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December is all about friends, family, and food (there, we said it!), which is why this month’s tasks focus on keeping your home and its occupants safe, warm, and happy. Begin with some basic home maintenance to ensure that your home is clean and warm. Then, tackle some detailed kitchen cleaning and home safety to-dos in preparation for an onslaught of guests, whether they’re staying for a week or just for dinner. Though your impulse might be to rush, rush, rush to get everything done, be sure to slow down and enjoy simple holiday pleasures with your loved ones.
1. DIY Your Own Decorations
Here’s a family-friendly—and budget-friendly—DIY project: Gather around the table to make your own holiday decorations. It’s a wonderful way to spend time together, and you can save money by making your own ornaments from repurposed materials, backyard branches, or outdated decorations in need of new life.
2. Clean and Protect Wood Furniture
Expecting guests for the holidays is a good excuse to spiff up dining room table, bedroom sets, and other wood furniture. Sometimes a little dish soap and water is enough to clean wood furniture, and other times you need mineral spirits and other tougher ingredients to get the grime off. Finish the task by using a wood wax or other protectant to “feed” the wood. This is particularly important when the air inside your home is dry; consistently low moisture can cause wood to crack.
3. Protect Your Home from Burglars
There’s a slight uptick in home burglaries around the holidays, so take precautions if you plan to travel. Call the post office to hold your mail, and ask a neighbor or friend to park in your driveway or even shovel your walk while you’re away. Or install one of many high-tech security gadgets now on the market to monitor your home while you’re out of town.
4. Clean the Insides of Your Washing Machine and Dishwasher
Think about the mountains of towels, rugs, and comforters you’ve run through your clothes washer this past month, and the greasy pots, dishes and silverware your dishwasher has seen: It was more than usual, right? Treat your dirtiest, hardest-working washers right and make sure they get a spa day. Cleaning a dishwasher or a washing machine by hand does take time, but if time is short you can at least drop a washing machine cleaner tablet and dishwasher cleaner inside the machines and running cycles in each.
5. Air Out Your Home
Many families have guests on the way this month, so it’s important to keep your home smelling fresh and your air clean. Replace baking soda in the fridge or freezer, decorate with fragrant evergreen branches, or invest in a top-quality air purifier with a HEPA filter to remove impurities, like mold and dust, from the air.
6. Insulate, Insulate, Insulate
In colder regions, frozen pipes are one of the biggest and most expensive winter disasters. Take the following precautions to keep yours from freezing and subsequently bursting: First, ensure that exterior walls and garages that house water pipes are properly insulated. If your home is at high risk of frozen pipes, you might keep thermostats set at the same temperature, day and night. Finally, consider installing heating tape on the roof and in gutters with a timer to turn off automatically when not in use.
7. Clean Kitchen Nooks and Crannies
Thanksgiving dinner has probably left its mark on your kitchen: on your pots and pans, floors, and in all the nooks and crannies. Now is a great time to give your kitchen some careful attention: Use a toothpick to fish out crumbs from the crevices between the stovetop and the countertop, use Bark Keepers Friend to scrub stains off your stainless cookware, and clean the kitchen floor grout on your hands and knees rather than giving it quick once-over with the spin mop. (Don’t forget to clean dusty refrigerator coils to improve your energy efficiency and lower your utility bill.)
8. See if You Qualify for Tax Credits
Every year, there are a variety of tax credits and deductions that homeowners can take advantage of for a bigger refund come spring. Make sure that you get what is coming to you before the year is out: Donate unused goods, for instance, and check the IRS list of credits and deductions for individuals.
9. Add Interior Trim
Crown molding and wainscoting add a timeless quality to any room. If your living room, dining room, or bedroom needs a change, consider installing trim along the ceiling and floor, and around the windows and doors. This relatively quick project is easy to DIY and gets you a lot of bang for your buck. In the bathroom, you might even go the extra mile by adding trendy beadboard along the lower half of the wall.
10. Finish the Basement
Although winter keeps most people indoors, few homeowners spend much time in an unfinished basement. Improving a basement is a popular project for December, when it can be completed with little interference with day-to-day life. In less than a month’s time, you can put together a space you’d love to really spend time in year-round.
