Spring Cleaning

Spring is here, and yard and home projects beckon. Never fear. These job-tested tips from your ESP colleagues will have you painting and caulking like a pro, busting through the clutter, and discovering your inner gardener.

By Mary Ellen Flannery and John O'Neil

Leaving Beige Behind

Photo by John Ristow

Twenty-seven years ago, Diane Caulfield got a desk job in the Broward County School District. Boooring! Not long after, she transferred to the "touch-up truck"—where she first wet her paint brush.

These days, she still makes her mark during the United Way's "Day of Caring," when volunteers paint Spartans and dragons in school corridors, but she has been a night supervisor of painters, plumbers, and others for almost a decade. With 250 schools, it's a constant challenge to manage the demands put on her teams.

Painting is fun, even if the school palette is limited to mostly high-gloss beige. "I tell the principals, 'Martha Stewart does not work here,' but it is clean," she says.

If you're looking to spruce up your digs without spending a lot of dough, head for the brushes and paint chips, Caulfield advises. "For little money, you can make your house look completely different."

Her tips:

In small rooms, stay away from dark colors and keep ceilings light. Choose a few compatible colors and stick with them throughout the house.

Do the prep work! Sure, it's a pain, but proper caulking and drywall patching really makes the final product look professional.

Try out faux finishes. They look fancy, but products   in home-improvement stores make them easy for amateurs. Caulfield's favorites: Paper grocery bags dipped in suede paint for a rich leathery look or tissue paper with mother-of-pearl paint for a dressy look. Or buy the "whoops"—the discounted colors at Home Depot—and mix with a glaze for a cheap change.

Wonder Gunk

Photos by Brian Tietz

Carpenter Rick Taylor uses several hundred tubes of caulk each year in his job for the Martin County Public Schools in Inez, Kentucky, so trust him to recognize great gunk when he sees it.

"Caulking does wonders," says Taylor. "It makes the bath look nice and clean, and it definitely pays you back in the long run" because a tight seal around your windows blocks drafts, saving you big bucks on your heating and cooling bills.

The caulk section of your local home improvement store has more choices than ever—different colors and types designed for indoor and outdoor applications. "Don't just grab the cheapest one," Taylor urges; buy the caulk that matches your job. His tips for caulking like a pro:

To get ready, strip out any existing caulk and make sure the surface is clean and dry. Assemble your tools and materials: a caulk gun, sharp scissors or carpet-cutting tool, a wet rag and some paper towels, and a tube or two of your caulk of choice. Carefully cut the tip of the caulk off at an angle, making sure not to cut off too much of the tip. (The tip may have measurements based on the size of the crack you're filling.) Load the caulk into the caulk gun, and you're ready to apply.

Begin squeezing the trigger of the caulk gun slowly at the edge of the crack—don't squeeze too hard or too fast. ("That's 80 percent of everyone's problem," says Taylor. "They squeeze too hard and it winds up on the floor or on their shoes.") If the caulk shoots out too fast, pull back the rod in the rear of the caulk gun and wipe away the excess.

Once you've applied enough caulk to fill the crack, it's time for the finishing touches. Dampen your finger and press it softly along your caulk line, smoothing it the length of the crack, and wipe off any excess on a paper towel. Use your wet rag to wipe any remaining excess caulk above and under your finished line. There, doesn't that look great?

Clutter-Buster

Photo Danny Peck

School secretary Shirley Kirkland admits she leans a little toward Felix Unger. Twice a month, she goes through every one of the 624 student folders at James McHenry Elementary School, her sharp eyes out for a missing form or an expired piece of paperwork. And while multi-tasking through the day, she still keeps her work space tidy.

To succeed as a secretary, "You have to be organized—that's a must," Kirkland advises. "And you can't focus in clutter."

It's no different at her home, where Kirkland emphasizes that "you could live in my garage, easily. Everything is in its place."

Could you swap out the Oscar Madison in you for a little Felix? Kirkland's recipe for conquering the clutter:

Make it a family affair. Kirkland's son Michael Jr. (16 years old) and daughter Rashawn (14) have big roles to play keeping the house picked up. They're responsible for having homework done and chores completed each day before Shirley and her husband Michael come home from work. Weekly assignments are made each Friday on Family Night, when they munch pizza, play a board game, and troubleshoot household issues. Saturday is "cleaning day"—but the actual cleaning isn't onerous, because the kids have been tidying, vacuuming, and clutter-busting all week.

