Sterling Silver Antiques: Tips for Proper Care

Most people want to handle and care for their sterling silver properly because the pieces have been in their families for generations. If you’ve recently bought a few sterling silver antique items or someone passed them down to you, caring for silver isn’t as challenging as you may believe. Follow the below tips to properly care for your sterling silver.

Carefully Handle Your Pieces

The less you handle your antique pieces with your bare hands, the better. Body oils can speed up the tarnish process, so ensure you wash your hands before you clean or touch your antiques. Tarnish-cleaning gloves are another option. They’re excellent for touching up your pieces without leaving fingerprints behind.

Be Careful With Polish

If you need to polish your sterling silver antiques, ensure you follow the directions on the polish container and always use a soft cloth. Don’t polish too harshly over engraved areas. If the tarnish is too tricky to remove yourself, hire a silversmith to restore your silver.

Correctly Store Your Antiques

Do you wonder if you’re storing your antiques correctly? There are specific ways to ensure you take care of your sterling silver. Silver cloth or anti-tarnish paper are two excellent options that collectors swear by. Silver cloth will help prevent tarnish while they sit in storage. You’ll spend less time polishing and cleaning when you take out your silver tray for special occasions.

Are the extra precautions worth the hassle and money? The short answer is yes. You slip the paper or cloth into the storage chest or container and let it do the work. These precautions are so effective that even museums use them.

Don’t Store Them for Too Long

Sterling silver antiques make excellent décor on a mantle, dining room table, or bedroom dresser. The longer you store your items, the more tarnish they will endure. Rotate between storage and display to let the pieces breathe. Plus, the added sparkle and shine in your home décor will make you smile.

Sterling silver antique care isn’t as hard as you may believe. The above advice will ensure your pieces stay sparkling and shiny for years to come.

How To Save Money on Your Electric Bill This Summer

No matter where you live, you likely experience warm weather that leaves you sweating and uncomfortable from time to time. Inevitably, you use the air conditioning to cool your home or set up fans to circulate air. Either way, your energy bill ends up skyrocketing just so that you can stay comfortable in the warmer months. If you’re a victim of this problem, here’s how to save money on your electric bill this summer.

Have a Professional Perform an Electricity Audit

The first step in lowering your electricity bill is knowing what the big spenders are. A lot of electric companies provide free audits, assessing how much energy a home consumes, checking the home’s insulation, and testing for any air leaks. A poorly insulated or sealed home will lower the efficiency of its own cooling and heating system. In addition, knowing what units are eating up the most electricity can help you cut back on usage.

Build Electricity-Saving Habits

Sometimes, simple habits can have a big effect on how much electricity you’re using. It might seem silly and repetitive, but shutting off your lights when you leave a room makes a genuine difference. For example, if you use a 60-watt incandescent bulb and pay 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, you can lose up to 17 cents a day. Ultimately, you’re spending $62.05 per year, per room.

In addition, regularly replacing your air filter and keeping doors closed can improve air circulation, ultimately saving you money.

Upgrade Your Home

Programmable thermostats can control your air conditioning for you when you can’t. This means your home won’t cool down or warm up when you don’t want it to. Also, properly sealing doors and windows prevents precious cool air from escaping.

If your home still isn’t cool enough, a retractable screen door can let in cool air and help it circulate. Also, installing UV mesh in your doors or windows blocks the sun’s harsh rays and keeps your home cool while allowing outside air to flow throughout your home.

Now that you know how to save money on your electric bill this summer, you can stay comfortable during the summer without having to pay as much for it.

The Most Common Countertop Usage Mistakes

Regardless of the material, new countertops are big investments for any homeowner. To ensure that your countertops continue to look brand new after their installation, take note of some of the most common countertop usage mistakes to avoid at home.

Failing To Seal Countertops

Stone countertops are great for homeowners looking for durable and stylish additions to their kitchens. However, if you plan to use natural stones like granite, marble, and quartz, you must seal them for maximum durability. This is especially true if you want to install these materials in a kitchen or wet bar where water and other liquids are present, as these stones are very porous. Sealing your stone countertops is an important detail to consider when installing granite countertops.

Using the Wrong Cleaning Products

Using the wrong cleaning products on your new countertops can result in damage. You may create scratches on the surface of the material or cause it to look cloudy, especially when it comes to natural stone countertops. Each countertop material will have unique cleaning instructions, so pay attention to the directions from the manufacturer or installer. For example, when cleaning wood or natural stone countertops, you must use a damp microfiber cloth daily to avoid dust and debris buildup.

Being Too Rough

Another common mistake homeowners make with their countertops is being too rough. Whether your counters are new or decades old, you should take care of them. Avoid cutting with knives directly on the counter surface or placing hot pots directly on them. Always use a cutting board for knives and put a hot pad down for high-temperature dishes. You should never sit or directly stand on top of your countertops either, no matter how strong your brackets are.

Now that you know some of the most common countertop usage mistakes, you can avoid these around your new kitchen surfaces. Also, warn children and guests of proper countertop care to ensure these surfaces remain preserved and continue to look immaculate for years to come.

Mistakes To Avoid When Doing the Laundry

Doing the laundry is one of the most mundane household chores that everyone must perform. It’s understandable why so many people empty the hamper into the washing machine and try to wash everything they own in one load. While this method might save some time, it’ll also likely damage your clothes and ineffectively clean them. Learning the mistakes to avoid when doing the laundry will keep your linens in pristine condition.

Follow Detergent Recommendations

With the invention of pods, it feels like throwing one pod in the washing machine is sufficient. Unfortunately, the odds are that your laundry loads need much more detergent than you’re using. More oversized loads may require you to use extra pods or fill one more cup of liquid detergent to clean everything efficiently. If you don’t use the correct amount of detergent, your clothes will not be as clean. This is why reading the detergent instructions is vital to attain the best wash.

Only Use Hot Water for Specific Situations

It’s easy to assume mixing soap with hot water is the ideal way to clean your laundry. However, using hot water on certain types of fabrics causes more harm than good. Any item predominantly made with cotton needs cold water, or else it may shrink or develop fiber damage. Take note of this to keep clothing and bedding looking new. The best uses for hot water when washing items is to disinfect things, remove germs, and get rid of deep stains. Otherwise, using cold water is the way to go, especially since it takes up less energy.

Properly Separate Your Items

When you separate your laundry, you often think of sorting the darks and the whites. While that’s one tip you should follow, it’s also critical to sort things by the material. It’s an excellent strategy to do all delicate items, towels, or bedding separately rather than mix everything. Doing this allows you to choose the most appropriate water temperature and detergent.

Perform Damage Control

Typically, most people care what the outside of their clothing looks like more than the inside, so it’s probable they throw their items in without turning them inside out. Unfortunately, failing to do this leaves things like dead skin cells and sweat in your garments. The inside-out technique also protects your clothes from rubbing against things like zippers or buttons. These parts can hurt other clothing articles that are in the wash with them.

Use Enhancements

Incorporating fabric softener and dryer sheets into the routine is like adding whipped cream on hot chocolate; it just makes everything better. Not only do fabric softeners make everything feel soft and cozy, but they also prevent potential damage to the fabric. On the other hand, dryer sheets help keep the static electricity down during the dry winter months.

Knowing the mistakes to avoid when doing the laundry will aid you in making your laundry smell and feel great while simultaneously improving its durability for years to come.