Home Improvement Projects for Spring | VISITvortex | MAGAZINE

Spring to it with home Improvements

When spring breathes energy and new life into the air—with the birds chirping, bulbs emerging, and trees budding—that’s the time your renewed vigor will rise like the sun and inspire you to get outdoors and enjoy your cleanup and improvement projects.

Getting More from YOUR Garage

Create a recycling center and spare pantry. Get some bins for plastic, metal, and glass containers, plus a wire basket for newspapers (with bundling twine) and place them on a mobile platform. This can simply be some plywood and casters that journey to street-side with ease. The pantry can also be simple—a metal office cabinet with magnets holding up a clipboard for keeping pantry inventory up to date.
For a sports center, hang bicycles up on steel hooks on either side of a garage’s center post; if there’s no post, purchase ceiling hooks to hang bikes from the ceiling or hooks for wall hanging. Hang skateboards, bike helmets, sport bags, and other hangables to get things up off the floor. Field sport equipment such as basketballs, footballs, and soccer balls can be stuffed into a duffle bag or net bag and hung with hooks. For the family with many sports fanatics, a simple pine storage chest (another easy DIY project) can compartmentalize cleats, arm and shin guards, helmets, and more. And the top can double as a seat while outfitting-up.
A pegboard can transform that wall in front of your vehicle; you know the one that can’t fit anything of depth? Put up as many pieces of pegboard and hardware as you’ll need to organize your tools, brooms, hoses, sprinklers, and that vast assortment of outdoor gear that always seems to be—“somewhere”. Pegboard hardware can even hold up adjustable shelves, offering a surface for an assortment of containers or glass jars that contain small hardware.

Innovative Potting Shed

Think of the fun and interest you can create by going to flea markets and antique shops to find an old cupboard, a pie-bin, or even a bookcase and fill the shelves with clay pots, garden tools, knee pads, and gloves.

It can be tastefully placed on a porch or under a carport for easy access between your home and garden. If you feel the urge to construct—then make simple painted wooden bins to hold seeds, bulbs, fertilizers, hose nozzles, and so much more. Just perch them on a shelf and you’re organized and accessorized with the novelty of repurposing a piece of history. Of course you can always go the full nine yards and get plans for a DIY project or buy a ready-made shed.

Outdoor Respites

Freshen up patio, deck, or screened-in porch furnishings and flooring, or give it a total facelift. After a few seasons—whether undercover or not—wicker, poly-resin, or metal furniture could use spruce-ups. See what you’re dealing with in the way of dirt—whether just dusty, dirty, or moldy. Clean accordingly. Then comes the fun—a facelift of a new color or texture! Spray paints are not expensive for refinishing metals, and they come in textural sprays that hide a multitude of sins. New color and a spray-on poly topcoat will look as if you’ve bought an entirely new set of outdoor furniture.

Unprotected patio and deck flooring may need some power washing, and spring is the perfect time to play “firefighter” with a rented or purchased high-pressure hose attachment. And if you’re really ambitious and into total revival—whether the flooring is wood, brick, stone, concrete, or composite—there are weatherproof stains and paints in a myriad of colors ready to complement your “new” outdoor furniture.

Now that a few interesting projects have been addressed, here are a few of the old standard, nitty gritty tasks as a reminder of what’s typically repeated each spring.

House/Yard/Garden

Sweep out the gutter.

Leak inspection—from your attic.

Point gutter drains away from your house.

Check sump pump function for
spring rain buildup.

Perfect time for chimney sweeping
—have it ready for fall.

Clear any downed trees and broken
branches and transform them into
firewood or woodchips.

Time to replace driveway gravel
plowed away from snow removal.

Cleanups for barbecues,
wheelbarrows, and lawn furniture.

Fix any holes in screens

Service lawn equipment.

Garden Revival

Contemplate some soil improvements

to promote healthier bounty.

Get septic systems pumped, if necessary.

Choose your annual flora.

Expand your perennials by adding at least
one a year for an abundance of color in
just a few years.

Collect rocks as you clean up the property
and build a rock wall and pathways
through garden plots.

cost-effective

Mull over some solar installations.

Install low-flow toilets.

Renovate kitchens and/or baths
for added efficiency and value.

Purchase an energy-efficient air conditioner
or one that rolls from room to room.

Sit back with a refreshing drink, put your feet up, and peruse your yard’s spring renaissance while enjoying the return of sunshine and warmth. Invite some friends over for the first barbeque of the season. And don’t forget to take photos of the beautiful results you’ve created.

by Rochelle Riservato