Fall in Love with Your Home

Colder temperatures and the changing color of leaves serve as a reminder that the fall season is here. It is an excellent time to do seasonal maintenance and updates to keep your home in tip-top condition. A little bit of attention now will go a long way to save you from costly repairs and you’ll bring back the spark to “fall” in love with your home again.

The following actions will make a difference to prepare yourself and your home for the fall season.

• Clear out the cobwebs – When we get comfortable, we tend to ignore things or put them off till later. Take some time to give your home a good cleaning and get things looking fresh again. It will make a world of difference in how your home looks and how it makes you feel.
• Mix things up – If you’ve been in your home for any length of time, you may have it set up the same way as you did when you moved in. Try moving things around, rearranging your furniture, moving artwork, bringing a rug in from another room and spicing things up. While you are at it, clear out the items that don’t bring you joy. You can donate, re-gift and recycle – whatever you are comfortable with, just don’t keep it in your home.
• Clean out rain gutters – Fallen leaves and debris build up in your gutters. Clogged gutters and drains can form water or ice dams that prevent your drainage systems from working properly. Save yourself the trouble of repairing a leak or fixing water damage by cleaning your gutters and drains now.
• Store and/or Protect Your Outdoor Furniture – Sadly the season for backyard get-togethers will be coming to an end (at least in colder weather locations). Store your furniture to prevent rust, breakdown, and mold from developing.

• Seal Your Home – It is vital for your home energy savings to ensure there are no air leaks in your home. Warm air will escape out of any cracks or broken seals and can make your heating system work overtime to warm your home. Keep your utility bill from going through the roof by using caulk and weatherstripping to seal windows and doors.

• Clean or Change Filters – This is a standard house cleaning task and if you haven’t done it already, now is the time. Heater and furnace filters trap dust that would otherwise be deposited on your carpets, furniture, countertops, and so on. Clogged filters make it harder to maintain a comfortable temperature in your home and can seriously increase your utility bills. A simple monthly cleaning is all it takes to keep these filters breathing free and clear.

• Test Winter Equipment – Fall is at your doorstep but the winter months are fast approaching. The worst time to realize your snowblower doesn’t work or your snow shovel is broken is the morning after a blizzard.

• Clean Your Chimney – If you have a wood-burning fireplace, the fall is the time to make sure your chimney is clean from last year’s soot. Ideally, you would want to make sure the chimney is cleaned after the season so that soot doesn’t sit all year long, but the fall is a great time too.

• Get Your Heating System Checked and Serviced – You will be using your heating system frequently during the upcoming months. It’s best to get whichever system you have checked and/or serviced before you start using it again.

• Clean the Oven – With holiday feasts around the corner, it’s important to have all your indoor cooking appliances in top shape. This is especially true if you’re planning on spending a lot of time at home during the colder months.

When you are done working on these projects, you can relax and bring in the scents of fall with this Dulce de Leche brownie recipe. You’ll fall in love with your home and these nut-free brownies with a sweet new twist. Dulce de leche and caramel sauce look and taste similar, but they are not the same. Dulce de leche is made by heating sweet milk until it becomes a thick, rich sauce often made in home kitchens using sweetened condensed milk.