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Sometimes It Pays to Pay for Help

June 4, 2012 Filed Under: Home Improvement Tagged With: home improvement, home renovation, remodeling, Spring cleaning

avt_pds1364_medium1We have finally reclaimed the major public areas of our house after having gone through our most recent renovation. Can’t believe how big a mess it was to clean up! It’s amazing how dust can travel through the entire house, even if you hang dust barriers. As I was finishing the last of the cleanup, it occurred to me – I could have hired someone to do this!

It may seem strange to think about hiring someone to clean your house, particularly if you were raised, like me, by a mother who taught you all about housekeeping, and expected you to carry your share of the load – particularly if you were out of school for the summer. But, it actually makes a lot of sense, particularly after a construction project, to let the professionals do the cleanup. After all, do you want to work all day at your regular job and then come home to a mess that you know isn’t going to clean itself? Or, do you want to spend your whole weekend cleaning, after all the stress you just went through with a renovation? No, paying a professional cleaning service is really to your benefit.

I can tell you right now, after this most recent cleanup, that I will definitely invest a couple hundred dollars to let someone else come in and clean up the mess (my research shows that post construction cleanup around here costs about $30 per hour, with a 4 hour minimum, but, based on the size of your home, it could take more than 4 hours, so I’m estimating $200 to complete the cleanup) next time. I recently read that your free time is actually worth about $160 per hour, so I think investing $30 an hour is definitely worth the cost to have a little extra free time on my hands.

So, if you’re planning a renovation project, think about calculating the cost of a cleaning service into your budget. It will relieve you of a lot of hard work, and you’ll get to come home to a nice clean house at the end of the day!

Rae the Renovator

Filed Under: Home Improvement Tagged With: home improvement, home renovation, remodeling, Spring cleaning

Greetings from DI-Why? Diary

March 18, 2012 Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Spring cleaning

Spring has arrived early in Chicago, getting me started thinking about spring cleaning. I made an interesting discovery the other day when I was trying to find an easy way to clean faux wood blinds. They are almost impossible to clean in place without making a huge mess of the windows, so I went on a scavenger hunt for something to clean them in. Because our windows are fairly wide (some nearly 4 feet wide), finding a container to clean them in was a bit of a challenge. However, I finally got lucky in finding a bin that is designed to hold gift wrap. I just filled up the bin with hot water, added some Pine-Sol, and slipped the blinds into the bin. Let them soak a bit, pull them out and rinse well, wiping any areas that didn’t come completely clean, and lay or stand them on a towel to let them dry for a bit, and I’m ready to rehang the refreshed blinds!  Amazing how simple it was, once I figured it out…

Any other spring cleaning tricks you’ve stumbled over that you would like to share? Your comments and suggestions are always welcome!

Rae the Renovator

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Spring cleaning

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