Brighten up for Summer: Houston Maid Service Tips

The humidity of the summer season has set in, and it’s time to settle in for a hot couple of months. It can be difficult to feel like doing much when it’s so warm outside, so here are some ways to help prep your home for summer, courtesy of top Houston maid service, Maid in the Shade.

Scent Refresh
The humidity of summer can magnify any unpleasant odors outside, and even leave your home smelling less than pristine. Do a scent refresh by using an oil plugin, strategically placing candles or potpourri around the house, or using a scented wax burner. There are a wide variety of different home scent options to choose from, in hundreds of different types of scents to suit your mood, or the atmosphere you wish to create. Just remember to not leave any candles burning unattended!

Closet Cleanups
Messy closets can lead to dust, dirt, and worse, pest infestations. In addition to all of that, they can cause a real headache. Start small and reorganize your closets a bit at a time, sorting through one or two tubs per week. This is less overwhelming than tackling a huge cleaning task at once, and still gets the job done. Soon, your clean closets will be bright, inviting, organized spaces.

Of course, the very best way to welcome a new season is with a sparkling clean home. Schedule a cleaning from Maid in the Shade, a top Houston maid service with years of experience making homes shine. We will help get your house in tip-top shape, and alleviate the stress of clutter and mess.

For more lifestyle tips and articles, or to schedule your cleaning and to learn more about Maid in the Shade, visit our website at www.maid-houston.local or call 713-665-6243.

Treat Your Mother: Five Ways to Treat Mom

Mother’s Day is almost here, the one special day set aside for you to show your mom, or mother figures in your life, just how much you care. Top Houston maid service Company Maid in the Shade values all mothers, and offers a few suggestions on ways to make this Mother’s Day extra special.

Spa Day
Treat your mother to a relaxing, indulgent day at the spa! There are a wealth of delightful spas around the Houston area, many of whom offer special packages designed just for Mother’s Day. A day at the spa is a great way to ensure that your mom has a day that is truly just about her, where she can relax and unwind.

Gift Basket
You are the one that knows your mom best, and a handcrafted gift basket is a fabulous way to combine many of mom’s favorite things into one delightful package. Stuff the gift basket with treats like chocolate, rich coffee, scented soaps and lotions, and gift cards to her favorite shop or restaurant, and you’ve got the perfect Mother’s Day gift.

Quality Time
Of course, there are few things that mothers enjoy more than spending real quality time with their children. Provide long-lasting memories and make your mom smile this Mother’s Day by taking her out to lunch or dinner, or make a day out of it and go shopping, out to eat, and maybe even to a movie. Your mom will absolutely love the attention and time dedicated just to her.

The Gift of Photographs
Speaking of memories, nothing preserves a moment better than a photograph – and gifting your mom with a photo album or printed photo collage is a magical way to show her that you really care. Many websites have thoughtful gift guides that will help you choose the perfect gift.

Fresh and Clean
Fewer things bring better peace of mind than a clean, sparkling house. Lift the burden from your mother and let Maid in the Shade, a top Houston house cleaning services company, take over her cleaning duties! We can make arrangements with you to surprise her with her cleaning service, or to work out a regular cleaning routine that will not only make her day, but her whole year. The gift of housecleaning is truly the gift that keeps on giving!

For more lifestyle tips and articles, or to schedule your Houston house cleaning and to learn more about Maid in the Shade, call 713-665-6243.

Healthy Eating Tips in Houston

It’s a brand new year, and for many of us, it’s a whole new approach to health and wellness. Top Houston maid service Maid in the Shade has collected five fabulous healthy eating tips in Houston, to help you stay committed to your health goals and eat healthy in 2018.

Cook at Home
As challenging as it can be to cook every day, making your meals at home is a great way to control exactly what goes into your food. Restaurant meals invariably contain much higher levels of fat, sodium, and carbohydrates than homemade meals. Plus, meal planning and prepping ahead of time can help establish a routine, and make you less likely to reach for fatty foods.

Don’t Drink Your Calories
We all need our morning latte, or a sweet afternoon pick me up, but it’s important to watch how much caloric liquid is consumed throughout the day. If you can’t give up your coffee addiction, look for ways to cut sugar and fat – like subbing out nonfat milk for whole milk, or going with sugar-free syrup.

