Every New Year we all make a number of resolutions to improve ourselves. These include the standard “lose weight, get a better job, be a better parent,” character-changing resolutions. Although they often can be life changing, they also very often are left incomplete. This year, why not be a little more pragmatic and make some New Year’s resolutions to better our homes?
Our homes are the places that we spend most our time in; in the end making some big changes within the house could actually lead to some personal life-style alterations. So, without further adieu, here is a list of potential New Year’s home improvement resolutions for you to make:
Make Your Home Eco-Friendly: It’s not just about jumping on the environmental ‘green-craze.’ Making your home more eco-friendly not only helps the environment around us but also can save you a bundle of money. There are a number of ways, small and big, to retro-fit your home to be green. A small and easy change is switching all your standard light bulbs out for longer lasting compact fluorescent or LED bulbs. These bulbs are environmentally friendly and also can save a homeowner around $50 per bulb throughout their lifetime. Another small change that can make big difference is installing a few low cost solar panels for outdoor lighting.
For those with homes in cold weather climates, a big eco-friendly change might involve retrofitting your house for better insulation, which will save you a ton in energy and heating bills in the long run. For those in warmer climates that are constantly maintaining and watering their lawn: an artificial lawn can look just as good but save water and maintenance bills.
Designate an Exercise Room: We all have a room in our house for relaxation – a couch potato heaven that has the big screen TV, plush arm chair, and table to kick your feet up on. That’s all swell, but what about when you need to get some physical activitiy? It’s often difficult to build up the motivation to keep up with a gym membership – we’re always making excuses like ‘the gym is too far,’ and ‘I’m too tired before or after work.’
It’s time to throw out those excuses and designate one room in your house as an ‘exercise room.’ It could be a simple modification to another room by adding just one machines like a treadmill, Stairmaster, or Bowflex. Or maybe it could be an entire retrofit of a room by adding mats for aerobics or yoga as well as a set of weights for strength training. Either way, simply calling a room in your home ‘an exercise room’ can often be enough motivation to get you off the couch and into a physical workout.
Get Rid of Your Junk, Finally: We also all have rooms in our homes that are filled with useless clutter and junk. For many of us this room is the basement or garage, which serves as the graveyards for old boxes of toys, broken down appliances and torn up pieces of furniture. Not only does this junk take up unnecessary room within your home that could be put to better use, but it also takes up room in your head – leading to elevated stress that could be avoided with a thorough hauling project.
We all tell ourselves every year that we’ll have the time to get rid of that junk, slowly but surely, but it never happens. It’s as simple as being truthful with yourself and your family as far as what is necessary and what is junk. When you’ve figured out what’s junk – simply call up a local junk removal service to come in and get rid of it in a fast and efficient manner.