Protecting Your Home Against the Coronavirus

“Another post about the coronavirus?”

Yes, yes – we know you’re probably sick of reading news about the coronavirus everywhere. However, amidst all the commotion, we have a responsibility to keep ourselves and others safe, so we thought we would share a few thoughts on it.

Home Care During the Coronavirus

If you want to keep your family safe during the coronavirus breakout, there are a lot of steps you can take in addition to your current precautions to keep everyone healthy. Here are some steps you can put in action to keep your home COVID-19-free and safe this flu season!

1.  Dusting & Surface Cleaning

The coronavirus is largely spread through the air, and those who are infected can easily infect others simply by coughing or sneezing. However, you don’t even need to have symptoms to be contagious – if you were unknowingly exposed to the virus, there’s a chance you could be carrying it.

All that said, illness isn’t just spread through direct contact with others. If you or anyone carries the illness (even without being infected), it can settle in surfaces. Make sure you take time to use a good surface cleaner and dusting spray and get every area you usually neglect – window blinds, high shelfs, atop the fridge, etc.

2.  Cosmetics & Toiletries

It’s not a bad idea to buy some extra cosmetics. Buy a couple new, cheap contact cases and make sure you are swapping your contact solution out every night. All news advises people to avoid touching their eyes and face – if you have too, why not make sure you are taking every precaution at morning and night to keep all your cosmetics and toiletries clean?

It may also be worth it to buy a pack of additional tooth brushes and swap them out weekly over the upcoming month.

3.  Clothing

When we talk about “carrying the coronavirus but not infected”, a lot of it is carried on your clothing. If you are in a building with another infected person, respiratory droplets (eww) can easily land and cling to your clothing. You come home and bring that into your house.

During the coronavirus outbreak, it’s smart to keep your home clean and COVID-19 free by washing all your clothes after being out for the day! Rather than swapping clothing out in the morning, change right before you leave for work and after you come home. Avoid re-wearing anything you don’t need to!

Wrapping It Up

There you have it! A few tips to keep you and your family safe during the coronavirus outbreak. It’s just about being cautious and responsible when necessary and taking a few steps for the safety and health of you, your spouse, and kids! Think Smart and stay safe!

Tips for Organizing Your Garage

The thought of it probably makes you cringe. Garages are quick to get out of control – it’s sort of our temporary “dumpster” for seasonal things, or items we just haven’t fully committed to getting rid of yet. Long story short – it’s usually a mess for everyone and clearing/organizing it is always that last item on everyone’s “to-do list” that remains untouched for years.

If you’re planning on tackling the project of clearing out, cleaning, and organizing your garage, these are a few tips to keep in mind along the way:

Clearing and Organizing Your Garage: Tips

Everyone’s garage is different, and you may have a different end goal in mind. If you’re moving, clearing out a parents garage, or simply reorganizing your own garage, the project will look a little bit different, but in general, these are a few tips for clearing and organizing your garage that you can follow to make the whole process go smoother:

Schedule a Time

Seriously. This is not a “oh I’ll find a time this week to do it” like you do with laundry, vacuuming, and other household chores. Cleaning the garage is a big project and you’ll never do it if you don’t set aside a Saturday morning-afternoon or weekday.

Ask for Help

We know that’s a simple one, but seriously – if you have kids, other family, or friends who would be willing to help, ask if they’re able to come over for a few hours. If you can pay everyone a little bit, order pizza, or schedule the day to work a little and have a game night or some activity afterwards, it’s an easy way to ask without entirely being a nuisance.

Form the “Two Piles”

This is where you need to start. Two piles:

-        The “Throw Away” pile

-        The “Keep” pile

You can’t talk about clearing and organizing, categorizing, or anything else when you’re tripping over a mixture of “keep” vs. “throw” items all over the ground and walls the entire time. Split everything into two piles and tackle the organizing afterwards.

Organize

Organizing isn’t just a matter of clearing space or making things “look” organized. Organizing is about categorizing items based on usage, seasonality, and accessibility so your garage looks clean and is easy to use.

If you have tools, find a wall for them and stack everything so that the most frequently used tools are most accessible. Put your tenting, fishing, outdoor gear, and outdoor games in their own area, once again keeping the most accessed items in the most accessible location.

