From 100 degrees in the summer to 30 degrees in the winter and Spring and Fall is usually about one to two weeks. So I decided since this seems to be the week that it's gonna be beautiful Fall weather, that I'd come outside and record today's video.

There is a lot of really cool facilities for use. Obviously the picnic area behind me, they've got basketball courts and playgrounds and tennis courts and the park is just huge and really really beautiful.

So if you're ever in Bartlett and you're looking for a great place to have a quick picnic this is a great spot to stop by. Today I'm going to be talking to you about all the things that you can do both on the interior and exterior of your home to get ready for the harsh weather that we're about to have for the Fall and Winter seasons.

I'm gonna go ahead and start with the interior of the home first. So one of the things I always recommend, that you do this during Spring, but I also think it's a really good idea to do it in the Fall, is to clean out your pantry and clean out your medicine cabinets. Throw away all that stuff that you've been hanging on to, that's probably expired, that you maybe should have thrown out during Spring cleaning but just didn't have the heart to, throw it out now.

Obviously if you're disposing of any medicine make sure you dispose of it in the correct way but certainly the pantry clean that out and get all that expired food out there. Don't forget your refrigerator, now is a really good time to take everything out of the refrigerator and wipe it down before you start stocking it full of those stews and soups that you're gonna make this Winter. The next thing you want to do on the interior of home, before you get to those colder days when you want to turn on the heat is make sure that your furnace filter has been changed out, cleaned and ready to go.

You might also want to consider hiring and professional to come over to your home to do a once-over on your system, especially if it's older.

They have something called the Fall turn on where they come out and they'll do a once-over on your whole system and they'll turn it on and make sure that it's all working properly. You certainly don't want to find out on that first cold day or cold night you go to flip on the heat, that it doesn't work. If you have any automatic light timers in your house you want to go ahead and get those changed over to the Fall and Winter hours because you know we have shorter days now. This is for the ladies, go ahead and swap out your closet and dresser.

Pack away all your Spring and Summer stuff and bring out those heavy sweaters and all the layers you're gonna wear for the Fall/Winter season.

Certainly if you have anything that you haven't worn in at least a year, if not longer, it's okay I'm guilty of this too, make sure to go ahead and pull this out of the closet and donate them. Don't just pack them up so that you can pull them back out next year save that space. One thing people forget to do is backup your computer files. So if you haven't done that in at least a year now's a really good time to do that. Another common thing to do this time of year is to check all the batteries in your smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors.

If you've lived in your home for a while you might want to check your fire extinguisher and make sure that's still in proper working order. If you have kids now it's a great time to get a head start on cleaning out all the toys that they no longer play with and donating them. If you have older children it's a really good idea to get them involved in this process. If you have a working fireplace that you plan on using this winter, its a great time to have a professional come out and inspect the chimney and to clean the flu. Don't forget to stick around until the end where I'll share how you can get a free printable version of this Fall Checklist.

Before getting into the exterior of the home, if you liked this video give it a thumbs up. If there's any maintenance tips that you have questions on or any that I may have missed that you'd want to share go ahead and leave it in the comments below.

Let's talk about what to do on the exterior of your home to get ready for the Fall and Winter months. The first thing I'm going to recommend is check your door and window weather stripping for drafts. If there is anything that needs to be repaired go ahead and repair it now before those cold winter days come.

Check your gutters and downspouts and clear any blockage that they might have. While you're up there check your roof for any cracked, loose, or missing shingles and get that repaired before snow ends up sitting on top of it for this winter. Now that you've enjoyed your patio furniture, go ahead and get it all cleaned and wipe down and store it away for the season. Turn off all your outdoor faucets and drain and disconnect any of your garden hoses to prevent freezing and cracking. The next one might sound a little tedious but if you have any cracks in your driveway you might want to consider getting those fixed now.

What will happen is water will get in and as the temperature drops and they freeze the cracks will actually get worse. This is something that not a lot of people think about but I definitely recommend to all homeowners. Here in the Northeast Fall means lots of falling leaves which are really beautiful but I'm gonna recommend that you rake them up as often as possible. I know that this can be kind of a pain because once you rake up your whole yard, five minutes later it feels like it's covered again but you want to make sure that you don't keep all of those leaves on the grass matting it down and holding in that moisture that could cause damage to your grass.

Also want to make sure they're all cleaned up and disposed of before the winter season hit.

Which brings me to my next tip which is to keep cutting the grass. Just because Labor Day has come and gone does not mean that your grass stops growing. You want to make sure that you keep it watered and maintained in terms of height and you want to keep it at the right height so that as the growth slows down it eventually stops on the surface the roots continue to grow throughout the winter season. Speaking of your lawn if you want to have a lush healthy beautiful lawn in the Spring there's a few things you can do right now in the fall to prepare for that. The first one is to aerate then seed and fertilize your lawn.

This way it'll help promote the root growth throughout the winter, to promote a healthier lawn in the Spring. I'm also going to recommend that you trim any branches or shrubs that are hanging over power lines.

Here in my area in Bartlett, Memphis TN, a lot of our power lines are above ground, not below, so if you have any tree branches or any shrubs or anything that's hanging over that when the winter comes and the snow comes it could really weigh it down or cause it to break and fall on those power lines. You wanna make sure those are all trimmed up and there's no issues with that this winter. Once you're done taking care of all your exterior landscaping, it's a really good idea to take all of your landscaping tools and get them all cleaned up and properly stored for the Winter.

This includes removing the gas out of your lawnmower. This way everything's nice, clean and fresh and ready to go for the Spring, it'll also help make sure that your Spring landscaping equipment and tools last longer. Now you've packed away all of your Spring and Summer landscaping equipment, you want to bust out anything that you're gonna use this winter and test it. That means your snow blower, test it, make sure it's still working and make sure you have fresh gas for it and go ahead and load it up and get it ready to go.

You don't want to be worrying about that that first snowfall this winter.

And the last thing I'm going to recommend is removing those summer screens and replacing them with your storm windows. If you want to receive a free printable version of the checklist I've discussed here, I've included a link in the description box below. Thank you so much for watching my video today. If you liked it, I hope you give it a thumbs up and if there's anybody you know that could benefit from the information I shared today, please share my video with them as well. If you haven't already, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and don't forget to hit that little bell so that you're notified of the new videos I release every Monday.

Have a great Fall and Winter season! speeding down the road, now I got somebody mowing the lawn, I really hope that bird doesn't come back, if you wait for the plane, that bird is back, pushing a lawnmower and it's really loud, another plane really wish I had more battery.