cracks can also lead to wood damage over time. If you fill up cracks when you first notice them, you’ll prevent some big problems in the future. There are pellet-shaped “wood preservatives” that are specifically made for this purpose, and you can find “wood filler” to take care of small rot problems. If your wood is exposed to heavy sunlight, sap can come out of the woodwork knots. You can use a heat gun on the knot to get the sap to bubble out of the knot until the sap runs dry. Then just sand the area and apply sealer to the knot with a small brush.

Home wood exteriors and handsome exterior woodwork trims are Mother Nature’s beautiful gift to us. Take good care of your wood exterior, and make your mother happy.

Fortunately, we don’t have to be Paul Bunyan to get our natural hardwood. Manufacturing technology has simplified the hardwood floor installation process for wood enthusiasts. You can buy ¾ inch slabs of wood and take days to lay and prepare the wood. Or you can buy real hardwood engineered floors that have baked on sealer and primer and simply “click and lock.”

It’s easy to get confused when you hear the word “laminate flooring” - and plastic laminate may easily come to mind. But laminate simply means that there are layers of material bonded together. Laminated hardwood flooring has a hardwood surface and a hardwood core typically coated with an acrylic finish that is UV-resistant. Plastic laminate flooring on the other hand is coated with melamine, has only a wood-grain print film and a fiberboard core. Needless to say, plastic is cheaper than the hardwood. But hardwood can increase your homes resale value about 6%, it can be sanded if needed, and it will last for decades. Plastic laminate won’t.

Wooden floors are laid “floating.” You have to allow room for it to breathe, expand and contract with environmental influences. Depending on the moisture levels of your home, you may want to lay down a “vapor barrier.” If you’re installing wood on concrete, you definitely need a vapor barrier. The next step is to put down the underlayment which simply needs to be rolled out and trimmed. Before you lay down your hardwood, let your natural wood breathe out of its packaging for a few days.

When you begin installing your tongue and groove hardwood, the first board should be placed down in a corner with the tongue facing into the room and the groove towards the wall. You want to leave some expansion room around the perimeter edge of the room. (You’ll fill this later.) Depending what type of laminate hardwood flooring you chose, you will either “click and lock” around the room, or you’ll join the pieces together with glue and knock each one tight together as you go along. Of course, you’ll always be able to find hardwood flooring that uses good ‘ol hammer and nails, but the process may take days instead of hours. Your thumbs will appreciate the ease of “click and lock.”

Hardwood floors aren’t that hard to install thanks to advanced engineering. You can thank them as you get down on your hands and knees and lock that last board into place – and still have your hands intact to give your new hardwood floor some well-deserved applause.