Selling? Improve The Appearance Of Your Home’s Bathrooms.

Bathroom remodel tipsFull-scale bathroom remodeling can be expensive and, in today’s housing market, you won’t likely get all of the money back that you put into it at the time of sale.

Knowing that bathroom projects tend to have a low return on investment, therefore, here are a few inexpensive changes which you can make to spruce up bathrooms in a home for sale.

Fixtures
Most sellers will notice if the fixtures in a bathroom are old, and it can have a negative effect on their view of your home. Buy a new set of bathroom fixtures at a home improvement store. Most stores have matching towel racks and bathroom tissue holders, too. There is a wide selection of stainless steel, wood or ceramic fixtures available at most stores, too.

Paint
A fresh coat of paint is a simple way to improve the overall look of a bathroom. Choose paints with a light, neutral color to make the room seem more spacious.

Floors
If your bathroom floor has tiles, it’s a good idea to add fresh grout to brighten up the bathroom’s overall look, or, at least, to clean the grout so that it looks like new. Scratched linoleum should also be replaced. There is plenty of inexpensive flooring which is easy to install, in a variety of patterns and colors at your local hardware or flooring store.

De-Clutter
Prospective buyers should be able to imagine themselves living in your home. It’s easier for them to do that when your home is free of clutter. This is even true in the bathroom. Clear out your medicine cabinet. (Yes, many buyers will look in there.) Leave only the essentials such as toothpaste and hairbrushes.

Making a good impression on your prospective buyers can be easier when you’ve redone a bathroom.  It doesn’t require much money, and it may increase the final sale price of home.

The Five Minute Tidy: How to Keep Your House Clean in a Few Stolen Moments per Day

The weekend is finally here and you are exhausted from a busy week. You are looking forward to sleeping late and lounging around thefive minute tidy house, enjoying your day off. However, the sink-full of dirty dishes is staring you in the face, the shower is in desperate need of a scrub, and the dust creatures under the couch are starting to growl at you. Oh well, looks like another Sunday will be spent cleaning the house again!

So many of us are so busy during the week that we leave our housework until our day off when we finally have time to commit several hours to giving the home a good clean. However, there is a clever trick to remember that will help you keep your home clean throughout the week and reduce the amount of time you have to spend scrubbing and dusting on your precious days off.

The Five Minute Tidy

The Five Minute Tidy is the idea of taking advantage of any small burst of time within your day, even if it is only five minutes, to clean or tidy something in your home. There are many moments throughout our day to day lives when we are waiting around for a minute or two, whether it is for our dinner to heat up in the microwave, for the computer to boot up, or between commercial breaks during our favourite show. If you can take advantage of these small moments, you can keep your house tidy through a serious of many short cleaning sessions rather than one big one on the weekend.

You can do a five minute tidy in any room, but here are some ideas for the kitchen and the bathroom, two of the most daunting rooms to clean!

Five Minute Kitchen Tidy Ideas

Waiting for the popcorn to pop? You can:

  • Wipe down all counters and surfaces.
  • Clean the food from the oven elements.
  • Sweep the kitchen floor.
  • Open up the fridge and throw away anything that has expired.
  • Wash and put away a few dishes.

Five Minute Bathroom Tidy Ideas

Waiting for your bath to run? You can:

  • Wipe the toothpaste stains from the sink.
  • Clean the bathroom mirror.
  • Organize the bathroom cabinet.
  • Scrub the toilet.
  • If you are taking a shower, you can even take a bottle of shower cleaner with you and give it a spray as you are getting out!

If you can get in the habit of doing a five minute tidy whenever you find a spare moment, when the weekend rolls around you will discover that you won’t need to spend your entire day off cleaning because everything will already be done!