Category Archives: Home Organization and Repair

Here are some help tips and guidelines on how to keep your home Virus free.

Shop:

• Home Cleaning Supplies
• Respirators
• Humidifiers

 

Home risk reduction strategies when no one is ill include:

• Increase ventilation of fresh air into the home to dilute airborne germs and pollutants.
• Upgrade to a MERV 13-rated air filter in the heating/cooling system. That efficiency level can capture virus-carrying sneeze droplets. Higher ratings are more efficient but may overly restrict the air flow and cause problems, so consult an HVAC professional if you want to upgrade further.
• Prevent very low relative humidity below 30 percent, which can make people more susceptible to respiratory infection. This is rarely an issue in warm, humid Louisiana climate, but it can happen during cold winter weather when the heating system is running.
• As an added precaution, close the toilet lid before flushing to reduce exposure to any germs released into the air by the turbulence, and run the bathroom exhaust fan during and for a few minutes after flushing.

When someone in the household is sick or quarantined:

• Isolate the affected person in one room.
• Exhaust air from that room to the outdoors to keep the isolation room’s air from circulating to other parts of the house. This can be done with a small window fan on low speed blowing to the outside.
• Avoid sharing a bathroom. If that’s not possible, run an exhaust fan continuously. 
• Close off or cover the central air vents in the isolation room if there is another way to control temperature. Provide a window air conditioner or a room space heater for that room as needed for comfort. In mild weather, open windows.
• Use a room air cleaner in the isolation room. 
• Continue the strategies for when no one is sick in the rest of the house occupied by healthy household members.

When no one is ill but the household includes a person at high risk:

• Isolate the high-risk person in a separate room and bathroom if possible. Keep the door closed. This is to protect the at-risk person in case another household member has the virus without symptoms.
• Use a window fan to ventilate the room with outdoor air blowing from outside to inside.
• Close or cover the central air vents into the room and provide a room air conditioner or space heater as needed.
• Use a room air cleaner in the isolation room.
• Healthy indoor air quality tips for all homes:
• Pollutant source control is top of the list. Never allow smoking indoors, don’t burn candles and always use the range hood when cooking. Buy and use only low VOC cleaners and household products (read labels). Avoid overuse of disinfectants, such as bleach, which produce unhealthy fumes. Do not rely on air filters or air cleaners as a substitute for pollutant source control.
• Try to maintain 40-60 percent indoor relative humidity for optimal health and comfort.
• Make sure all drain traps have water in them to prevent sewer gas in the home.
• Clean and capture dust with a HEPA filter vacuum cleaner or damp-wipe methods.
• Clean high-touch surfaces often, especially door handles, light switches and countertops.
• If the home was built before 1978, assume it could have lead-based paint and asbestos-containing materials. Home repair and renovation projects that disturb paint or asbestos materials can create a serious hazard. Hire only EPA Lead-safe Renovators to do work on the home.
• When choosing new door, cabinet and faucet handles, consider brass. Uncoated copper and its alloys, as well as silver, can have anti-microbial effects. Although more research is needed, a recent study by the National Institutes of Health and CDC reported that the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, remained viable for up to two to three days on plastic and stainless steel surfaces versus up to four hours on copper.

 

References:

• magnoliareporter.com/living_and_learning/education/article_78b1ccf8-8fbc-11ea-a2d1-3be98c36dbe0.html
• cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/cleaning-disinfection.html

Retrieve your garage space, clean out your closet floors and unclutter your house while still having easy access to all your belongings. Flimsy cardboard boxes of 7 different sizes are a thing of the past. 

Most people think that a storage unit is a temporary solution but more often than not they turn into a chaotic mess not to mention an expensive monthly bill. 

