Prepping for Summer: Outside Maintenance with Tina Gleisner

Tina Gleisner, our regular guest from Home Tips For Women, joins us again today to talk about home maintenance. For the last seventeen years, Tina has been working in a variety of different ways within the arena of home maintenance, so she has become a treasure trove of knowledge. 

Women are taking responsibility for maintaining their homes

In years gone by, many women used to think that home maintenance was a man’s responsibility. Fortunately, it’s no longer like that today.

Tina knows a lot about homes, how to maintain them, and how to take care of them. And she also knows how to relate all of this to women because she’s aware of what they are capable of doing, and she understands the way that women get things done around the home. 

Understanding how to maintain your home doesn’t mean you have to do all the work yourself

When Tina started her handyman business, she found that there were lots of women who were too afraid to pick up the phone and call a contractor, even though they were having a serious problem. This is why it’s very important, as a woman, to understand how to maintain your own home. And understanding how to maintain your home does not mean that you have to do all the work yourself. 

Priorities

Your number one priority with home maintenance is to get the work done, whether you do it yourself, or you hire someone else to do it for you. This means that the degree to which you need to understand the problem is a lot less. This is why Tina focuses on the concepts, terminology, and the importance of doing certain things. And why she shares enough basic information to empower you to talk to contractors with confidence. 

If a contractor refuses to listen to you or to accept that you know what you’re talking about, you can take a picture to prove their ineptitude, and send it to the management of the company that they work for, along with the details of your complaint. 

The top three reasons why outdoor maintenance is so important

1. You need to protect your investment.
2. You need to consider the safety aspect of the outside of your home, especially if you have children.
3. When it’s time to relax, you want to be able to do that without having to think about any of the things that still might need to be cleaned, repaired, or maintained.

Maintaining the outside of your home

1. Safety: 

You need to be safe when dealing with your outdoor maintenance activities. First, inspect the tools that you will be using, like ladders and gardening tools, to make sure that they are in good condition and ready to use. It’s also a good idea to get your lawnmower check-up done before you need to use it, or you could end up having to wait two or three weeks until it’s done.

You could consider pooling and sharing tools that are only used occasionally with your others in your neighborhood. 

Remember to be very careful when using a high-pressure washer to clean your decks and other wooden surfaces. This is the kind of task where you could be better off with making use of the services of a professional.

Check the front and the back of the house to see that there is enough lighting, all the handrails are tight, and nothing is lying around any of the pathways and entrances that someone could trip over.

2. Back yard:

If you’re going to be grilling your meals outdoors, you will need enough seating and a comfortable place to cook, put plates down, and to do whatever you need to do to enjoy your experience. 

Patios will need to be cleaned and decks might need to be stained and sealed. You could consider getting a professional to do it for you. 

You might want to put some screens around some of your outdoor space if you’re having a problem with bugs. Or you could use a natural insect repellant.

3. Gardening:

To water your shrubs, you could run some drip-lines through the garden. You can even set up a timer so that the shrubs are watered automatically. 

Planning ahead can result in fewer trips to the store and better results.

Remember to reward yourself when everything is done!

Links and resources:

Tina’s website – www.hometipsforwomen.com