It is that time of the process, the beginning stages of selling your house, that you need to make your home look better than it ever has before. Yeah, that means you have to clean the baseboards and actually scrub down walls and floors (for once!) to make it appealing for any potential buyer.

One problem that every household typically runs into is how the husband and wife seem to think what looks better around the house! Weird huh? Men and women obviously see things differently – first time that has ever been said, right? – so when it comes to making the house look great for the staging process, we tend to differ in opinions.

Regardless, here is a list that a dad (like myself) would see as a necessity when staging the home, compared to possibly what my better half (cough, cough) might be inclined to think of:

Show Off The Finished Basement

·         When it comes to a dad’s point of view, the finished basement (or the man cave) is huge to show off. Dad’s want to know they have a spot in the house to escape from the nonsense yelling and bickering (did I say that? Don’t tell my wife or kids!) that is going on upstairs. This is the room that probably has your bar, poker table and big plasma TV, so why wouldn’t a potential buyer want to see that? It needs to be clean and tidy, but when I have done visits to staged homes, this was always the room that caught my eye (and I’m sure a ton of other husbands and dads too!).

Do The Essentials

·         Make sure when you are setting the stage, no pun intended, you do all of the essential stuff around the house to make it look great. What might these chores be? Change all of the bulbs to make sure they don’t flicker or go out during a visit from a potential buyer. Change all of the batteries in the fire alarms so they don’t beep or go off during the visit. Make sure all of the doors are secured on their hinges and that they open and close easily. These are things that might not be noticeable UNTIL one of them goes wrong.

Showcase The Deck

·         If you have a family, the deck is going to be a huge resting area for many parties, picnics and birthday parties throughout the summer months. Make sure to show it off. Clean it up so that it looks more spacious and that the clutter is gone. Don’t have the dirty old grill be an eye sore to any potential buyer. Buy a cover for it and then put it in the corner. You want to show that whether it is all of the dads trying to escape for an adult beverage or whether it is a place for families to cook out on a nice summer evening, it has enough room to handle any and everything you might throw at (literally and figuratively!).

Walls, Carpets, Baseboards Better Be Clean

·         One of the first things people notice when they walk into your house is whether the carpets and walls are cleaned, and this includes the baseboards. This is essential when staging your home because you are naturally drawn to any stains in the carpet or scrapes in the walls. Now if it were up to me, I would pay someone to come in and clean the carpets and walls. But that is the lazy way of doing it (so I’ve been told time and time and time again…). This won’t be an easy task or one that you can do in an afternoon. You need to plan for this to take an entire weekend to do it right, so plan accordingly.

About the Author: Doug Chapman is a staff writer for HomeDaddys, a stay-at-home dad blog. He specializes in diapers and Sippy cups by day, but is a successful real estate investor by night to build passive income. 

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By Greg Fleischaker, author of a casual food and cooking blog at http://dinnertimetv.com

A third of U.S. families eat dinner together — at the table, seven nights a week. This finding comes from the 2013 Welch’s Kitchen Table Report. “It might feel like the traditional ideal of a family gathered for dinner is only a memory of a bygone era and that today’s families aren’t connected to each other as they are busy running around, texting, and watching TV,” said Sarah-Jane Bedwell, a registered dietitian and Welch’s Health and Nutrition Advisory Panel member.

“The truth is parents are making quality time a priority and are using mealtime to share a moment with their children…. In my experience, families who eat together are happier, healthier, and stronger.” It’s promising news that the benefits of eating dinner with the family are now being recognized. There are certainly plenty of studies to back up the claims that sharing a meal is beneficial to home-life.

Here are some of the top benefits of eating dinner as a family:

It’s good for your physical health.

University of Minnesota researchers found that eating family meals together during adolescence led to the adoption of positive eating habits later in life. These children grew to consume more fruit, vegetables, and nutrients as adults. They were less likely to drink soda or eat unhealthy snack foods.

An even larger study of 8,677 girls and 7,525 boys was conducted by Matthew W. Gillman MD at Harvard in 2000. Gillman and colleagues found that 9-to-14-year-olds who ate with their families ate more fruits, more vegetables, less fried food, less soda, less saturated and trans-fats, lower Glycemic loads, more fiber, and more micronutrients.

