The Home Maintenance Checklist Every New Homeowner Should Have on Hand

Your home represents a significant financial investment, and to maintain your property’s value and keep your home safe and comfortable year-round, you must perform annual maintenance. The average cost of annual home maintenance was $1,105 as of 2020, but you may have higher costs if you own an older home.

Investing in routine maintenance now can save you from the cost of emergency repairs tomorrow. Use this checklist to ensure you develop a thorough maintenance routine that will keep all the essential systems and features of your home in great shape for years to come.

Essential Systems Check

via

Turn to trusted HVAC technicians and cleaning specialists, such as Direct AC, for annual air conditioner maintenance service. Your air conditioning system should be inspected every spring to ensure it runs smoothly during the hot summer months. The air filter should be changed regularly throughout the year, and the coils and ducts should be cleaned regularly to ensure your air conditioning system isn’t spreading dust and allergens throughout your home.

 for leaks and look for signs of water damage, mold, or damaged floorboards in your home. All of these issues can indicate issues with your plumbing. Plumbing problems can generate expensive repair and clean-up costs. The plumbing experts with Advanced Plumbing Technology offer a free consultation. APT will thoroughly assess your pipes, and their team can produce a comprehensive replacement plan if your pipes are corroding. Lead pipes should also be removed to prevent health issues, such as kidney damage.

Check to ensure your sump pump is draining properly in the spring and fall. This will ensure your sump pump operates effectively during spring rains and when it snows.

Have your furnace inspected each fall. Replace the air filter to ensure the furnace can heat your home effectively. Allergens or pollen can build up in the filter, and if the furnace is blowing air through a dirty filter, it will send the allergens and pollen throughout your home. An annual furnace inspection can also ensure your furnace properly operates all winter.

Yard Maintenance

via

Yard maintenance is an essential part of your annual home maintenance plan. Every spring, you should check the lawn and reseed if there are bald spots. Remove any leaves or debris from your yard and plant flowers to improve your home’s curb appeal.

A certified arborist is qualified to inspect your trees to ensure they’re healthy. A tree inspection is an effective way of determining if there are signs of disease. Trees weakened by disease can be blown down in a wind storm or lose limbs, and ones that are close to your home could fall on the house. Trim long branches that are close to your roof or siding to prevent damage to your home.

Safety Check

via GIPHY

Choose an annual date to check your smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detector. Smoke detectors are activated when they detect smoke in the air. Carbon monoxide detectors are designed to detect carbon monoxide, which is odorless and colorless. Carbon monoxide is produced by several household items, such as dryers, gas stoves, water heaters, furnaces, wood stoves, and generators. Ingesting carbon monoxide can be fatal, so this checkup is extremely crucial. Make sure your smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detector are working correctly and replace the batteries once a year.

Also, whether you use your fireplace regularly or not, your chimney still needs to be inspected and maintained. The chimney allows harmful gases to leave your home. If the chimney is blocked or dirty, it can compromise the air quality inside your home. If you use the fireplace regularly, creosote will build up inside the chimney. Creosote is flammable and can cause chimney fires. An annual inspection and regular chimney cleaning will help ensure the safety of your home.

Exterior Features

via

Inspect the exterior of your home every spring. Power wash the exterior to remove grime to prevent mold from growing on your siding.

Check the gutters every spring and fall to ensure they’re clear. Gutters remove water from your roof. If the gutters are blocked, the water may penetrate your roof and damage your home’s interior.

Spring is a good time to repaint your home’s exterior and stain the deck. You should also check your deck for loose or damaged boards or loose nails to prevent people from tripping or cutting themselves.

If you own a pool, you will want to ensure the valves and filters are in good condition and have the equipment inspected before using your pool.

Four Things to Keep in Mind When Designing a Kitchen

Photo by Aaron Huber on Unsplash

There is no denial of the fact that designing a kitchen is the most crucial aspect when it comes to building a house. The kitchen is the beauty of the house and should be designed in such a way that it sets a style statement of your house. It represents you and should be designed according to your wants and needs. All the kitchens which you may have come across your entire life must be different, and each of them uniquely suits the needs of the family. A kitchen should be designed by keeping into consideration the functionality and purpose of different things. You may have seen many kitchens that aren’t even designed properly and pose a bad impression on the visitors. 