This is an oddly specific piece, but it may be a good idea to keep seasonal items higher up. Christmas trees, lights, Halloween decorations, Thanksgiving décor, etc. So long as you know you can get it down later on with the help of a friend or ladder, keeping seasonal items up high gives you more space to fill the easily “accessible” zones of your garage immediately available.

Tips for Cleaning Your Carpets

Carpet is kind of gross when you think about it. You spill things on it, your kids spill things on it, food falls in, you’re walking through it with wet shoes from time to time, it dries, dust settles in it, repeat…

Ok, maybe we just shouldn’t think about it.

But alas, the more you realize how much your carpet goes through, the more you realize the importance of cleaning your carpet. Deep cleaning your carpets.

Cleaning Your Carpets with Shampooers: Tips

Vacuuming is a necessity to keep the major crumbs, hair, and dust out of your carpet as best as you can. But eventually, over time dirt and grime cling to the fibers of your carpet, making it necessary to give it a nice deep clean here and there. That’s where shampooing comes into play.

If you have a shampooer, or are looking to buy one, there’s a few things you should do before tackling the daunting task of deep cleaning your carpets. Here they are:

1)  Vacuum First

When dirt and hair is wet, it actually ends up dissolving/clinging to carpet all the more. So while a heavy duty carpet cleaner may seem like it will pull anything and everything from your carpet, the best way to actually get clean carpets is to start dry.

Vacuum your carpets twice over. Get as much of the dry materials out of your carpet that your vacuum is able to pick up before you even think about bringing out the heavy-duty carpet shampooer.

2)  Prepare the Room

This is a simple step, but it’s best if you get everything out of the room – any rugs or furniture should be completely clear of the area.

Sometimes it’s easier to just move a chair or couch over while you vacuum under it, but unless you move it out of the room entirely, the legs can still be dragging dirt with them, and anything clinging to the bottom can get rubbed off and end up back in the carpet you were trying to clean.

3)  Don’t Overdo the Shampoo

Kind of rhymes, huh?

We’ll put it this way – it is best for you to have to go over a spot twice than to do it once and use way too much shampoo. People who are eager about deep cleaning their carpets are often impulsive with how much shampoo they use and end up “overdosing” their carpet. It makes it sticky and squishy and does a lot more bad than good. Be cautious of how much you use to not overdo it and you’ll be fine!

Texas Luxury Home: Pest Control Best Practices

Fleas, flies, ants, termites, spiders – we don’t want to think they exist, but the chances are we’ve all dealt with them at one point or another. And nothing quite ruins a Texas summer grill-out like a swarm of bugs, or a nice dinner meal invaded by flies and other pests. But what if you didn’t have to wait for the problem to come around before dealing with it? There are plenty of preventative pest control measures you can take in advance to make sure your home stays pest free this winter, spring, and summer! Here are a few tips:

Eat Your Fruits and Veggies

Do we sound like your parents?

Truthfully – fruits or veggies that are left out for too long are a major attraction for pests. How ants and fruit flies can smell that from what seems like across the world, we don’t know. But making sure to either finish all food that is left out in a reasonable time, or keeping all fruits and veggies in the fridge, is a good way to keep the pests away.

If fruit on the table tends to serve more of a decorative purpose, consider leaving it bagged in the fridge or pantry away from access to bugs until you have visitors over. Place the fruit out before and return it after and you’ll never have to deal with fruit flies!

Lawn Furniture

We all know the feeling of watching a spider crawl on you in a lawn chair. Lawn furniture, especially of the wicker-type, is a huge attraction to pests for laying their eggs. Make sure you take a quick gander at any swings, hammocks, and patio furniture for spider webs or egg sacks and take them down when you do!

Leave Outside Out, and Inside In

That means toys, tools, food appliances, etc. Anything that is left outside for prolonged periods is best to stay there. If you have grilling tools outside, keep the extra set for outside exclusively! If your kids have outdoor-appropriate toys, find a bin to store them in outside or in the garage, but not inside your house.

Small pests frequently make their way into our homes by our own transportation. Moving items in and out of the house is a sure way to get more pests in the house!