Sarah Anderson at Ohio State University reported that pre-school aged children who ate dinner with the family more than 5 times per week, got at least 10.5 hours of sleep a night, and watched less than 2 hours of TV on weekdays had a 14.3 percent chance of becoming an obese adult, compared to the 24.5 percent chance that other 4-year-old children faced.

It’s good for your emotional health.

“More frequent family dinners related to fewer emotional and behavioral problems, greater emotional well-being, more trusting and helpful behaviors towards others and higher life satisfaction,” according to McGill Professor Frank Elgar.  “From having no dinners together to eating together 7 nights a week, each additional dinner related to significantly better mental health.”

In her research, Dianne Neumark-Sztainer PHD from the Minnesota School of Public Health found that kids who eat with their families are less likely to become depressed, consider suicide, and develop an eating disorder. “If a child eats with his or her parents on a regular basis, problems will be identified earlier on,” she explained to CNN.

The benefits aren’t just for kids, however. A 2008 study of IBM employees conducted by Brigham Young University revealed that enjoying a meal with the family helped working moms reduce tension and strain from long hours at the office.

It’s good for your future.

According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, family dinners at least 5 times per week are associated with a lower chance of your teen smoking, drinking or abusing drugs. In fact, teens that have fewer than three family dinners a week are: 3.5x more likely to have abused drugs, 2.5x more likely to have smoked cigarettes, and 1.5x more likely to have tried alcohol. “The parental engagement fostered at the dinner table can be a simple, effective tool to help prevent [substance abuse],” summarized researcher Elizabeth Planet. Furthermore, the study showed that only 9 percent of teens who eat with their families get C’s or lower on their report cards, compared to 20% of teens who dine with their parents less than 3 times a week.

Of course, simply sitting at the same table isn’t enough to maximize the benefits of dinner with the family. To see results, there needs to be positive interaction. Parents can take this time to foster improvement in every area of a child’s life by asking the right questions and encouraging the child to participate in healthy discussion – whether it’s about a proud moment, something learned at school, or an area of difficulty.

The verdict is clear. So let’s do our best to rearrange our chaotic schedules and make time for family, starting this week.

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Few endeavors are as likely to send you to the medicine cabinet for a handful of Tylenol as moving into a new home. There’s the tedious planning, organizing, and packing. There’s the back-breaking labor that may require a few extra pairs of hands. And then there are those logistical necessities like dollies, carts, and of course, a moving truck. It’s no surprise that many of us decide to hire professional assistance when attempting to undertake a move.

Unfortunately, doing so isn’t as easy as cracking open the Yellow Pages (or, for most of us now, browsing through the Google results page) and calling up the first moving company on the list. If you haven’t heard of or experienced a moving company horror story, calling up a random mover is a quick way to change that. Finding the right mover requires research, planning, and asking the right questions. Here’s what you should consider before starting your search:

Start early

The early bird gets the worm; likewise, the early customer gets the best company. You need to go into your search keeping in mind that finding and booking the best movers is a competitive process. Realize that the vast majority of people move on the weekends, and that moving is very seasonal (peaking around May). Moving often takes all day, and some companies may only have a few trucks (or just one), meaning they service only a few customers a day. This means you’re most likely looking for a moving company on the same select days that everyone else is—and guess what, those people will be trying to book the companies that are known to be the most reliable, too. The only way to ensure you nab a reputable company is to book them as far in advance as possible, which means starting your search as soon as possible—otherwise, you might be stuck with the bottom of the barrel.

Think outside the truck

There are a variety of types of moving companies out there, so before you book the first service available, consider how different types might work for you. If you’ve got buddies that are willing to lend a hand (and possibly a lower back, if they don’t know how to lift) free of charge (or in exchange for pizza and beer) then you probably don’t need a full-service mover. In that case, go with what’s typically called an LTL or FTL transport, a service that simply rents out the truck and a driver. Going this route will definitely save you a pretty penny. If, on the other hand, you’re stuck with a labor shortage, go with what’s known as a ‘white-glove’ moving company. This is the kind of full-service solution that sends professional movers into your home to help you pack your stuff into boxes, load those boxes onto the truck, transport it all to your new home, unload the boxes into your new home, and then voila: all you have to do is figure out where things go.