The way you design, plan, and organize your kitchen will have a significant impact on both the dining and the cooking. Starting off from the basic structure to furniture and decor, you have the opportunity to design everything according to your imagination. You can gather countless ideas from your friends, family, and internet, and picture your kitchen as the exotic zone of the house. 

The following are some kitchen design tips that can be taken into consideration when designing the kitchen. 

Go For an Open Kitchen Plan

Gone are the days when people used to be more inclined towards having a separate room for the kitchen. Today’s modern homes have open kitchens as they are more in demand. An open kitchen has a more welcoming and inviting atmosphere. The kitchen space is more open to entertainment as its open; after all, what’s better than a kitchen that has no barrier between it and the social space of your home. It looks highly sophisticated and luxurious. Open kitchens also give you an opportunity to keep an eye on your children, as they’ll be playing around in front of your eyes. 

Make Sure That the Kitchen has Enough Natural Light

A kitchen is the place of your house where you spend a significant amount of time out of your daily routine. Being dependent only on tube lights and light bulbs is going to add a burden to your electricity bills. Therefore, it is essential to have windows inside your kitchen and allow maximum amount of natural light inside during the day. You can install window blinds to control the amount of light coming inside; for inexpensive custom roman shades click here. Installing windows will keep the mood of your kitchen fresh and full of air. 

Have a Proper Ventilation System

Having an efficient ventilation system is a need that is often ignored. It has to be understood that a kitchen can never be a comfortable place if it doesn’t have a proper ventilation system. When you cook, the hot air, being less dense, accumulates near your kitchen ceiling. It has to be wiped out; otherwise, it creates oxygen deficiency inside your kitchen. Because of high humidity, a person can’t stand there for too long, and this honestly creates a miserable atmosphere inside a kitchen. Different smells can accumulate as well and can be very unpleasant. Therefore, an efficient ventilation system is required to keep the inside environment of your kitchen bearable and pleasant.  Kitchen hoods are an essential part of the kitchen as they eradicate any odors, fumes, and pungent smells from your kitchen. 

Have Enough Storage Space

Having inadequate storage space is a common mistake made by many individuals while designing the kitchen. You need to carefully plan where you are going to place the cupboards. Make sure that the cupboards are easily reachable so that they can be used properly. Purchasing frequently used kitchen tools is the key to an organized kitchen. You can buy a utensil hanger and can place it over your counter to hang pans and spoons on it. Make sure that your kitchen counter has drawers to store different items. By following all these storage tips, it would be much easier for you to manage your kitchen and organize all the items in a proper manner. Significant storage space will also make your kitchen look tidy and big. 

Best Tips to Improve Your Knife Skills

Photo by Viviana Rishe on Unsplash

Knowing when to use the proper knife for the proper cutting is itself a skill that needs to be mastered if you want to become a good chef. Wondering how to chop, dice, or mince, the article brings all the crucial knife skills you should follow to make yourself feel confident while cooking. These skills can be used easily in daily life and will help you sharpen your knives skills.

Keeping the knives sharp

Dull knives are not safer for cooking so always use a sharp knife. You can keep your knives sharp by honing tools. It is better to sharpen your knives by a trained knife sharpener. Detergents have adhered effect on some knives. So it is better to wash your knives by hand. However stainless steel is safe for dishwasher use. They can be washed in the dishwasher.

Having the proper knives

Knives vary in their size like you must have a four-inch and an eight-inch chef’s knife in your kitchen. These knives must be included in your standard kitchen knife stand. An eight-inch bread knife that we also call a tomato knife is also a must-have knife.

Split and slice

You must place your thumb and index finger on the handle of the knife. Chefs call it “choke up”. The thumb and knuckle of your hands should have a hard grip on the blade in the handle while the rest of the remaining fingers wrap around the handle. All of this gives you extra control, which will help you in using the knife more easily. One more thing, you don’t want to hold your grip tightly as this will strangle the knife.  

Use it like as saw

You should use your knife like a saw, instead of moving up and down slice it through. It helps you in handling the food or vegetables more efficiently. You just need to hold your knife firmly and slice it through like a saw motion.  

Instead of visiting the stores, you can also buy sharp knives online. There are many websites that provide critic reviews to the knives that they are selling. You may use cheap discount codes purple and you can avail discounts while online shopping.