Conclusion

Pest control isn’t all that difficult, especially when you’re in the preventative stages! Make sure food isn’t left out too long – fruits and veggies when used for decoration should only be brought out of a contained area in your fridge or pantry when company is coming over. Check your lawn furniture frequently for spider webs and egg sacks, and keep the items you use outside, outside. The transfer of toys, grilling supplies, furniture, and other items in and out of the house will bring unwanted guests into your home!

Hiring an Electrician for Your Home: Things to Know

There are some tasks in life that just seem to always cause rash decisions. We just want to make the decision quickly and move on.

Hiring an electrician is no exception. There are rare cases when you need one, and when the time finally comes, most people often go with the first option they come across – whether it’s a family member or a quick Google search.

Things to Know When Hiring an Electrician

You want your luxury home to be handled not only with great care, but also with expertise, and electricians are not all the same. Different electricians deal with different scales of projects, types of work, and have varying levels of experience with the services you may be requiring. That being said, here are a few things to look for when hiring an electrician for your luxury home:

1 - Service-Specific Experience

Every job is different, and most electricians have some type of “home base” they feel comfortable in. The unfortunate fact is that not every electrician will tell you that – chances are they just want any work they can get.

When searching for an electrician, start off by first asking what types of work they commonly do. Is it full-house rewiring? Restoration? Machine-specific electrical work? Residential or commercial? Get an idea on what they are experienced in and then propose what type of work you need done.

2 - Reviews, Reviews, Reviews, Reviews

Can we say that word one more time?

No electrician will tell you their shortcomings – but their customers will. Before you even consider calling an electrician, check their Google and Facebook reviews. Keep in mind that frustrated customers are usually the most likely to write reviews, so you may see an imbalance between positive and negative reviews. However, anecdotal cases aside, if you are reading recurring negative patterns on work-flow, timing, attitude, professional ability, or any other slew of important factors, avoid hiring them for your job.

3 - Make Sure You Know Who’s Doing the Work

As with every business in the contract industry, the one you talk to isn’t always the one doing the groundwork. If you find an electrician that you feel will be a perfect fit, make sure you know exactly who will be doing the contract work.

Are they hiring it out to a random vendor/contractor? Will they themselves be working? Is it a close partner? Have as many details as you can on who will actually be doing the work and whether or not they are qualified and experienced in the area you need electrical work done.

And of course, if you need any home renovation help, please give Tony McClung a call! Luxury Homes Designed and Built by Tony McClung is there when you need us!

Texas New Year’s Home Preparation

Loose weight. Eat healthier. Meal prep. Work out. Save money.

Sound familiar?

New Year’s resolutions are such a huge trend in American society. And to be honest, they can be very effective when taken seriously. Sometimes we lack the extra “push” to kick ourselves into gear, but New Year’s resolutions are a perfect excuse to get started.

While most New Year’s resolutions are focused on some type of self-improvement, why not dedicate a resolution to taking on some home preparation tasks for the new year? Your Texas luxury home deserves to be taken care of from time to time and the start of 2020 is a great season to start in.

Here are a few things you can do to prepare your Texas luxury home for the new year:

Reseal the Windows

It’s not something you think about a lot. Your windows get installed and, like most of us, you forget about them as the years go by. Texas environments call for heavy HVAC use, but the weather may not be the only thing to blame here.

As the sealant on your windows deteriorates from weather and use, you can end up losing a lot of the temperature regulation in the house. If you feel like your HVAC bill has been continually increasing, chances are – it has!

Do yourself a favor in the start of the new year and hire someone to reseal the windows. It will keep your home temperatures under control and make your HVAC costs more manageable.

Carbon Monoxide & Smoke Detectors

This is an easy, but super important tip – make sure your carbon monoxide and smoke detectors have working batteries in them. We often forget to ever replace them, and usually these monitors/detectors will have some sort of power from the house. But in the case of power going out during a fire or bad weather, they’ll shut off and revert to using battery power.

Even if that hasn’t happened and your batteries haven’t been “used”, alkaline batteries lose their charge slowly over time. Make sure to take some time and replace them all!

