Tip Jar Tuesday: Winterizing Home Checklist

Good morning and Happy Tuesday! My husband and I are starting to feel better which is good, the kids don’t QUIT – so that has been hard trying to juggle resting and playtime particularly when we’re trapped inside because the weather hasn’t been the greatest.

We did have a chance to get outside last week/weekend during some of the nicer days and finalize some of our home winterizing tasks. As I was working through my list, I thought, am I the only one with a winterizing checklist for the house? Are there things you button up every year and if so, how do you not forget about doing them? I would love to hear how you plan for the cold weather days ahead!

Master Home Checklist

When we moved into our current home a couple years ago, we were fortunate enough to have a little informational walk through with the previous owners. They were so kind sharing all the ins and outs of the home and how they kept up with maintenance. I literally had a notebook of pages FILLED with info, tips and tricks and thought to myself – I have to put this in a place I will not lose it that is more organized.

Once we moved in I finally transferred my notes into an Excel document that I can access, edit and update as needed! The document contains an improvements tab, maintenance costs tab, home maintenance and renovations/future plans tab. I’ll probably end up sharing in more detail someday, but here is a sample tab:

Winterizing our home

Here are some of the things we do to prepare our house for the winter months!

Closing the pool

Here in Northeast Ohio we have to close up our pool and its recommended we bring in some of the equipment to prevent damage from the ice and cold.

Spraying the house for bugs

Twice a year we spray our house with Ortho Home Defense – Fall and Spring. Honestly, I am convinced that this stuff helps us BIG TIME with bugs.

At our old house, we had a major stink bug problem when we first moved in. Once we started spraying this consistently (bi-annually) we noticed a MAJOR improvement.

I spray this outdoors around the whole perimeter of the house (where the foundation meets the ground) and all around the windows and doors.

Sanitizing and Cleaning trash cans

I purchased this Dollar Tree mop to use to clean the bins and dispose of after.

Squeaky clean and smelly so good!

This is also good to do to prevent a critter infestation, i.e. maggots, flies, spiders, ants, etc.

Overwintering our tropical plants

Over the past month I’ve gradually moved our tropical plants outside into the house to overwinter them.

I move them into our gazebo outside before the temps drop below 40 overnight for a couple days before bringing them inside. I watered them when they were dry, but tried to allow them a little grace because of the drastic change in temperature and scenery.

They are now in our dining room right near a west facing window.

Store outdoor furniture in garage

We like to put our outdoor furniture in the garage to keep them from getting ruined by the elements of winter.

Thorough Vacuum Cleaning

In the Fall and Spring, I like to take apart the entire vacuum and THOROUGHLY clean the filter, basket and remove the bottom rollers to cut off any hair that is stuck on it. It feels so refreshing having the vacuum reset before being trapped indoors all winter!

Setting up our plow service

Once Fall hits, it’s time to get our plow guy lined up! We’ve LOVED this – particularly because our driveway is very long and also our guy arrives around 5:30 am!

Cleaning up the Garden beds

I will go into greater detail on this next week (I wanted to post about it yesterday, but I’ve been struggling to get by recently!), but basically we make sure to get all the leaves cleared out from the beds, gutters and dig up any plants that need to be overwintered!