Let’s face it we all have stuff we need to get rid of in our homes, and typically the kitchen has a ton of stuff that doesn’t need to be there lying around in it.  Since we are currently in the cold of winter, there is no time like the present to start cleaning out your kitchen and making it look a bit more presentable.  Below is a list of the top things you should purge from your kitchen.

1. We all have one, a junk drawer and that junk drawer is many times located in the kitchen. It’s where we put all the items we have no idea what to do with but aren’t; quite sure we want to get rid of just yet.  Take that junk drawer and go through it with a fine tooth comb and decide what you need and what you don’t need.  Throw away all that you don’t need.  Most times the things you don’t need are the items you haven’t used in the past 6 months.  I promise you won’t miss anything.
2. Another thing we all seem to have lying around our kitchens is all those restaurant sauce packets we feel the need to keep. Sure you might use one once in a while but most times they just take up space either in the junk drawer or in the refrigerator.  Throw all the restaurant condiments out!  It will make your kitchen look much lovelier.
3. Yet another thing we all need to purge from our kitchens is the dressings, sauces and other items that have long since expired. There isn’t much worse than getting ready to put some sauce on your food only to find that it expired two years ago.  Clean out your fridge and only keep those things that you are going to use within the next week or so or at least make sure that all the dates are current.
4. Most everyone has some sort of a stack of lids in their kitchen that they just can’t seem to find a container for. If you have a bunch of lids that don’t have matching containers to secure them to, why not just throw them out.  They no longer serve a purpose.

Hopefully this list of items you need to purge  from your kitchen will get you starting thinking in the right direction.  At least it will be a starting point for you.

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently.  You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

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Having a housekeeper to clean your house is a wonderful way to get some help with your housework if you have to work outside of the home and don’t have much time to do it yourself.  There are ways to make your housekeeper’s job a bit easier than it otherwise might be however and the list below is a list of tips to help your housekeeper have an easier time making your house more beautiful and tidy.

1. Be sure if you want your house cleaned like you want it that you are clear on specifics about what exactly it is you want done.  If you write a list of what all you want cleaned for example you need to spell out each thing you want done and how you want it done so that you are not disappointed when you get back home after the housekeeper has done their job.
2. Another tip to help your housekeeper get their job done well is to take care of your pets.  Your housekeeper is there to clean your house, not to pick up after your pets and their messes.  If you can take your pet over to a friend’s or family members house while your housekeeper is there cleaning it may be best for all involved.
3. If you have things around the house that you can do before the housekeeper comes you may save yourself a bit of money. An example of the types of things you can go ahead and get done before the housekeeper comes is to get rid of your trash from last night’s dinner as well as go ahead and wash the dishes.
4. If there is something really nasty in the house such as dog poo then clean it up before your housekeeper gets there. If it is too nasty for you then it is too nasty for your housekeeper and you shouldn’t expect them to take care of it for you.
5. Clean up any clutter before your housekeeper comes to your home so that they won’t have a hard time getting the floors cleaned and also so they won’t have to wonder where things belong and therefore may end up putting something in the wrong spot.

These are just a few tips that will make your housekeepers life a bit easier.  If a clean house is what you are after, do your part to make it happen and to keep your housekeeper happy.

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently.  You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

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If you have let your house go and you find yourself in need of a professional organizer, there are a few things you need to do in order to get ready for one to come and help you get your life together.  Below is a list of things that you need to do BEFORE hiring a professional organizer so that you both end up with the results you were hoping for.

1. One thing you need to do before the professional organizer arrives on the scene is to de-clutter your own home and have an end game in mind. Make a mental note of how you want your family to benefit from the coming organization and plan your strategy around that.  If you have certain rooms that you use daily to make life work, start in those areas once your organizer arrives.  He or she will be glad that you have somewhat of a plan already in mind rather than having to start blindly with no goal to work towards.
2. Another thing you need to do in order to get ready for a professional organizer to come into your home is to realize that even though you hire someone to help you get your life in order, your home will likely still not look like a picture out of magazine. The truth of the matter is, folks live in their homes and where there is life there is mess.  If you go in with this mindset you will likely be pleasantly surprised of all that can be accomplished.
3. Be ready to let things go when your organizer comes into your home. You need to let your hording tendencies go and be willing to throw things out that you haven’t recently used.
4. Another tip for getting ready to hire a professional organizer is to realize that they are not there to build shelves and the like. If you have something that you want installed, get someone else to do it or do it yourself before your organizer arrives.  The professional organizer is there to help get things organized not to build shelving contrary to popular belief.
5. Professional organizers are not there to clean your home either so be sure to go ahead and have the house clean before they arrive. Clean isn’t the same thing as neat.

Hopefully this list will get you started in the right direction for getting ready for your professional organizer to arrive.  If you follow these simple tips you will likely be excited and happy with the final results.

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently.  You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

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If you have recently put your house on the market and want it to sell quickly you may need to take a look at a few of these tips on how to eliminate smells so that your house will be more likely to sell. While selling your home quickly may sound good to you, you may not be thinking about exactly how clean your house smells when you have a last minute showing pop up.  If you are caught in a bind with a last minute showing and you need to get rid of a few household odors, be sure to read below for some ideas.