Cut in half to create a flat surface

Cutting, chopping, or slicing your round products in half will help in creating a flat surface. To do this, you must keep your knife above the height of your elbow as it will put more control and pressure. Now using gravity to your advantage, cut it through nicely and firmly.

The claw technique

Making a claw while cutting the food is very helpful. In the process, your fingertips must be towards the cutting board. It will help you in cutting more precisely and harmlessly. This skill takes time and a lot of patience. So while cutting the onion, hold the onion in the hand and make a claw. You can dice the onion painlessly. 

Following the above-mentioned tips, you can refine your knife skills and can easily become a master chef. 

Luxury Tile Guide – Questions to Ask Yourself

Most new homeowners are very aware of how they want their homes to look and feel, where things go and what colors they prefer on their walls. From the biggest things such as the paint on the house, the furniture, and the floor selections, to the smaller more intricate things such as the type of tiles you want on your bathroom or kitchen area is a very important decision to make, because once they are laid out, there’s no going back. It’s for the world to see. So careful consideration is key in this department. Other information about this can also be found online. 

However, there is no need to worry about your options and what to go for, as this guide below has some great quick advice for you regarding this to help you make sure you choose the one that’s a perfect fit for the house, so you enhance the rooms as opposed to making them look dull or boring. 

The idea is to ask yourself a few important questions and then play the field. Let’s look at the things to consider. This is an important initial step that will help you set the tone of the overall room in question. 

Things to As Yourself When Choosing Tile Colors

Here’s a tip – before choosing on the hue to go with, look around for any existing colors that may already be there, such as the tones of the furniture as well as the mood you want to set because the bathroom will be different from the kitchen and any other areas in the house. 

1. What Size Is the Room? This is an important question to ask yourself.  As the logic goes, the lighter colors typically make a room look big and vice versa. If it’s a small bathroom and you want it to look bigger, use whites, creams, and pastels colored tiles for the walls and floor. Large kitchens, for instance, can get away with luxury tiles of a dark chocolate hue and burnt sienna.

2. What Kind of Tile Type Do You Desire? From glazed tiles to matte ones, the choices can be confusing, however when going for kitchen tiles, be it luxury of not, it’s best to keep it glossy, and stain-resistant due to obvious reasons or splashing and food going everywhere. This would be great for the countertops and the walls surrounding the stove and backsplash areas. If opting for a flooring choice, the denser porcelain types are your best bet, in both areas. 

3. What Hue Are You Going For? Ever heard of a color wheel or a color circle / spectrum? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_wheel this could be your best friend in any color situation. You can go with vibrant colors, that are from the opposite sides of the color wheel. Rich blue walls make a luxurious statement in any home and give the place a sense of positive energy, so for your lounge areas, entertainment rooms, and perhaps even your bedroom, selecting these hues, darker and slightly lighter, would make a significant gorgeous impact.   

Unless you want a more relaxing atmosphere, then you can go with the paler tones such as the lighter ones on the wheel, like the yellow, creams, and lighter blues. 

4. Pattern or No Pattern? Some tiles have brilliant patterns on them that stand out from the crowd and enhance any space when placed correctly. Mottled patterns or Carlanto luxury tiles, for instance, make for a nice layout in the entranceways and any high-traffic areas. Go with slightly darker tones here for a more luxurious feel. One can also opt for the terrazzo tiles with elegant motifs displayed on them, like lace, zigzag, or swirls. Mix this with browns, golds, and tans and you will be the envy of the neighborhood in no time.   

In the end, when choosing the types of tiles, you want to adorn your home with, treat it like a piece of art. Which ones do you want to stand out more and which ones not so much? Look at it through the eye of strangers, and ask yourself what would they think? Although, we would highly recommend, doing what is best suited for you and your family, as you will be living in the home and you need to be happy with the decision. Guests will appreciate that too. 

Learn How to Do Steaming With Frozen Vegetables

Health guidelines suggest that people should consume as few as 2.5 and as many as 6.5 cups of produce daily based on your calorie requirements. There’s no stipulation that these need to be organically grown from a garden or freshly purchased from a health market.

Many people today are either budget conscious or aren’t really sure how to prepare a fresh vegetable for cooking, preferring the prepping already be done as with the frozen variety. But can these prepackaged selections be cooked using the same methods as their naturally bred counterparts?

