Five New Years Resolutions to Improve Your Home

What goals will you set to improve your home this year? These five resolutions are easy improvements for any household.
Organize, Clean, and De-clutter
Think about the different items throughout your home that you didn’t use the entire year of 2014?  Can you part with them? The New Year is a great time to organize, tidy up, and de-clutter your home.  Not sure where to start? Focus on a single room at a time.  Spend one weekend cleaning and organizing the laundry room, storage closet, or spare bedroom.  From there, move on to frequently used rooms, cupboards, or closets.  Your effort will be well worth it when you’re able to find things quickly, enjoy a clean space, and re-utilize once wasted space.
Maximize the Functionality of Your Garage
The garage is an extremely important space for most homeowners.  From cars, tools, and lawn equipment, some expensive investments live in the garage year round.  Seasonally, items should be shifted around for easy access and functionality. Resolve to keep the garage floor free of clutter and organized in 2015.
Looking for more space? A folding workbench like Bench Solution is the perfect way to maximize the functionality of a garage. Bench Solution’s foldable workbench holds up to 400lbs of tools, crafts, or projects at any given time. At the end of the each task, Bench Solution folds down flat to the wall, maximizing space and allowing a car to be pulled in the garage easily.  Learn how Bench Solution can help you improve your garage here.
Additionally, wall storage from IdealWall allows homeowners to organize tools, equipment, and other possessions where they can be easily accessed and kept. Learn more about IdealWall and the many accessories that accompany it here.
 Interior Paint 
Are you sick of the color in one a heavily trafficked room? Want to change the functionality of an upstairs bedroom or closet? You’d be surprised the dramatic change a little bit of paint can make!
Painting projects are inexpensive and can really improve the lighting, warmth, and value of your home.  Entire walls, window panes, and cabinets are great spaces to rejuvenate with a fresh coat of paint.
If the paint colors in your home are outdated, check out these 2015 paint color trends by House Beautiful for painting inspiration!
Begin Planning Outdoor Improvements
Whether you live in a sunny Southern state or the Midwest, the New Year is a great time to begin planning outdoor improvements for your home.
Curb appeal adds great value to any home.  Do you notice anything as you pull into the driveway that wouldn’t be attractive to a homebuyer? Broken siding, rusty gutters, or dingy paint are all easy improvements that make your home more attractive, whether you are interested in selling or not.
A backyard addition is a great investment for individuals interested in re-selling their home someday.  By adding a deck or sunroom to a home, functionality is not only increased, but it becomes an added feature that homebuyers seek.  A $5000 deck could increase the value of a home by an equal amount, making the investment a no-brainer! Look into designs online and find a contractor that fits your budget.  You’ll be sipping ice tea and relaxing on your smart investment by 2016!
Backyard Landscaping is another great way to improve your home.  When the weather is warm, make it a resolution to plant new flowers, improve underutilized space, and keep your backyard looking sharp.  Flowerbeds, stone paths, or a swing set for the kids will help you get the most out of your back yard.
Improve Safety
Maybe the most important on the list, resolve to keep your home and family safe this year.  Small changes can make big differences around the home.  First of all, ensure all smoke and gas alarms are working and have working batteries.  Don’t put off replacing batteries, fires and dangerous gasses can cause serious damage to a home at any given time.
Another way to protect your family is by childproofing dangerous areas around the house.  Keep windows secured, laundry chutes covered, and cabinets with dangerous chemicals locked.  Unexpected accidents happen daily, but by improving the safety around the house you can reduce the risk of an accident.
Finally, protect your assets and your family by keeping doors, windows, and the garage locked at all times.  Whether you are in the home, gardening in the back yard, or just running to the store don’t make it easy for intruders to enter your home.  If an alarm system is in your budget, make 2015 the year to take a leap towards optimal safety.