Winter projects to spruce-up your property in time for Spring
With the cooler weather well and truly here, it can be tempting to hunker down for the winter and leave those odd jobs for spring. But putting in a little time and effort into a few essential tasks at this time of year can save you a heap of time come spring, and means your property will look fresh all year ‘round.
Get planting!
Winter is great time to get certain plants into the garden ready for spring. Now is the time to plant bulbs, winter veggies, and certain type of perennials – that is plants that come back year after year.
Planting your garden out now will make for a lovely, established garden and ready-to-pick harvestables come spring.
Clear out gutters
Now really is the time to be thinking of clearing out gutters and moving leaf litter away from the main house and other buildings and sheds on the property.
In our local climate, winter tends to be one of driest seasons, and fire-safety should always be in the back of our minds, so not only will this task smarten the yard up, it also serves an important purpose.
Get the fireplace ready
Lucky enough to have a fireplace? Then it’s time to stock up on wood and stack these in a ready to reach place indoors.
Take a look around your property for fallen branches and trees and get the chainsaw ready. Not only does this cover clearing away debris from the property, it doubles as firewood for winter. Win-win!
Use the smaller sticks and bark collected whilst clearing the property as bracken to stoke indoor fires as well.
Now is also the time to give the chimney a bit of a clean-up, and to clear out the fireplace in general, ready for another season of use.
Seal cracks and crevices around the home
Take a look around windows and doorways for cracks and use a good quality sealant to fix these. Not only does this look better cosmetically, but it keeps the cold out, as well as any creepy crawlies which will start to pick back up come summer.
Do a thorough home maintenance check
Winter isn’t the time we want our hot water systems breaking, the lights to go out or the central heating to play up. So now is the time to do a thorough home maintenance check of all these essentials.
Where appropriate, it might be best to get the professionals out if you do suspect something isn’t performing as it should, and this is mandatory for anything electrical.
Now is also a good time to make sure you have enough gas if your stove or hot water system runs on it. It’s a horrible feeling to step into a freezing cold shower in winter only to realise you’re out of gas and will need to wait until a new bottle can be picked up or delivered.
If you’re on tank water, now is also the time to check the water levels. It is our drier season, so factor this into your plans and organise for water delivery if the tanks are a little low. Make sure any livestock tanks and troughs are checked as well.
A little bit of time spent on these odd jobs now means less to do come the classic spring cleaning period. And if you’re looking to list your property, spring is one of the busiest times of year for home buyers, so it pays to have one of the first homes ready to present to market.
