Once again, the New Year is here and we make all kinds of plans. This year I am going to lose weight, drink less coffee and be nicer to my dog. (These are examples, not my resolutions — I love my dog!)

But this year, I really think is the time to make improvements that have a long-term energy proposition for you. Below are some ideas on what and why:

Tankless water heaters. You have heard all about these and most likely read the pros and cons. I am a fan and believer in this appliance. You will have endless hot water, use little or no energy when the units are off, and will have a much longer life cycle and efficiency rating long term. Tank heaters last on average 7-10 years; tankless units last on average 20 years. Tank units can run out of hot water, tankless units will never run out. Tank units cost about $1,500 to install professionally, a tankless about $2,500-$3,500 depending on the size. While these units are more expensive upfront, the long term value for your home makes it a smart investment.

LED lighting for your home. This technology has improved leaps and bounds in the past five years. The longevity of the diode is well known on average 50,000 hours compared to a regular incandescent bulb of 2,000 hours. Under normal usage that’s about 30 years. The big improvement has been the light output and color temperature. There are residential LED bulbs that cost about $12-$15 that look like standard bulbs in shape and color. Try replacing the 6 most used bulbs in your home first to see if you like them, after that change out the whole house and bring down your monthly energy costs for lighting and never replace a burned-out bulb again.

Wind and solar power. This is another area that has improved greatly in the last 5 years. There are several manufacturers of wind turbines that can mount on your home and generate up to 20 percent of your homes energy. I have seen units that can be installed for as little as $8,000. A lot of money, yes, but many states offer up to a 50 percent tax credit on these. Solar panels can now be integrated into your roofing shingles. No more large panels. These shingles go right on your roof and can generate up to 50 percent of your homes energy needs. The best part of both of these systems is that, when your demand is low, you are actually providing energy back into the energy grid and in many parts of the country the utility companies have to pay you for the energy.

It’s that time of year when we maybe get a little introspective and start to take stock of how the last year has gone. Did we lose that weight we wanted? Read all those books? Finally get on board with this whole Twitter thing we’ve been hearing about?

Since home is, for many people, an important extension of self, Apartment Therapy recently featured five home resolutions they’ll be keeping in the next year. Great ideas, and it inspired us to think about what resolutions we want to do, home-wise. Here goes:

• Organizing: We’re going to rid ourselves of extraneous paper and shred old bills, as appropriate. We’ll also be organizing our closets and not just shoving the mess into there. New closet organizers, boxes and bins may also be pressed into use.
• Cooking: Eating out and supporting local restaurants is great, but cooking at home not only saves money, but allows you unprecedented control of the food you put into your body. Plus, you can flex your culinary muscles and become known for sparkling hosting and fabulous dinner parties.
• Curb appealing: With all the zeal over interior decorating, it’s easy to forget the home’s exterior. No more! This year, we will be painting, repairing, refreshing and landscaping to make our houses the envy of the neighborhood. New walkway? Flowerbeds? Our only limit is our imaginations!
• Greening: We want to make this year the greenest ever. So we’ll be looking at ways to make our homes — and our lives — more energy efficient. We’re going to try to re-use stuff more, evaluate whether we really need something and think of ways to buy locally as needed.
• Learning: We’re going to attempt to pick up some sort of DIY skill this year. Whether that means something like learning some home repair basics, or a softer skill like making our own throw pillows, we’ll be doing it for ourselves.

New Year’s resolutions are notoriously difficult to keep, but we believe that if you start small and have a purpose, it can be done. What are your home resolutions? Let us know in the comments.

It’s hard to believe, especially with the unseasonably warm weather in much of the country, that Thanksgiving is almost upon us. For most people, the Turkey Day feasting and festivities aren’t a last-minute impromptu deal. There are traditions to be upheld, food to be made and occasionally even some family holiday squabbling to be soothed. So you’d better be organized!