Finally, a relatively new service known as ‘portable storage’ (the most popular brand being PODs) offers a third option. Instead of showing up at your home with a truck, the company will drop off a storage container outside your home. After you fill the container, the company will then either take your container to a warehouse if you need to store it for a time, or will deliver it to your home. By utilizing their distribution network of trucks and warehouses, these companies are able to offer transportation at a lower cost. However, that lower cost can come at a price: portable storage containers are notoriously slow to deliver, as they’ll often sit in processing at a warehouse until there are enough other containers to fill up a truck. If you’re going to need your belongings immediately after moving, portable storage is not for you.

Read reviews

In this day and age, your only source of information about a company shouldn’t be their own marketing materials. Find third-party sites where actual former customers have left reviews on the companies you’re considering. One important thing to keep in mind when reading reviews is that you’re often only confronted with extremes: usually, people only bother getting online to write a review when they have either an extremely poor or extremely good experience, so one either way shouldn’t be what you make your decision on. Instead, it’s best to read what reviewers said, then keep those things in mind when you go to talk with the company. Google Places and Yelp are great sites for customer reviews.

Check their licensing and insurance

One of the greatest dangers with selecting a moving company is finding one that is illegal. Companies should be registered and properly insured with cargo insurance. Ask to see proof of the company’s license and insurance, and if something seems fishy, check up on them by visiting the appropriate government resources.

Get the details down in writing

You should know every detail before the mover ever shows up, from schedules to truck sizes to how many of them will be showing up at your house. What you are responsible for and what the company is responsible for should be clearly delineated. Ask as many questions as you can, and get things down in writing.

Brian Shreckengast is a writer at SelfStorageDeals.com, a leading price-focused search engine for finding cheap storage units. Learn more about moving and storing at the SSD storage blog.

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Spring is in the air! This is a great time of year to focus on your home; both repairs and cleaning. It’s While kids get a break from school, it’s not just a break for playing video games or watching TV. Helping out around the house and contributing at any age builds knowledge, pride, self-esteem and responsible habits. It can also be fun! This is the time of year to teach kids how to change batteries in the smoke detectors, change the dirty, winter furnace filter, etc. Here are five cleaning projects that you can delegate to the younger ones to do alone. Also, for stubborn stains or pest issues, here’s a great list of eco-friendly cleaning tips and tricks.

Windex and Paper Towels.

Kids love to “spray” the Windex and paper towels are easy to use. Let them clean the windows, glass block, shower doors, mirrors in the bathroom or glass tables. This is also a great time to teach them how to use glass cleaner and what “not” to spray it on like TVs, electronics, electricity, wood, etc. Some of those items can be cleaned using an air blaster can. Very fun for kids!

Toy Purging

Kids are always collecting new items and they grow so fast, they often don’t realize all the items in their rooms or play areas that aren’t being used. This is a great time of year to separate the toys they use and the ones they don’t. Have them make a pile of toys or books that they aren’t playing with. This will clear up toy boxes and shelves. This is also a great time to teach them about our modern world. They can sell these items on Craigslist with you, eBay or they can donate them to charity for a tax write-off. It may seem adult-like to discuss re-selling or taxes, but they really can’t be taught soon enough. This could also lead them to treat their items better so in the future, someone else can use them, or they will still be valuable. If selling, split the profit between savings and new toys.

Shoe Cleaning/Organizing

Winter has likely left its dirty mark on many things. This is a great time to gather up all the shoes and boots and give them a good cleaning. The salt, dirt or mud has built up and it’s a fun, easy project for kids. A little elbow grease and old rags will do the trick. Mild soap and water and voila, clean shoes which prolongs their wear-life and keeps mud rooms/closets cleaner. This is also a good time to gather up shoes or boots that no longer fit and maybe add them to the purged toy pile for donating or handing down.

