As the seasons gradually change from the hot summer to autumn, the tone may be changing in your household. School season comes with this change, so it’s important to prep your home for this influx of responsibility assigned to the little ones.
To most efficiently organize the flow of your home, you can start at the busiest parts and areas when choosing where to streamline. For example, the morning routines can be limited with a little bit of nightly preparation. Preparing outfits, packing lunches, and checking calendars nightly become time-savers for those crucial early hours.
With organization and streamlining, cleanliness naturally becomes a big booster in this state of mind for your home. A Sunday reset is a great place to start making your home cleaner, but for a long term use-case, create a designated drop-area for school gear, jackets, keys, and work-wear. The area acts as a drop box, keeping your daytime chaos contained from the rest of your home.
The nightly prep and designated chaos-zones are important, but a helpful behavior change that can occur in the little ones will last a lifetime. If you don’t have one already, a good way to improve the work ethic and focus of your little academics is by making a designated homework area for after school. This can be something as easy as a desk in their room, but the more important thing is to teach them that their homework should be done there.
It quickly becomes applicable to them in multiple stages of their lives, including adulthood. Even beyond homework, it’s a good idea to get your kids involved in organizing their own spaces how they (and a parent) think works for them.
Time may seem limited in the hours you do have free, and home improvement could be an even further cry with your limited time. However, a key aspect of home improvement is prevention. By preventing issues from progressing into larger problems, you can surely save some much needed recreation funds for next summer.
We’ve got the drop box figured out already, so moving on to things like sticky doors or small holes in paint is an easing next step. For the doors you can tighten any loose screws and check the hinges for replacement, and the walls can be patched with a kit from most stores.
Some other preventative measures you can take include: Checking the gutters for any issues for the coming fall season, making sure chimneys aren't blocked, inspecting the seals on any windows or doors that may be drafty, and when it gets suddenly cold, open your cabinets under the sink in order to circulate warmer air through the pipes. It may seem difficult to balance all of these preventions, but it pays off in the months when these measures become harder to do.
If more space sounds like a need rather than a want this school year, it’s never too late or early to reach out to a Ruoff Mortgage loan officer!