Conclusion

Texas home preparation for the new year can mean a lot of things. Whether you want to fix pieces of your house, replace or remodel sections of your home, or restyle a room, making a “New Year’s Resolution” to do so is a great excuse to get started. It’s especially helpful to reseal your windows in Texas so as to keep heat and air conditioning from escaping your house. You’ll save extra money in HVAC utilization in the long run! Also make sure to check the batteries in your carbon monoxide and smoke detectors. The batteries run out slowly over time and it’s always smart to make sure they are in working order in case they ever get used (we hope they don’t!)

Christmas Home Décor: Preparing to Host

Christmas is such an incredible time of year. But for most of us, the décor in your house starts to feel stale once you’ve set the same stuff up year after year. And that’s generally fine if it’s just for you and your family.

If you’re hosting Christmas this year, why not bring a little something extra to the mix? Whether it’s décor or preparation ideas to host guests over the weekend, these are a few tips to help you properly get ready for being a great host this Christmas season!

House Appliances

You want your home to be clean when hosting guests, and that’s not just the regular practice of vacuuming and dusting. Think of the pieces you haven’t deep cleaned in a while, such as the microwave, oven, and fridge. If you’re hosting people overnight, you want all the things you use on a day-to-day basis cleaned that may otherwise be forgotten when cleaning only for a short afternoon visit from friends.

Accent Colors

Accent colors are a great way to add a nice “pop” to your luxury home. Pretty much any color hue can do when it comes to accents. The main thing is to make sure that you state it a few ways throughout the room.

Couch pillows are a great way to add an accent color, as well as some piece of fabric. If you have a throw blanket, it’s easy to reinforce the accent color you’re going for.

Treat the Carpets

Sometimes, vacuuming just isn’t quite enough when it comes to carpets. Dirt and dust gets stuck in the roots of the carpet and make it incredibly difficult to clean; practically impossible by a vacuum alone. That’s why it’s smart to hire a professional carpet cleaner before you host for Christmas this year!

Find a good vendor that can deep clean the carpets and give them the freshening they need. You shouldn’t need to do this often, but if there’s ever a good time, it’s right before the holiday!

Have a great holiday! Merry Christmas from Luxury Homes Designed & Built by Tony McClung!

Home Essentials for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is such an incredible time of the year. It’s great to bring family together for fun hangs, catch up with each other’s lives, and indulge in piles of food that are far from being approved by any diet program you’ll ever come across (that’s the best part after all!)

Preparing Your Home for Thanksgiving

If you’ll be hosting any guests this upcoming Thanksgiving, you want your home to be properly prepared! Here are a few tips on how you can prepare your luxury home for guests this upcoming Thanksgiving:

Make It Cozy

Thanksgiving is still in fall, but it’s definitely towards the chillier end of the season! Thanksgiving is made fun by great company and great food, but you also want your home to be cozy and relaxing for guests.

Rearrange your living room to an open concept. Make it easy to enter and exit by moving couches and chairs to the outskirts of the room and allowing for space for your guests to hang out, relax, and have conversations! Add extra pillows and blankets to couches – we all have that uncle or aunt that’s out-cold after every family reunion meal…and don’t forget football!

Charcuterie Boards & Other Snacks

There’s definitely a lot of food already during Thanksgiving, but it’s still a good idea to offer a snack that’s easily transferrable to the dinner table once you all start with the main course.

Since most of your guests are probably pulling the “fast-for-a-couple-meals-before-thanksgiving-dinner” plan, they’ll be hungry by the time they get there. Chances are, the food won’t be ready right away so go ahead and prepare a small charcuterie board for your guests. When dinner rolls around, you can put the appetizers on the table to be a part of the food rotation!

Conclusion

Thanksgiving is such an incredible holiday. It’s great to catch up with family and indulge in amazing food, but it can be stressful when you’re the one hosting. It’s always a smart idea to make sure your home is ready for guests. Lay out some appetizers that are easy to snack on while guests wait for food, lay out plenty of pillows and blankets in the living room and make your home a cozy social space this Thanksgiving season!

Decorating Your Luxury Home for Halloween

Halloween is in just a few days! This holiday is such an interesting one when it comes to decorating your house. You don’t want your décor to come across as being too “creepy” (unless that’s your style!), but if you err too much on the side of caution, it can be difficult to distinguish between Halloween and regular ol’ Fall décor.