In most cases, the packaging offers basic cooking instructions for the array of choices inside. But many people like to get creative in the kitchen and use various methods or styles in an effort to produce different flavors, which is absolutely a possibility. When roasting vegetables, it is a more extensive process, but it is worth the effort because the flavor is incredible and differs from other techniques.

Styles For Cooking Frozen Vegetables

For frozen vegetables, you should not defrost the package prior to cooking. The contents will lose their nutrients through thawing along with the overall texture and flavor, especially for those who choose to thaw them overnight.

As with most frozen items, none of these products are meant to be consumed until they have been fully cooked. You should avoid the desire to toss some into a breakfast shake or put them in a cold salad. These are nothing like frozen fruit products, unless they state they’re “ready to eat.”

Everyone has their preferred style for cooking. It’s actually subjective. There’s not necessarily any single best way that would suit everyone universally. So, let’s go over a few of those techniques that are among the most popular:

Stove top Steaming

The suggestion with this method is however you’re doing it, you’re most likely doing it incorrectly. But there are many people who are anxious to learn the process for steaming frozen veggies. In order for them to be of optimum taste and texture, this method works the best, so they say:

• The bottom of your pot should be covered by no more than three inches of water.
• Cover the water once it begins to boil with a steaming basket ensuring that it is above the water - may need to eliminate some water.
• After placing the basket, place the veggies in the basket and cover the entire pot over with a lid.
• These need to be closely monitored because they might cook quickly as the times for stove top steaming tend to vary depending on the items you’re cooking.

Some individuals attempt to use a food and vegetable steamer DIY in the microwave. Along with boiling, these methods are strongly frowned upon. In using both of these styles, the suggestion is that the nutrients are being depleted from the array of goodies found in the bag. The end result in each case is a soggy, limp, and flavorless product that’s basically not providing any health benefits for you.

These are merely suggestions. If you’ve been successfully boiling or microwaving your products with no poor results, thus far, you should continue to use the style, technique, method, that brings you the results you enjoy.

Sauteing On The Stove

This is a favorite noted to offer incredible flavor and texture with the array of products in the packaging. Sauteing is done in a skillet, making for fast cooking time which allows the veggies to keep their taste and maintain the crunchy texture, not to mention the nutrients are preserved.

• The skillet will go on a medium-high heat on the stove top with the contents poured in. 
• A tablespoon of whichever cooking oil satisfies your dietary plan needs to be added to the ingredients. 
• These will remain uncovered cooking for approximately 7 minutes or until they have been thoroughly heated with your stirring frequently throughout the process.

Grilling In The Backyard

If you enjoy a good barbecue, this will be the best method of cooking frozen vegetables for you. These are ideal for summer family get-togethers that even the kids might enjoy, and there are no dishes to be cleaned up after.

• Using a vegetable basket or perhaps some aluminum foil for wrapping the veggies, add some cooking oil of your choice over the ingredients and seal them.
• The grill should be placed on a medium heat where you will simply place them on the rack. 
• You don’t want them to char, so it’s important to continue to flip while they heat.

Roasting/Baking In The Oven

This is an easy technique, but it is one that will take a bit longer than most of the other methods.  Waiting on roasted vegetables can often take as much as a half hour. But these offer a delicious flavor unique again from the other styles.

• The oven should be preheated at 400 to 450.
• The roasting pan will be coated with cooking oil of your liking in a thin layer. This pain will go into the oven to heat up before the packaging will be emptied into it. The hot pan allows the ingredients to thaw and cook nicely.
• Use cooking oil to toss the packaging contents and then place them in a single layer to the hot pan. Halfway through cooking time - about 15 minutes, you should flip.

Final Thought

There are daily nutritional requirements, or more so recommendations, for people in order for the body to function at its optimum level. Produce is a big component in that process. It doesn’t matter if they’re organic, store-bought, frozen, steamed, as long as you’re indulging yourself. Learn here the variety of steaming methods you can incorporate for the ultimate in veggies.

It might seem challenging to get the recommended allowance, but if you think of produce as merely a side dish, it can prove challenging. You can do so much more with veggies and fruits than dessert or a tag along. These can be front and center if you get creative and investigate new recipes. Just have fun with it.