Look at the use of a storage unit as a grand opportunity to organize your life. In order to achieve this lofty goal you should organize your storage unit before you even move one of your belongings into it. Think about what you have to store, how often you’ll need access to the different types of things you’re putting in there and how many of the things you’ll need access to are seasonal.
Here’s an example of an ideal 10 ft wide 20 ft deep storage unit:
In the back end of the storage unit build an 8-foot deep 10 ft wide platform about 4 ft off the ground. Underneath that platform you can store long-term items such as furniture or anything else you don’t want to get damaged or crushed. On the top of the platform you can store other long-term items and boxes.
You now have a 12 ft deep 10 ft wide space left to fill. My recommendation is to use metro-style or industrial storage racks on both side walls of the remaining 12 feet. The shelves should be spaced to handle whatever types of bins you’re going to store. For about $5 a piece you can purchase different colored bins from Walmart, Home Depot or Lowe’s. I try to use a different color bin for each type of thing that’s going to go into it. Obvious choices might be red bins for Holiday storage, orange for Halloween decor, etc. Every Ben should have a number and as you fill them you should take note as to what you’re putting in. Example: “foot massager 27”. Put bins with the heavier things on the bottoms of the racks and the lighter things on the top of the racks. If a bin is particularly heavy you might want to indicate that on the outside. Try to keep like size bins together and as a general rule whenever using boxes also stack them and store them according to the similarly of size. If you have a file cabinet that you might need regular access to, it can be placed on the very end of your storage unit so you can get in and out of it quickly. With this configuration you should now have a 5 foot wide 12 foot long isle of space right down the middle of your storage unit. I recommend getting four rolling storage racks to fill that space. Now when you arrive at your storage unit you can roll the four racks out and have plenty of room inside to go through any of your bins. My recommendation is that you also have 4 plastic drop cloths you can cover the rolling racks with if it happens to be raining during your visit.
My last recommendation on this subject is about security. Although it’s rare sometimes people will break into storage units. For this reason I recommend having two locks on the door instead of one. While it’s true that if someone can break into one lock they could also break into two locks, I think they just might hit all the one lock doors first.

Yard Sales are a great way to turn your trash into someone else’s treasure. The new trend is to have Virtual Yards Sales.

As long as you’re home getting driven up a wall you might as well grab a piece of chalk on your way.

There are specialty paints that look and act like a chalkboard. They also have paint that works as a dry-erase surface. Now the walls in you kitchen or family room can have a great many purposes.
Naturally some of the first things that come to mind are using them for homeschooling, chores or calendars but what about using them as a background for Zooming. You can quickly decorate and change the background for your mood or occasion. If you post on social media you can use them to illustrate a point or list steps and ingredients.
Family members can post a quote of the day, play tic tac toe, draw challenging mazes or make wildly inappropriate caricatures of each other.
And when you’ve finally had enough you can write a note to the rest of the family about how you “just can’t take it anymore and are running off to Bora Bora but that you should be home in time for dinner”.

Organizing your home can be very uncomplicated if you take the subjectivity out of the equation. Don’t analyze, read or debate, simply sort items in the appropriate bins like an emotionless robot. Organizing goes fast and then there will be plenty of time to reflect on the sorted items in your fresh, clean and open space. Think of how happy your Roomba will be!
I visited a friend who is a lawyer. When I walked into her office I could not believe my eyes. There were stacks of paper 2 and 3 feet high on every surface. It was a mix of mail, receipts, newspapers, books, things that had fallen over and things that were about to fall over. I said let me help you take your office back before we find you underneath an accidental avalanche.
We put together about 10 filing boxes with the following titles:

• Trash
• Recycle
• Shred (then recycle)
• Mail
• Immediate attention
• File
• Donate
• Put Away
• Long Storage

The name of the game is “pick it up and put it in a box.” Then I told her the rules of the “game”. “Nothing stays in your hand for more than 5 seconds and there is absolutely no dwelling, discussing or storytelling involved in any of the items you’re organizing.”

Not only did we make it through the entire office by the end of the day but she also found some important correspondence and two missing checks. One of which she used to buy me dinner. She even let me have a McFlurry for dessert. A few days later she told me that she had gotten everything in all those boxes put where they belong.
Obviously if you are attacking a room with bigger or more diverse items you might need a few other categories and some larger bins. Also just because you have things organized into categories doesn’t mean the job is finished but getting things put away can be wonderfully addicting.