Selling and Decluttering – Newspapers

 You may have been saving newspapers for future reading or craft projects or painting drop cloths but now your house is for sale.  While the stack of reading was okay when only you, your family and friends were in the house, now strangers will be touring through your home.  A stack of read or unread newspapers will not help your sale.  It will look like clutter and will also look unkempt.

If you have been saving newspaper for packing, I want to remind you that newsprint, that horrible black inky stuff, can rub off on the items you pack.  Splurge and buy some packing paper.  Okay, Mr./Ms. Environmentalist, keep some and use the clean packing paper closest to your item and the inked paper to ‘bubble wrap” or layer between the items. 

How should you approach that pile or piles of newspaper?  First, collect all the papers from around the house.  Anything that is over a week old should immediately go to recycling.  The one week of papers – review quickly and cut out any articles or coupons that you cannot live without.  The rest is added to your recycling pile. 

 If you really must have a few days of paper in the house (and in Ottawa, newspapers are collected every second week in the black recycling box), there are websites with ideas on what to do with the papers.  I like essortment which has an article on 25 uses for papers.  This is not to encourage you to save but to find uses for those papers that linger over the 2 week period. 

Let the news be the finalization of your sale.

 Photo credit:  newspaper stacks @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/evelynishere/2840299349/

Zingers #64 – Scattered to the four corners

Toss those bitty scatter mats that you have in your bathrooms, entrances, doorways, halls, under the dog’s dish, beside your bed, under the foot stool, near the fireplace, by the back door, beside the washer and dryer and near the work bench in the basement.  Almost every scatter mat is a decorating disaster and..

 An accident waiting to happen.

Housewarming Gift – The Klutz in all of Us

If your friend or family member is buying a first home, here is a housewarming gift that is useful and humorous.  Buy a small tool box.  Get the latest Yellow Pages and add a pre-paid cell phone.  Put the Yellow Pages and the cell phone in the tool box and tie a ribbon around the box.  Voila. 

Instant Tool Kit  

It is funny but also useful as everyone can use a telephone and eventually start to fill the tool box with tools.  Have some fun giving a gift but remember not to clutter the new home with stuff that has no purpose.

Photo credit:  Ottawa Carleton Yellow Pages @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/23389883@N04/3780787945/

Zingers #63 – A dirty cover-up

Do you remember when toilet seats were covered in chenille fabric that matched the toilet tank cover, that matched the bath mat, that matched the toilet mat?  These little bits of historical decorating still remain in people’s homes, and I don’t mean just Grandma’s.  You can still buy these sets!!  What?  Craziness.

 Toss the covers and mats and reveal all.

New Publication – Ottawa Home and Condo Builders

I have added a new publication Ottawa Home and Condo Builders to the four that are already available. 

Please see the Publications Page on the top right banner. 

This new publication provides a list of some of the more well known builders working in the Otttawa area. 

The websites have been added for your  easy access.

 

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