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With bars and restaurants closed and national sports cancelled, what do you do during the evenings and on weekends after you’ve logged off work? After you’ve watched Frozen 2 for the twelfth time, we have a home maintenance checklist that can make your home safer and more valuable as well as provide a little fun for you and your family.
Set out on a home scavenger hunt
You have vipHomeLink (if you don’t, correct that tiny oversight here). Our home profile is a home scavenger hunt. Where’s your smoke detector? Is it in date with working batteries? Check! Do you have braided hoses attached to your washer? Do they need to be replaced? How about your refrigerator? Have you cleaned out the filter…ever?
Log into your vipHomeLink home profile and finish the designated sections to receive your Home Fitness Index (HFI), or a score that shows how healthy your home is. Complete your entire profile to get a 100% on your HFI.
Hold your first ever “Home Olympics”
Why not tackle your weekly home maintenance checklist with some good, old-fashioned competition? Find out who the champion is in your household with these sporting events:
- Vacuuming the largest room in the house.
- Cleaning the bathroom tub.
- Dusting the living room end and coffee tables.
- Cleaning the kitchen countertops.
- Washing the dishes.
- Folding the laundry.
- Steaming the curtains.
Winner gets to choose the movie or TV rerun that night, or loser has to cook dinner. Absolutely, under no circumstances, should you skip the opening ceremonies. Play the music, light your phone (rather than a torch), and perhaps even make some Greek dishes (if you have all the ingredients at home).
Tackle that to-do list
We know you have one – that to-do list you made of home improvement projects that you just never had the time to complete. If you do now, touch up the paint in the living room wall or finally wash those storm windows. How about cleaning the winter clothes out of your closet, and if you’re handy, perform routine maintenance on your lawn mower. (As for me, I’ll be cleaning out that kitchen drawer that broke and I hardly open. Time to get rid of the dust and boil the silverware to use again.)
Safety first – always
This is extremely important now that you and your family will be spending time at home, arguably more than ever before.
If you have little ones, it’s time to put on your safety hats (or any hat will do) and run through your home fire safety checklist. Give the kids a list of the items and a clipboard, so they feel official. Check that your carbon monoxide, smoke detectors and fire extinguishers are all in date. Also, double-check on the batteries to see if they’re still working and have the kids hit the button to check. When the alarm sounds, practice your family’s emergency plan.
Study up on the smart tech arts
Learning and integrating new technology into your home isn’t easy, despite the fact that by 2022, 63% of American homes will be designated smart homes. If you’re lagging in your smart home knowledge, now’s the time to study and decide how you want to start your smart tech journey. Figure out what smart home tech solutions you want in your home and the brand(s), including but not limited to Google, Alexa, and Samsung SmartThings. Between smart lights, smart refrigerators, and even smart coffeemakers, you’ve got a lot of choices to optimize convenience in your home.
Verse yourself in defense against malware training
If you’ve already mastered the smart tech arts, then you need to make sure to protect your devices from malware infection, including the most innocuous of devices, such as smart lights and thermostats. While this may not be essentially “fun,” per se, you can enjoy a sigh of relief knowing your home is safeguarded from a hack. In fact, we have eight steps to help you do just that.
But in all seriousness – finish that home inventory
A home inventory is imperative to every homeowner. In the event of the “worst-case scenario,” such as a home fire or home flood, you’ll need to know what items you had in your home for your insurance company to replace. This record should include the big-ticket items, such as your appliances, electronic devices, a signed hockey stick by none other than Randy McKay of the New Jersey Devils; and the everyday items, like how many shirts you own and those fluffy bunny slippers you might be wearing right now.
The more detailed a home inventory, the better for you in the case of an event, but here at vipHomeLink, we subscribe to a complete home inventory rather than a complex one. Learn the ins and outs of creating one in 355,400 Reasons to have home inventory (and how to create one).
Keep up with your home maintenance checklist
With the vipHomeLink app’s reminders and recommendations, you’ll also receive a home maintenance checklist that can help you to keep your family and home safe now and year-round! So make sure to download our home management app today from Google Play or the App Store.
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