The Importance of Color
It can be overwhelming to try and measure out exact amounts of food to calorie count. Simplify things a bit and focus on a good variety of color in your food – bright fruits and veggies especially! A well-balanced plate will provide beauty and health benefits.

Don’t Deny Yourself
While it is important to restrict fatty or unhealthy foods, completely denying yourself of any indulgence can often be counterproductive. In fact, banning any one food can cause you to crave it more. A far healthier alternative is to treat yourself every so often, and stick to a overall healthy diet and regular exercise.

Hydrate!
Every diet and wellness plan reiterates the importance of drinking lots of water. Staying well-hydrated has a plethora of amazing health benefits, everything from better skin to shinier hair. Plus, water makes you feel full, so if you start to have a late afternoon craving, satiate your stomach with a full glass of cool water.

For more lifestyle tips and articles, or to schedule your cleaning and to learn more about Maid in the Shade, visit our website at www.maid-houston.local or call 713-665-6243.

Top Five Trendy Wrapping Tips

The most festive time of the year is here, and top Houston maid service, Maid in the Shade, is ready to help you usher in the holidays with fun lifestyle tips! Here are five fabulous ways to wrap all of your holiday gifts this year, to create a delightful sense of wonder and wow the recipient!

Top Five Trendy Wrapping Tips:

Color Coordinate

Try color coordinating each family member’s wrapping paper, so that all of their presents are wrapped in the same color or style of paper. Talk about a fun way to recognize their gifts under the tree! As a bonus, this is a great way to organize all of your wrapping paper in the gift-wrap station.

Kraft Paper Craze

For a chic, rustic look to your gifts, wrap them in brown kraft paper. Often, you can find it very inexpensively at any craft supplies store, and it looks fantastic, especially dressed up with burlap twine and a holidays-themed trinket tied on top, like a tree ornament or a sprig of holly.

Gift Boxes

If you, like many people, dread wrapping, and aren’t exactly the most skilled at the intricacies of gift styling, consider going with gift boxes instead. Gift boxes (or bags), are just as festive as traditional wrapping paper, and are incredibly easy to prepare.

Stencils and Stamps

Try using a festive stencil or a stamp on your gifts, for bold flair. This works particularly well with brown craft paper, or any solid colored wrapping paper. You could even try stamping the recipient’s name on each one of their gifts!

Soft Wrapping

Fabrics and soft wrapping like scarves are a wonderful way to reduce waste and try something new. If you are giving a gift of a new scarf or wrap, use it to contain the rest of the gift, and secure with a simple ribbon. Festive and simple, the environment will also love you for this one!

For more lifestyle tips and articles, or to schedule your cleaning and to learn more about Maid in the Shade, visit our website at www.maid-houston.local or call 713-665-6243.

Five Ways to Make Your Home Smell Like Fall

A new season has arrived, bringing cooler temperatures and busy new schedules. Fall ushers in the holiday season, and many of us want our homes to smell appropriately festive. Here are five ways to celebrate the season and make your home smell like fall, from top Houston maid service, Maid in the Shade.

Fresh Fruit Display
Tasteful arrangements of fresh fruit throughout your home is a wonderful, natural way to make your home smell enchanting. Display oranges, apples and pears in a rustic wooden bowl and place it on your dining room table or your living room coffee table to help spread a light, citrusy scent throughout your home. Allergy-safe and pretty to look at, this is a perfect way to enhance the feeling of fall in your home.

Create an Herb Bouquet
Farmers and country-living experts have been extolling the virtues of herb garlands and bouquets for decades. Beautiful and rustic-looking, herb garlands can be designed with any herbs that your local market has on sale. A particularly beautiful combination is a blend of rosemary and eucalyptus branches, set out to dry and then tied together with a pumpkin or burgundy- colored ribbon. The light, fresh aroma will welcome visitors to your home in style.

Bake up Fall Flavor
An hour spent in the kitchen whipping up some pumpkin muffins or banana bread is not only a way to provide a delicious treat for your family, but will also scent your home for hours. All of the best parts of the season are perfectly encapsulated in a fresh-baked dessert.