Sweat the small stuff. Do junk mail and newspapers pile up in your house? Not at Kirkland's. She makes sure to screen, scan, and pitch every day. "Pay attention to what's coming in the house," she advises, "and don't let the clutter pile up. You'll probably never find a piece of mail at my house the day after, unless it's a bill."

Change with the seasons. All the Kirklands have trunks with off-season clothes. Twice a year, they scrutinize their clothes and shoes as they dig them out. Anything that can't be worn is bagged up for a shelter or Goodwill. "Pick a month out and stick to it."

Raking It In

Photo by Stacy Edmonds

Sometimes people ask Michael Del Priore—"Don't you get tired of raking?" Well, yeah, sure he does!  But when Salisbury High School's Falcons are scheduled to play ball on a rainy day in eastern Pennsylvania, nothing but hours and hours of patient raking will get the infield ready.

At home, Del Priore wields a rake toward a different end: tending a lush backyard featuring 20 fruit trees and a vast vegetable garden. Colleagues can attest to his rakesmanship—come July, you can't visit Del Priore's house without taking away a bushel of plums, and his co-workers regularly relish his gifts of sweet peppers and fresh spinach.

But maybe you struggle with weeds, or your tomatoes look weak. Grab a rake! To prevent weeds and nourish your cukes and zukes, you need to constantly move the earth around. "Like you do with the baseball field, you do in the garden, so oxygen gets to the roots," advises Del Priore. "If your garden is hard like concrete, nothing will grow." His tips for green thumb wannabes:

Choose the right tool. Del Priore favors a garden rake about five inches wide, with four prongs, for tilling the earth around rows of flowers and veggies. His costs about $15. A common garden rake with 10–12 prongs gets the nod for raking lots of earth or grooming bare spots on your lawn for reseeding.

Mix in the good stuff. Each fall, Del Priore tills under his garden and rakes in compost or cow manure. The organic material cooks away all winter and is fertile ground for flowers or veggies come spring.

Get into the zen. Raking, admittedly, is a chore, so Del Priore practices mind over matter. "I pretend when I'm on a baseball field that it's my garden," he says. "I rake it and cut it and manicure the place." Play ball!

Air Master

Photo by Larry Rose

Mike Shanteler got most of his HVAC training in the U.S. Marines, making sure satellite and radio equipment used in the Gulf War remained cool and operational. Now his tasks seem a little more mundane—a principal feels hot under the collar or a box of burgers is defrosting in the school's freezer—but no less vital to educators and students in Redlands, California.

Even as international relations seem not to have evolved much since Shanteler's combat tour, the world of school heating and air-conditioning has. Educators understand the link between the air they breathe, and the results they achieve. In his classrooms, modern technology measures air quality, which can affect a student's readiness to learn, not just temperature.

If your heating or air conditioning system isn't operating efficiently, the problem may start with your filter. You're changing them regularly, right?

"I get to houses where people say their system isn't working right and I open it up and say, 'Look at this!''' Shanteler exclaims. Filthy air filters are "the number-one cause of equipment malfunction."

The remedy? Change them, soldiers! It's simple, it's cheap, and it'll effectively extend the life of your system by easing air flow, said Shanteler, who also has owned a residential repair business. His tips:

Size things up. You'll usually find your filter at the return air grille or the fan air unit. Once you've found it, take note of the measurements and you're ready to buy a replacement.

Pony up a little more dough. Disposable "bottle cap" filters are cheap, but they won't trap small particles of dust, including animal dander and insect parts. One-inch pleated filters are better, and you may want to consider more expensive electrostatic filters.

Get into the habit. Changing the filters should be part of your home maintenance routine. Common filters should be replaced monthly for a unit that runs continuously; other types less often.

Play it safe. Don't forget to turn off your HVAC unit when changing the filter, because if the unit starts up before you get the new filter in, it could suck your grocery list or candy wrapper right into the motor. Not pretty.