5 New Year’s Resolutions for Your Home – Hello 2021!

Thank goodness we can all look at 2020 in the rearview mirror. In 2021 you might be ready for some changes to the home that has been work, school, movie theater, gym and salon. Hopefully this autumn we are going to be busy with activities out of the house – while we are waiting let’s make some resolutions to accomplish things inside the house!

1. Declutter: You have read the articles, you have seen the advice on HGTV, your realtor has probably even told you – this is the year you actually do it! To get ready watch some declutter videos for inspiration, put on your comfiest clothes and start at one corner of your home and work your way through to the farthest corner. The reason for this is that picking a closet here and a cabinet there will leave you forgetting what you have done. Whack-a-mole cleaning means you will never get to sit back and bask in your accomplishment. Start with that corner and stay with it until it is completely done- as long as it takes. Binge cleaning, like binge watching, means you will stick with it and not stop until it is finished!
2. Safety: Fire stations usually post their Happy New Year greetings with a subtitle: “Change your smoke alarm batteries”. That is such a great idea. Don’t wait until the smoke alarms start beeping to change the batteries – freshening them once a year means never having to change them at 1am in your jammies. (Why do they always pick the middle of the night to run out of juice?) Take this opportunity to look at all of your safety; for instance do you still use a deadbolt that uses an interior key? Change that now – you don’t want a missing key to keep you from opening the door if there is an emergency. How about a security system? There are lots of choices on the market- some that you can even install yourself. Carbon Monoxide detector? You should have one on each floor of your home.
3. Cleaning: Just do it. No excuses. Again, YouTube is wonderful for inspiration: Yep – cleaning motivation videos are a thing!
4. Updating the décor: You are going to entertain again in late 2021 so get ready! Are your walls grey? That’s SO 2020. Do you have too much black metal industrial furniture and lighting? See: 2020. Time to hit the books and find out what is trending and how to use it in your own home. This book will give you goosebumps with its beautiful design and will also look fabulous on your coffee table.
5. One big project: There’s still time now but your window of opportunity is closing. You have lived with that horrible 1980’s bathroom for all of 2020 so don’t stare at it one more minute. Possibly not being able to go out has saved you a bit of money during the past year so spend it on one big project that will make a difference and show your friends that it hasn’t been all joggers, ice cream and Netflix for the past year. You got things done dang it!