Better Homes and Gardens has a great Thanksgiving countdown checklist. It’s pretty exhaustive, but here are a few of MLuxe’s favorite tips:

• Don’t forget to order your turkey, especially if you are getting a special bird.
• Make sure you have enough in the way of plates, cups, silverware, etc. Don’t have enough place settings of your fine china? Use the everyday stuff for the kids, or ask your guests to bring some of their china. It will look eclectic and chic!
• Think of something — anything — to keep the kiddos occupied. If it’s warm enough, how about touch football or Capture the Flag? If it’s an indoor day, make sure you have some good board games and DVDs around.
• Set the table the night before — it will take some stress off your day-of preparations.
• Lastly, don’t forget to defrost the turkey with time to spare!

What are your favorite Thanksgiving preparation tips? Does your family have any special traditions? Let us know in the comments!

Photo courtesy of tuchodi on Flickr

Overwhelmed by cleaning? You’re not alone! We all have busy lives and jobs and sometimes in the evenings it can just seem too exhausting to think about cleaning. And then the weekend rolls around and, well, isn’t the weekend better devoted to the pursuit of fun rather than cleaning?

And so the grime continues to build. If you can do a little bit each day though, the rewards will come in the form of a clean, uncluttered and calm home. To get you started, Apartment Therapy offers an awesome tutorial for how to get (and keep!) your home clean.

Our favorite Apartment Therapy tips include dealing with things right away, whether they be credit card offers to be shredded or dirty dishes in the sink, finding an awesome soundtrack and setting a timer on your cleaning. Everyone has 15 minutes to clean before your favorite television show starts (or during the commercial breaks!). Anything is easier when you know it won’t go on forever.

They even offer a day-by-day cleaning guide that you can follow every month. No more excuses and no more weekends spent feeling guilty you haven’t been cleaning. Check it out!

Image courtesy of Todd Baker on Flickr

Winter is fast approaching, and it’s time to get your house in order. These tips can help you save some money — either in terms of saving energy or simply preventing damage — and help save some sanity, too.

Around the house

It’s probably not a good idea to head into the cold season without getting a thorough heating system check-up. Better to get it done before a problem comes up. If you’ve had problems with ice dams forming on your roof — or if you’re simply motivated to make sure you never have that trouble — consider bringing in a home energy auditor or weatherization contractor to help identify possible problem spots and their causes. These tips and more courtesy of Charles & Hudson.

Check out the video above, too, for more advice from home improvement expert and Today Show contributor Lou Manfredini.

Energy efficiency

Re-Nest shares some good tips on saving energy around your home this winter. They’re certainly of the basic and practical variety, but that only makes them more useful, no?

• Insulate your windows (weatherstripping around the edges and/or insulting film over the entire window)
• Let the sun heat your home as much as possible during the day
• Bundle up a bit: wear slippers or warm socks and throw on a sweater while keeping your thermostat a bit lower

And of course, if your windows are old and drafty or otherwise out of good working order, consider replacing them with highly efficient windows from Marvin.

Lawn and garden

Don’t forget about the outside of your home. Make sure your lawn and garden are ready for the frigid onslaught of winter. Re-Nest reminds us to be sure to rake leaves before winter rains and snow come to prevent disease and other problems with your lawn. And of course, composting those leaves will leave you with some great topsoil when spring rolls around. Don’t forget to add a protective layer — leaves, mulch or a ground-covering plant — to insulate your perennial plants from as much as cold as possible.

For the serious gardeners among us, Charles and Hudson has even more tips on how to get ready for the cold — to save headaches and trouble come springtime.

What suggestions do you have for getting the house ready for winter weather?

We just spent the weekend putting away all of the summer items around our home.  Outside patio furniture, decorative hanging baskets, even the lacrosse net that our kids use.  And once again, we have discovered we do not have enough space.

Our goal this year is to actually park two cars in the garage this winter. Living in Chicago, it makes for a cleaner get-away when the cold hits and the snow flies, so we made some purchases to help get organized with all that stuff.

First we purchased some hooks to hang all the kids’ bikes from the ceiling of the garage. Ours is tall enough so that the front of the car fits right under the hanging bikes. These hooks cost a couple of bucks for a pair and just screw into the wood framing. If your garage has a drywall ceiling make sure you find the framing with a stud sensor so you get a strong hold.