Make a Simmer Pot
A simmer pot is a classic do it yourself technique that only takes a few minutes, and will scent your home for as long as you keep it on the stove. To build a simmer pot, simply place a saucepan of water on the stove, and place a blend of cloves, cinnamon sticks, and apple slices in it. Set the pot to warm, and wait as the aromatic blend wafts through your home. You can keep it on the stove for as long as you like (remembering to turn off the stove when you will be away), for whenever you want a burst of fall scent.

Light Candles
Of course, candles are a classic favorite. This time of the year, lovely pumpkin or apple scented candles are available at many stores, in a wide variety of styles and finishes. Rustic-themed candles are a beautiful way to celebrate fall, and easy to light whenever you want a relaxing moment.

For more lifestyle tips and articles, or to schedule your cleaning and to learn more about Maid in the Shade, visit our website at www.maid-houston.local or call 713-665-6243.

5 Back to School Tips

School will be back in session in just a few weeks, and while the summer heat is still underway, preparing for the back to school season will ensure that those first few weeks back go smoothly. Here are five back to school tips from top Houston maid service, Maid in the Shade!

Wash Hands Before Snacks
Snack time is a regular ritual in households with small children, and every parent knows that skipping it can result in “hangry” youngsters and emotional distress. However, many afternoon snacks can lead to messy houses, with crumbs and sticky handprints leaving a trail behind the satisfied children.

Regular Laundry
No one loves doing laundry, but allowing it to pile up throughout the week can just lead to more stress on the weekend. Avoid the stress and do laundry throughout the week, in bits and pieces as needed. For instance, start the washer on a Tuesday and dry the clothes on Wednesday after school – then fold and put away on Thursday.

Taking off Shoes
As a basic best-practice, have everyone in the family remove their shoes before entering the home. Removing shoes before walking throughout the house helps to minimize dirt and debris, reducing the amount of mid-week cleaning. It also is an instant relaxer, signifying that the workday is over and it’s time to relax at home.

De-clutter to De-stress
Removing excess clutter around the home can help on a multitude of levels. Organizing and structuring things like clothes, shoes, books, and old school supplies or binders can do wonders for the way your home looks, and opens up all kinds of new, positive space. If the items are things that your family no longer needs, consider donating to a local charity or even having a yard sale.

Creating a Meal Plan
Planning the family meals (or at the very least, dinner) for the duration of the week is a wonderful way to stay on track with nutritional goals, and to minimize stress. Even planning a night to order pizza is the perfect way to keep everyone on track, eliminate countless questions about “what’s for dinner,” and provide even more time to relax and reconnect with family. Write out meals on a blackboard or whiteboard in the kitchen at the beginning of the week, and start over fresh every Sunday!

You can follow this basic idea for the entirety of the school year. Maid in the Shade is a top Houston cleaning service that offers a variety of cleaning packages that can take care of all your household cleaning needs in an efficient, professional manner.

Learn more about Maid in the Shade, and schedule your cleaning service today! Visit our website at www.maid-houston.local or call 713-665-6243.

How Often Should You Clean Your Grill?

Clean Your Grill!How Often Should I Clean the Grill?

The grill should be cleaned after each use. The best time is to apply a wire scouring brush to the grates after the BBQ is off, but not completely cooled. Once the grill is fully cool take a paper towel with a little oil to polish up the grate and keep its shine nice.
Learn more about Maid in the Shade, and schedule your cleaning service today! Visit our website at www.maid-houston.local or call 713-665-6243.

De-clutter and Live Well

The beginning of the year is always a great time to evaluate the “stuff” that’s lying around in our homes.  We tend to acquire more items during the holidays and as we are heading into springtime our nesting urges kick in and we start feeling the need to downsize.  Here are some fantastic ideas to help get the “less is more” ball rolling!

