Labor Day weekend is a great opportunity for homeowners to do some maintenance on their homes. There are plenty of projects that can be done over the course of the weekend without taking sunup to sundown to complete them.
Do you need some ideas for what to do over the weekend? Here are some Labor Day home projects that will leave you time for rest and relaxation:
Project: Fix up the deck or patio
Estimated time: 1-2 days
Over the Labor Day weekend, you could take part of each day to do some deck maintenance. While decks can last anywhere from 15 to 20 years, they do require regular staining and sealing. If the boards are made from wood, they may have cracked or been eaten away by termites. Homeowners can power wash their decks to make them shine again and have them resealed, which costs around $810 to $1,100 depending on square footage. More extensive repairs might have to wait until after Labor Day.
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Project: Clean out the grill
Renovating your home?
Estimated time: 2-3 hours
Throughout the summer, you probably did a lot of grilling and had barbecues in the backyard. As a result, a lot of charcoal, grease and leftover meat built up on the inside and left it dirty. If you plan to do more grilling during Labor Day, why not start with a clean slate? Get some supplies like a grill brush, some heavy duty grill cleaner solutions and a high pressure water hose and spend a few hours getting all of that off so you can start anew on Labor Day.
Project: Install energy-efficient lighting
Estimated time: 2-6 hours
Energy-efficient lighting is another quick and easy project that could take a few minutes or hours depending on how much you want to spend. The easiest solution is to replace all of your fluorescent and incandescent light bulbs with LED alternatives. If you really want to increase home efficiency, you can replace your hanging fixtures with recessed lighting fixtures. However, you may want to hire an electrician to help with wiring.
Project: Upgrade the lawn
Estimated time: 1-2 days
One of the most common projects for the Labor Day weekend revolves around curb appeal. With summer coming to an end, now is a good time to optimize the lawn before it gets too cold and needs to be winterized. Homeowners could add more flowers, trees, shrubs or just maintain what’s already there to make it more beautiful. You can also pull weeds, mow the lawn, add a fire pit in the backyard, dig out a part of the yard for a pond or start a new flower bed. If you’re not sure about tackling any of these yourself, you can ask a landscape professional to do the work.
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Project: Clean out the garage
Estimated time: 3-6 hours
When moving into a new home or finding a place for something that doesn’t belong, the garage often gets cluttered as a result. So over the Labor Day weekend, why not declutter it? It’s a good chance to have a yard sale, donate items to a secondhand store and open up more room in the garage area. It shouldn’t be a storage shed but rather a place for your car and lawn tools.
Photos courtesy of DesignMine
About Andrea Davis and HomeAdvisor
Andrea Davis works for HomeAdvisor, which helps homeowners find the right home improvement professionals for their home projects at the right price. Homeowners can use HomeAdvisor Reviews to see what past customers have to say about each professional, and can calculate average local and national costs for a variety of home projects using Cost Guides. Access to all information and features is free for homeowners.
Note: This is a guest post; the views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or position of Redfin.