Then we invested in some outdoor storage boxes and a shallow, tall outdoor storage shed. The boxes are for all the chair pads that we have on our outdoor furniture. We actually got those during the summer — so that when it was raining we could easily pull the cushions and throw them in the box to keep dry — but they will work great for the winter as well. The storage shed is about 6 feet tall and is about 3 feet deep. It actually holds a lot of stuff when you pack it carefully.

With a little time and effort you can get organized this winter as well.

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We were delighted to have architect and author Sarah Susanka as a guest of Marvin Windows and Doors at this year’s Remodeling Show. Here are some tips from Sarah’s latest book, “Not So Big Remodeling,” written with Marc Vassallo.

1. Two Become One. Make two smaller rooms feel more spacious by opening a shared wall to create a framed opening. This is most effective when it provides a wide connection between spaces while maintaining the differentiation of each room.

2. Columns Instead of Walls. Columns allow for differentiation of places with minimal view obstruction while providing the structural support of a load-bearing wall. Particularly effective where the kitchen connects to adjacent spaces.

3. Let There Be Light. Increase the size of existing windows or place them adjacent to perpendicular walls and ceilings, allowing those surfaces to act as giant daylight reflectors. Bringing in more daylight is one of the best ways to increase the apparent size of a home without adding on.

4. Look to the Ceiling. Unify a remodeled space by creating a spatial theme with varied ceiling heights.Use lowered ceilings over subordinate spaces, higher ceilings over the more important rooms.

5. Use the Floor. Differentiate activity areas in an open space with a change in floor material or level.

6. Connect With the Outdoors. No matter what climate a house is in, it will feel several times larger if the location of the doors and windows draws in the surrounding views and allows easy movement to outside.

7. Bring the Inside Out. Create another room by sheltering an exterior sitting space with a widened overhang or new section of roof. The addition of a screened porch can also serve as an excellent connector between inside and out.

8. Increase the Apparent Size. Differentiate surfaces with a beltline or headband — a continuous line of trim that divides the uopper part of the room from the lower part, such as a chair rail, wainscoting or molding that ties together the tops of all windows and doors. Make the area below the line darker than the area aobve, and the ceiling will look higher, making the whole room seem bigger.

9. Create Visual Vitality. Make a living space come alive by accentuating a focal wall with a saturated paint color.

We were delighted to have architect and author Sarah Susanka as a guest of Marvin Windows and Doors at this year’s Remodeling Show. Here are some tips from Sarah’s latest book, “Not So Big Remodeling,” written with Marc Vassallo.

1. Borrow Before Building. If the existing kitchen is too cramped, consider borrowing space from adjacent spaces. Often, there is space available in places that get overlooked, such as an oversized living room, a rarely used dining room, a butler’s pantry or a poorly laid-out back entry.

2. Leave Well Enough Alone. Where possible, leave the utility hook-ups where they are, especially if budget is a concern. Limiting the number of utilities to relocate will help keep costs contained.

3. Consolidate Entrances. Attempt to locate all the doorways to the kitchen on one side of the room and eliminate any that are not absolutely necessary. This leaves the rest of the kitchen for continuous countertop and appliance arrangement, while limiting foot traffic through the work area.

4. Pick Out the Pieces. Select major appliances early in the design process so the evolving plan can be tailored to their specific dimensions. The difference of a few inches in any direction can be crucial.

5. Work Triangle Basics. The path linking the centers of the sink, cook top and refrigerator should not exceed 26 feet. No leg of the triangle should be longer than 9 feet or shorter than 4 feet, and no major traffic pattern should intersect it.

6. Bridging the Distance. If the kitchen is more than 12 feet wide, consider adding an island in the center. Make sure any walkways between cabinetry and island are at least 36 inches wide or the kitchen will feel too cramped — 42 inches is better yet.

7. Keep it Flowing. Place large vertical objects such as the refrigerator or a double oven at the end of a stretch of countertop, rather than in the middle, to maximize usable work surface.

8. Maximize Interaction, Minimize Interruption. A successful kitchen remodeling encourages interaction between household members while minimizing the amount of movement through the space by non-cooks. Eliminate the frustrations of a crowded work space while improving the opportunities to socialize by creating a layout that is open to adjacent spaces but still clearly defined as a separate room.