1. If you have pets you already know that they have a smell all their own. Pets that may not be house trained yet may be hard to deal with during a house showing.  If you need to cover up the smell of pet urine quickly there are several ways to go about it.  One way to get rid of pee smell in the carpet is to soak the area with enzyme spray.  Another way to get rid of the smell all together (however it may take a bit longer) is to get rid of the carpet once and for all and put in hardwoods.
2. Another way to eliminate smells so that your house might sell is to open up your windows while you are cooking. If you know you have a showing one night, be sure to keep your windows open while you are cooking with the hood fan on as well.  Another good way to get rid of the smell of a recently prepared meal in your home is to set a bowl of coffee grounds on the countertop over night (if your showing doesn’t happen to be the same evening of course.)  If you don’t want to take any chances of having your dinner linger during the showing you could always just go out to eat for the evening.
3. Garbage smell in a home is some of the worst odor possible. One easy way to get rid of that particular smell is to be sure and take it to the curb before you leave for the showing.

These are just a few ways that you can get rid of smells in your home  so that your showing might go well and you may be more able to sell your home.  Hopefully they will get you started in the right direction.

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently.  You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

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It is almost time for the seasons to change once again as we move from fall slowly into winter.  As the seasons change many people find that they like to get things around their home organized to make the transition seem smoother.  Organizing your home can be made simple with a few of the following tips.

1. One way to organize your home is to get rid of “junk drawers” throughout the house. Many times folks tend to throw things they don’t know what to do with into a drawer that soon becomes a drawer full of junk. While these drawers DO keep the junk out of the eye of those that come to visit, you just never know when someone may open one of them looking for utensils or other useful items and you may be embarrassed by them. Simple fix…..throw out the junk once and for all and have no more junk drawers in your home!
2. Another great and simple way to organize your home  is to organize and de-clutter your pantry.  Typically there are items in your pantry that you haven’t used in years and they end up just sitting there taking up space.  This is very true for old canned food items that tend to have a shelf life of forever.   Once you get this simple organizing of your pantry complete, be sure not to let it get messy again by throwing away things you don’t use periodically.
3. Yet another simple way to organize your home is to use all of your closet space for things you will actually use instead of just getting things out of the way.   If you have a lot of games for example why not make a game closet just for the purpose of storing all of your family games.  This type of closet will make it more likely that your family may have a game night once a week because you will know exactly where to go to find the games.
4. Keeping all of the books in the house in one spot is another great organization tip. If you have various bookshelves in your home, you can utilize them for other purposes and keep one for only books.  Organize each shelf for books from each family member if you have a lot of books.

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently.  You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

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Owning a home is a wonderful thing, but you should always be really careful to make the best choices if you make changes to the outside of your home and this includes putting up a fence of any kind.  There are a few tips for adding a fence to your property that you might want to take into consideration before doing so and some of those are listed below.

1. Before putting up a fence on your property be sure to talk with your neighbors about it.  You need to keep in mind that you are not only putting up a fence in your backyard but you are also adding a fence to your neighbors land as well.  Talk with the neighbors that your fence will directly affect and discuss such things as property lines and types of fencing etc.
2. Another thing to consider when adding a fence on your property is the color of the fence and also the style.  Will the color and style of your fence match your home?  If you need ideas of what style fence will look good with your house consider looking online at some ideas.
3. You may want to consider planting trees to use as a fence if you decide you can’t find a style of fencing that will look good with your homes style. Cypress and pines are great for this type of privacy fencing and they never go out of style.
4. If you decide to add a wooden fence, be sure that you know you will have to take care of it and paint or stain it every so often. If you want something that has less maintenance than that you may want to purchase a vinyl fence.
5. You may want to consider cost as well when deciding what type of material you want your new fence made out of. Keeping within your budget is always a good idea when adding to your home.
6. Longevity of the fence material is another thing to keep in mind when choosing fencing for your property. You don’t want to purchase a material that will need to be replaced sooner than you wish for it to.

These are just a few tips for adding a fence of any kind to your property.  Once you have gone over these tips you should be able to choose more wisely than you would have without them.

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently.  You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

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With the summer season upon us, we need to tend to a few maintenance tasks before we can settle down in a hammock without a care in the world.  Keeping in mind the adage, “A stitch in time…”, we need to test the garage door opener in our Orlando FL home, check the air conditioning system, and service the lawn mower to ensure a breakdown-free summer.

• When was the last time you thought about your garage door or its automatic opener?  Like any mechanical system, the door and opener need some periodic, preventative maintenance. If you live in an area of frequent thunderstorms, a tight, well maintained garage door can also help prevent expensive results of a storm-ruptured door. The Door & Access Systems Manufacturers Association International has a good guide to help you inspect and test your complete garage door system. It’s a good idea to make monthly inspection and testing a part of your regular routine.

• Sweltering temperatures may be just around the corner, and your best defense is a central air-conditioning system. If you have one at your Orlando FL home, there are a few things you can do to make sure that it’s tuned up and ready to go when the summer heat arrives.  Before you start tinkering with the system, however, it’s important to have a basic understanding of: the condenser, the blower unit, and the ductwork of your system.   Visit the DASMA website for a complete explanation and instructions on how to fine tune it.

• Many small tasks are involved with getting your lawn mower ready for reliable summer use.

Check, belts, blades, all bolts and fasteners, tires, and wheels. If you have fuel older than 30 days stored in containers, not use it.  Any idea when you last changed the oil?  Drain it and replace it with oil the manufacturer recommends. Consider, too, replacing the sparkplug—if you do, add a couple drops of engine oil into the hole, and then replace the plug. Check your air and fuel filters and replace if they are dirty or clogged.  Follow the recommendations found at LawnCare.com.

Once you’ve completed these chores, feel free to visit yet another website for more suggestions—simple ones– on how to maintain your Orlando FL home during the summer months.  So much for hammock time!

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home shopping website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently.  You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

Get Orlando Daily News delivered to your inbox! Subscribe here!