How to Decorate Your Luxury Home for Halloween

You want your Halloween decorations to be unique, fun, and cute without loosing the spooky nature of a well-decorated Halloween house. Here are a few tips on how you can up your Halloween decoration game this year:

1)  Spook Up Your Porch

The front door is where all the magic happens when it comes to Halloween decorations. If you’re aiming for a balance between “cute” and “spooky”, it’s always smart to lean a bit more in the direction of spooky on your front porch!

Black and white outdoor striped rugs, piles of multi-colored pumpkins, lanterns and weather-resistant candles, and even fake dead tree props are a great way to bring a unique spooky lift to your front porch this Halloween!

2)  Mini Pumpkin Wreath

A neat trick is to try using Putka pods to make a wreath! The dried seeds look exactly like miniature pumpkins which brings a fun, festive twist to the classic seasonal wreath. Furthermore, since the seeds are dried out, they don’t deteriorate over time, making it an easy décor item to recycle season after season!

3)  The Birdhouse Ghost-Town

Here’s a fun idea – you can create a cute and spooky “ghost town” to be displayed in your house by using birdhouses! The simple, plain wooden birdhouses from craft stores are super cheap and you can find a ton of different shapes, sizes, and models. Buy some black spray paint and cover them up, rearrange them in any way, and you’ll have a fun new addition to your Halloween décor!

Have a great Halloween Dallas!

Dealing with Tornado Damage in Dallas

First off, from Luxury Homes Designed and Built by Tony McClung, we want to say that we are praying for the entire city of Dallas. Storms rolling through in the middle of the night are terrifying for the safety of you and your family, but also cause concern over your home, business, schools, shopping centers and more.

While the safety of our family is what is most important, we often take for granted how much our homes mean to us. They’re always there to provide shelter for our children, family and possessions. However, after this past weekend, the reality that we cannot take that for granted has quickly set in.

No one ever wants to deal with tornado damage – it can be emotionally and financially devastating. But in the chance that your home did sustain damage from the tornado, here is a bit of a checklist to follow on steps you should take to reconcile everything to the way it was before:

1)  Review What Insurance Covers

Home insurance is so important, not only for the occasional busted water pipe or leaking appliances, but also for natural disasters like tornadoes. Every home insurance plan will be different, so it’s important that you first research precisely what your home insurance covers before doing anything else.

Depending on where you live, who you used, and what plan you selected, tornadoes may or may not be covered. If you don’t remember what your plan was, reach out to a rep from your insurance company immediately and they should be able to figure this out for you!

2)  Calculate Your Losses

After a tornado, it’s important to know exactly what you did lose. Is the house entirely demolished or only partially damaged? Do you need to replace a few key items or have all your belongings been lost?

Figuring out exactly what needs to be replaced is important for getting back on your feet quickly and efficiently. When it comes to belongings (as opposed to the home’s structure), make a list organized by necessity-by-use. That can help you to determine which things will need to be replaced first as you are recouping everything.

3)  Starting the Rebuild Early

Chances are, your insurance company won’t get you the money for the damages until a couple months out. Unfortunately, that means you’ll have to make-do in the meantime. Once you have a running list of needed appliances or lost belongings, as well as a detailed list of what in your home has been damaged, it will be way easier to start rebuilding your home.

Hire a contractor to at least repair the necessities as you wait. Whether that’s spots in the roof or siding, broken HVAC systems, busted walls, etc. – whatever you deem essential by everyday-use standards should be your first focus on repairing. Get the rest of everything done when the insurance repair money comes.

Conclusion

Emotions run high when tornadoes come through a community. Damages can range from light to severe, but it never matters – it’s always an emotional and financial stressor. Living in Dallas this week, we have seen how important it is to have a game plan on how to handle a situation like a tornado disaster.

Start by making sure you know precisely what is and is not covered by your insurance plan. After doing that, make a detailed list of what in the house structure has been damaged, as well as what belongings have been damaged or lost. While you wait for insurance money – which can sometimes take a couple months to receive – start repairing the necessities to get back on your feet quicker as you’re recovering from some of the losses.

Luxury Homes Designed and Built by Tony McClung is a family run business that cares deeply for our community. Please let us know if you need any help with your home during this stressful time.