In Every Home

Appliances for Cooking, Cleaning, & Care

Ideas to Declutter Your Laundry Room

200021408-001

There aren’t very many people who enjoy doing laundry and sometimes that chore can be even more stressful when the laundry room is cluttered and disorganized. Whether you have a big laundry room or just a space big enough to hold your washer, dryer and detergent, you probably don’t have to invest much time or money to make it better organized.

HGTV’s website has some simple tips to help you get
started:

  • Contain Your Cleaning Supplies:  A common source of
    frustration in the laundry room (other than endless piles of dirty clothes) is
    finding a place for all those cleaning supplies. Solution: Store cleaning
    supplies in a carry-all caddy or open-top storage container.
  • Go Vertical to Dry Clothes:  The too-small laundry room often suffers from a serious lack of hanging space, resulting in clothes draped over the dryer, cabinets and doors. Vertical space is often the most overlooked area in these rooms. Install a retractable clothesline or buy an inexpensive freestanding drying rack to reclaim some much-needed space in the laundry room. Imagine, counter space that’s actually used to fold clothes.
  • Presort Dirty Clothes in Hampers:  Cut down on laundry time with an organized method for presorting clothes. If space is available, add three laundry hampers (we love the idea of color-coding or labeling) for whites, lights and darks.

More tips from HGTV can be found here.

Better Homes & Gardens’ website also has additional tips on how to declutter your laundry area to match your style and needs.

Take the Work Out of Vacuuming Your Home with These Tips

200118254-001_11

Of course you know how to vacuum, right?   Well, maybe not, according to Consumer Reports that suggests that if you are vacuuming the wrong way, you may be making more work for yourself.

Consumer Reports magazine has 10 helpful tips that will leave your carpet cleaner and can leave you less worn out after doing a chore that most people would rather not do.  Here are three to get you started:

Stick to a schedule, Make multiple passes to clean deeply, and Spot-treat spills.   You can read the rest of CR’s tips here.

An editor at Better Homes and Gardens magazine has additional tips in a Tampa Bay Tribune article. He recommends saving vacuuming only after all of the other chores, such as dusting, have been done and move all furniture out of the way.

“Professional house cleaners call this ‘top down cleaning’ —
you start at the top of the room, so particulates settle. Tackle ceiling
corners, window treatments, furniture and finally the floors,?? the article
states.

And after you’ve finished reading those tips, you can see how far vacuum technology has come since the days of this 1950s Singer commercial. And if it weren’t for this Hoover commercial, you may have forgotten how vacuuming in the 1980s was such an exciting experience that you may have worn a mink stole and lace gloves to clean the house!  

What are your top tips for vacuuming? Have you discovered anything that makes this chore a bit easier? Share with other readers by commenting below.

Today’s Refrigerator’s Offer Lots of Options

124081Need a new refrigerator? If you haven’t been to an appliance or big box store lately, you might be surprised by the variety of styles available
now.  A recent article on NorthJersey.com
highlights how appliance manufacturers are designing refrigerators to meet consumers’ needs and varying lifestyles.

 

 

Refrigerators now come in the following combinations:

  • Top-mounted freezer with a single refrigerator compartment
  • Bottom-mounted freezer with a single refrigerator compartment
  •  A side-by-side combination
  • A French-door combination with two eye-level refrigerator compartments and a bottom-mounted freezer
  • An Armoire that has four doors made up of two eye-level refrigerator compartments and two bottom compartments, one of which can be used as a freezer or as a third refrigerator compartment used for snacks and drinks

Each combination, of course, has its own pros and cons so it is best to consider your lifestyle and the refrigerator’s use over a long period of time. For example, the bottom mount freezer models might not best for those who might not want to bend over to look for frozen food. Those who would
like all their food at eye-level might choose a side-by-side, especially since
many come equipped with ice and water dispensers, an additional convenience.

Click here to read the full article.

Today’s refrigerators are bigger and more energy efficient than those produced two decades ago. According to AHAM’s Trends in Energy Efficiency, in 1991, for instance, the average refrigerator’s consumed 857 kilowatts per hour (kWh) and those manufactured in 2012 consumed only 454 (kWh) – a decrease of over 50%!

Be sure to visit the AHAM Verifide website to search a directory of refrigerators. Refrigerators, refrigerator-freezers and freezers that are verified through AHAM’s Verification Program have been tested and verified by an independent laboratory, assuring consumers that the product will perform according to the manufacturer’s product claims for energy consumption and internal volume.

Preventing Cooking Fires

National Fire Prevention Week is October 6-12, 2013 and this year’s theme is “Prevent Cooking Fires.?? AHAM is supporting this effort by distributing free copies of its “Recipe for Safer Cooking?? brochure to fire departments, schools and community organizations. In just four weeks, more than 100,000 brochures have been distributed.

In addition to “Recipe for Safer Cooking” AHAM also has several other safety brochures available:

  • Protect Against Range Tipping
  • Clothes Dryer Safety
  • Portable Heater Safety Brochure (English)
  • Portable Heater Safety Brochure (Spanish)

AHAM will provide1,000 copies of Recipe for Safer Cooking and 250 copies of one other brochure at no cost. However, there will be a nominal shipping charge for larger orders. You can order brochures online or email AHAM
if you have any questions.

About This Blog

HOME for cooking, cleanliness, comfort and care

Back to The AHAM Blog
Categories