  1. Birthday rule “get one, toss one” – This is great, especially if you have kids.  It’s super easy to accumulate items so with every birthday gift received (adults too), you must get rid of or donate something else.  A tit for tat if you will.
  2. Give away 1 item each day for 1 year – Sometimes jumping into a large project like de-cluttering your house, can be a bit overwhelming for some.  With this tip you simply pick 1 item a day and either donate it, give it to a friend or colleague or just toss it out.  That’s 365 things in 1 year that will be gone from your house for good.  That’s quite a lot!
  3. Mark the date – By marking a specific room on a specific date on your calendar, it mentally prepares your brain for the challenge ahead.  It is also a great way to systematically knock out the smaller pieces of a much larger puzzle.
  4. Put on a yard sale – This Spring put on a yard sale and make a spot in your garage or another room in your home to store donated items that you can sell at your garage sale.  Putting on a garage sale can be a lot of work but if you start on it weeks ahead of time with sorting and tagging, you will be that much farther ahead when the actual date rolls around.  Plus, you can put a little extra money in your checking account when the yard sale is over.
  5. Invest in a labeling machine – Putting labels on boxes and containers saves time and keep things organized.  This is especially helpful when kids go to put items away.  They will know right where to put an item and eliminate any stragglers.
  6. When de-cluttering a house, have 3 boxes with you in in each room.  1 for trash, 1 for saved items and 1 for donated items.  This helps prevent people from moving 1 stack to another and keeps the perspective on the task at hand.  Remember to keep track of the items you are donating.  This can be a pretty sizable tax write off for the following year’s taxes.

Learn more about Houston Maid in the Shade, and schedule your cleaning service today! Visit our website at www.maid-houston.local or call 713-665-6243.

Clean, Simple, Organized!

I, like many others, am on the go and don’t have a whole lot of extra time devoted to cleaning and organizing.  Here are some great tips that take very little time but REWARD big!

  • As soon as you walk in the door, have a large wicker basket that is designated for just shoes.  This way you will know where all shoes are located and keep the floors a lot cleaner by not tracking in dirt!
  • Set your kitchen up in “Work Stations” and then put all the equipment you need for a particular station in those designated areas.  For example,   I have a coffee station in my kitchen.  I put all mugs, coffee pods, coffee devices all in one area for quick access and this way I’m not bumping into anyone during the morning rush.
  • De-clutter hair products in the bathroom by purchasing a plastic tub that is large enough for all your hair products and accessories but small enough to fit under the bathroom counter.  When doing your hair, you can simply pull out the tub and have all your hair styling tools at your fingertips! This means NO messy counter tops to battle with!
  • Living rooms are often the main focal point in homes.  Ours truly gets “lived” in.  As much as I like the space being utilized, I don’t like the piles of papers, books, toys and magazines that end up taking over the coffee table.  Invest in a functional coffee table with drawers and/or shelving to keep items organized and out of the way.  If a new table is not in the cards, purchase some inexpensive baskets (I have even found some great ones at a second hand store) to put under the coffee table top to act as a new home for the clutter.
  •  Rushed mornings?  Try prepping all lunches, book bags and clothes the night before.  This cuts out any confusion or clothing dilemmas that arise from not knowing where things are at.  It seriously saves time, energy and headache!

By implementing these easy steps, I guarantee life will run smoother and seem a lot more organized!

Learn more about Maid in the Shade, and schedule your cleaning service today! Visit our website at www.maid-houston.local or call 713-665-6243.

Cleaning Tough Spots

Cleaning Tough SpotsTidy Upholstery – To get the stubborn pet hair, lint and other tiny particles off of your upholstery use either duct tape, or a rubber glove to skim the surface and rub away debris easily.

Window Cleaner in a Pinch – Out of window cleaner? Fill a bucket full of water and add 1-2 drops of dishwashing liquid (Dawn works particularly well).

Removing Smells from Towels – Have some towels that don’t seem to smell fresh even though you have just laundered them? Trying washing them again in water only. Smells often remain when an excess of soap was not fully rinsed.

Kitchen Floor Scuff Marks – Commercially purchased magic erasers are good for getting scuff marks off of floors, but if one of those is not available a regular pencil eraser works great.

Cleaning Awkward Bottles – Get those hard to reach nooks and crannies inside bottles by filling with denture cleaner and letting soak over night.

Clean Votive Candle Holders – Decorating with an abundance of votive candles can be so beautiful, but getting the stubborn wax out can be a real bear. For the easiest method freeze the candle holders for a couple of hours and the wax will shrink and pop out easily.

Learn more about Houston Maid in the Shade, and schedule your cleaning service today! Visit our website at www.maid-houston.local or call 713-665-6243.
we will provide you the best Maid Service in Houston.