After a hard day at the office or with the kids, this room is your escape.  The master bedroom is unlike any other room in the house, as it truly is your personal getaway.

When I’m building a home and helping a client with the designs, I always follow three rules:

1. It’s all about the bed.
2. Build the rest of the room.  “What else do you want?”
3. Express yourself.  Show off your own personal style.

It’s all about the bed.

Thinking of the bedroom like a theater, your bed is the stage. It is the main piece of furniture that sets the style of the master bedroom. My one bit of advice in choosing a bed: Go for comfort. The master bed should meet both your decorating and health needs, so do not skimp on costs here. Get one that’s comfortable and fits the room.

Like other large pieces of furniture in the home, you must allow for traffic here as well.  Place your bed in an area that won’t obstruct a door or block a window and allow enough floor space to move around it.  The best location for a bed is to place it opposite the entry of the door, allowing you to look out on your entire room.

Build the rest of the room.  “What else do you want?”

This is the first room you see in the morning and the last one you see as you drift off to sleep. Nowadays, people want it all in a master bedroom. A room you can sleep in and an area where you can relax and read a good book. In addition to your master bed, think about the other items you would like to surround yourself with for that added personal comfort.

Whether it’s a nightstand, a flat screen television and DVD player, a stereo or a special chair for reading — make yourself comfortable. Whatever you choose, just remember to allow enough room for your items. When planning your master bedroom, you should follow these guidelines:

• Add three to four inches to width and length for your bed covering.
• Leave at least 24 inches for clearance around the bed for traffic.
• Allow three to four inches of space at either end of the bed for the headboard or footboard.

Express yourself. Show off your own personal style.

Of all the rooms in your home, it is your master bedroom that is the most personal space in the house, so give it a style and a personality that is all its own. Whether it is your bedding and style of furniture or it’s the photos of the kids and your Monet painting, make this room your own. You’ll be glad you did.

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We’re delighted to have architect and author Sarah Susanka as a guest of Marvin Windows and Doors at this year’s Remodeling Show. Here are some tips from Sarah’s latest book, “Not So Big Remodeling,” written with Marc Vassallo.

1. Set priorities. When beginning a remodel, consider the three values of quality, quantity and cost. Determine which two are the most important. Because remodeling is an inexact science, one of these variables must be allowed to “float” in order to make a remodel possible.

2. Examine the space. Begin exploring remodeling options by first looking at what can be done within the existing footprint of the house. By thinking creatively about the available space, you may discover that no additional space needs to be added on.

3. Think in terms of activity areas. Don’t think about remodeling in terms of rooms. Instead, create a list of activities that need to be accommodated — recognizing that a place for the activity is needed, but not necessarily an entire room.

4. Start with the simplest strategy. Begin by exploring the simplest solution — working within the existing footprint — and only move to more complicated solutions, such as a bump-out or a small addition, after determining that the simpler solution won’t work. This is the most important tool for discovering a Not So Big solution.

5. Study storage. Evaluate the home’s existing storage areas. Many homes have too little storage in places where it is most needed, and too much in places where it is only marginally useful. A little well-designed storage in the right place can replace a lot of poorly designed storage, opening up floor space.

6. Bump out a little. Bumping out a section of wall by just a few feet can add some much needed square footage just where it is useful. A bump out that creates an alcove or a small extension running the width of a room will keep costs down while maintaining the scale and proportion of the existing house.

7. Add on with grace. If none of the above strategies meets the remodeling needs, and budget allows, a small addition may be the best option. A well-proportioned addition can greatly enhance the value of a house, while a poorly proportioned addition can actually reduce a home’s value.

8. Let the roof be the guide. To ensure that a bump out or addition will look good on a house, let the existing roof inform the design solution. The roof shape will make some options easy and others nearly impossible without looking like a mistake.

9. Work with windows. Few things can have as much impact on the character of a room as the shapes, patterning and positioning of the windows. In any remodeling decision, an interesting composition of windows can add personailty to both the inside and outside of the house.

10. Include the exterior. Few remodeling strategies can affect the long term value of a home more than an external face lift. These can be accomplished inexpensively when done with a Not So Big focus on quality rather than quantity.