Chairs and Table Legs

Sounds weird, but these things often don’t get the cleaning attention they need frequently enough. Kitchen or dining room chairs and tables can collect built up “crud”, germs and dirt over a year. Kids are the perfect size for this project. They can get down and scrub the table and chair leg bottoms as well as the “handling” parts of the chairs. Make it a game or competition, whoever has the dirtiest rag wins. They will be surprised when they see what comes off on that cloth!

Ceiling Fan Blades and Lamp Shades

Another job that gets overlooked. This is a good job for older kids. Cleaning the ceiling fan blades and glass or fabric shades on light fixtures/lamps can help the air in the home stay cleaner. It keeps dust down and helps with those pesky spring/summer allergies. Also, cleaning light bulbs and glass shades keeps rooms brighter.

Cecilia Sherrard is a Real Estate agent in Cleveland, Ohio. For more home tips including repairs, selling advice and other household projects, visit her Ohio RE/MAX Real Estate website.

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The Holidays are almost always hectic. But winter is also a great time to work on those 5 home improvement projects that add value to your home, lower your heating costs or enhance your frame of mind during the dreary months ahead.

As a top Louisville Realtor, I like to recommend which projects are the best “bang for your buck” by adding value to your home where it matters most.

Here are five great home improvement projects that you can handle during the cold months, without hiring a contractor. If you’re not the handiest tool in the shed, winter is a great time to hire a contractor, who typically have more availability during this season. You can negotiate a better rate, too!

So, let’s get started.

1. Update those lighting fixtures

One of these 5 home improvement projects that can really make your Holidays sparkle is installing new lighting fixtures.

What is the most popular exclamation on any home show? “This space is so light and airy!”

Humans love light. The more light, the better. You can’t add more windows to your home without major costs, but you can update the lighting fixtures.

Does your room have an old ceiling fan? Replace it with a new one that also has a built-in light.

Tired of the brass chandelier above the kitchen table? Go shopping, a select a beautiful, contemporary fixture that matches your current tastes.

Don’t forget, installing lights under your kitchen cabinets is not too difficult and adds instant style. Most home buyers also find it appealing.

2. Organize those closets and storage areas

When New Year’s Day arrives, many of us are thinking of resolutions for the upcoming year. A popular one is being better organized and more efficient with our time.

Winter is a wonderful time to go through your closets and donate items to charity, while organizing everything you plan to keep. Installing new shelves, drawers or clothing racks is a fairly straight-forward proposition.

Pick one room to start, declutter, then organize what’s left by what you use most often. Come the new year, you’ll have a sense of pride that you’re already ahead of the game.

3. Liven up the tired spaces with paint

The easiest way to update the feel of any room is with new, fresh paint.

Sick and tired of the same ol’ bedroom walls? Nothing will change a room’s appearance faster, or at a lower cost, than new paint.

Don’t let the winter doldrums get you down. Spice things up with some bold, new colors to brighten your mood.

If it’s frigid outside and you can’t open the windows, you may opt for a low-VOC paint that has less fumes.

4. Add insulation

Not the sexiest option in the list but winter is a great time to add insulation and lower your utility costs. It also makes your home more comfortable during the cold months ahead.

Adding insulation doesn’t need to be difficult either. There are multiple options, depending on the location in your Louisville home that needs attention.

Also, wrapping your water heater with insulation helps it run more efficiently and last longer.

5. Spruce up those floors

You won’t believe the number of laminate flooring options these days. So many styles to choose from and the products are better made than ever.

Putting down new laminate floors is a great way to improve a basement, laundry room or even certain baths. Some cuts can be tricky, but there are large number of video guides to help you install laminate floors.

Carpet tiles are another great home improvement project that homeowners can usually tackle themselves.

Wrapping up!

Before you let the Holiday madness get you down, add a couple of these home improvement projects to your calendar, knock them out and feel good about the investment you’ve made to your Louisville home.

If you’re considering a major project, like finishing your basement, you may want to check out Top 5 Factors When Finishing the Basement of Your Louisville Home.

Tre Pryor is an Internet-veteran turned tech-savvy Realtor. One of the top Louisville agents, you can find his work at InsiderLouisville.com, Louisville Homes Blog or follow him on Google+ or Twitter.

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