I get little updates from www.flylady.com. I have never really gone nuts and followed the regimen, because I think I am doing ok in trying to develop my own household operations textbook in my head. I know what is wrong: too many boxes of CRAP. And I am going through them, one at a time. The one thing I have bought from Fly Lady is a beauteous purple and black ostrich feather duster. She's right, it makes dusting fun! And I come from a house where I don't believe I ever saw dusting occur. I didn't know you were supposed to do it. You dust bookcases? Really? Why? Oh, you mean that cloud of dust that is now assailing my nostrils?
Ooooohhhhhhh.... now I get it. My lack of knowledge has not helped DH's allergies over the years, especially since he came from a museum quality clean house himself. I think I prefer the dirt, but maybe that's just familiarity.
My mom refers to the spiders that lived in my closet as "my friends".
Today on Fly Lady someone mentioned that they cleaned the dryer vent. They thought it would be a huge task, and it wasn't. I didn't realize people did that. We've not been homeowners long, and I guess wasn't shown how to do quite a few things, although basic cooking and cleaning was something I could do when I left the house. It turns out a lot of fires start because I'm obviously not the only person who lacks this knowledge. I do have books on maintenance, and I plan to put some of those things on a list and try to do them, like yearly, semi-yearly, etc. It's kind of like keeping up a car, which I also knew nothing about, but am learning the hard way.
Please donate "stuff I never knew I should do but it is really important" to my list in the comments! When I have a list, I'll post it!
Friday, August 22, 2008
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Fire place maintenance! I'm sure there are things I need to do, but I have no idea what. All I ever learned to do with a fire place growing up was start a fire & keep it going.
ReplyDeletelisa— my parents always hired a chimney sweep (summer's a good time, actually) and they would clean out the creosote and check for problems. I recommend that course of action, because that's not something you want to screw up.
ReplyDeleteThen ask them what to do after using the fireplace.
Clean the gutters, because if they overflow they could cause roof problems.
Check the waterproofing of the walls by using a sprinkler. That one comes from an actual experience my parents had.
Thanks Bern!
ReplyDeleteAnything else anybody? Luckily, I know lots of people who know the things I don't, including how to build things (lots of Boeing engineers around here), but I'd like to learn to do these things myself!