Are you ready to wrap up the holiday season? The following tips will help you start the next year right, and prepare you for the next holiday.

Check the lights: Both your indoor and outdoor lights are designed for limited life. Check your lights for frayed wires, cracked sockets, or burned out bulbs. Discard the doubtful strings, and use the original packaging or purchased light holders to keep them from tangling before packing them away. You may want to consider buying replacements at after-holiday sales. The new LED lights have beautiful colors and are much more energy efficient.

Plan your post-holiday pack up: Are your ornaments packed safely? Are your holiday candles protected from the summer’s heat? Also, pack backwards based on how you want to unpack your decorations next year, and label the boxes. Now is the time to discard any decorations that you no longer want, so you don’t waste storage space.

Read installation and safety instructions: Did you receive any exciting electronic or other gifts that have installation or use instructions? Take the time to read the safety information, and make sure you follow installation directions closely. Set any electronic equipment up immediately – you generally only have about two weeks to return them directly to the store if there is a problem.

Don’t take a chance on that HDTV: If you want to wall-mount a television, hire a professional or purchase a special mounting system and follow the instructions carefully.

Keep the rest of your holidays happy by taking care of the details and keeping your home and family safe, and have a wonderful 2011!

We love receiving testimonials and letters of thanks from home owners! We received this note and wanted to share it with you.

“We would like to extend our thanks and appreciation to Geneva Estates Salseman Tom Lacher and Customer Care Superintendant John Martin for their courtesy, kindness and professionalism in helping and advising us with any and all questions and or problems.”

Have you had an experience with Fulton that you would like to share? We’d love to hear from you!

In the deep midwinter, warmth comes from more than your furnace. Walk into this room and your first inclination is to snuggle into the chair of your choice and light the fire in the fireplace.

This room is made for chilly winter days, so ignore the summer trees outside and let’s take a look at why this room makes you feel so cozy.

Despite the sunshine coming in the window, the room has a soft dark feel. The mid-tone blue walls – in a color called sage blue – are warm with enough richness to add comfort.

The furniture is also soft and dark, with a mostly print-on-print approach that invites an echo of a country feel. The quilt and coffee table also say country, but the more formal needlepoint pillow and straightforward curtains keep the space from getting too fluffy.

The cream colored ceiling and the warm light russet carpet reflect each other, picking up the warm browns in the quilt and the main floral print. With this style, wood floors might be the expected choice, but carpet keeps up the theme of warmth and comfort.

Does the design of your living room, bedroom or den keep you feeling warmer at this time of year? Think about adding some soft, dark elements to cozy up your space when the snow falls.

Are you ready to decorate for the holidays? If you want to have your home feel designed as well as decorated, a few steps can help you reach your goal.

Adding decorations requires completely re-thinking your space. Do you have a tree that crowds the room? Consider what you can remove to make space for what is actually another piece of furniture for the duration of the holidays. You may even want to rearrange the room to allow the tree to be a focal point.

The same approach of removing before adding applies to accessories. Take as many of your everyday accessories out of the space as possible. If storage is limited, you may want to temporarily pack them in your holiday storage boxes. Decorations tend to be vivid and sparkling. Too many other items in the space can make it feel cluttered and overwhelming.

When you decorate your space, don’t feel obligated to throw holiday at every spot in the room. Instead, build tableaus using your decorations combined with natural elements such as holly and pine boughs. Do you have a collection of snow globes? Instead of scattering them, group them together to create an appealing display. Add a few shiny round ornaments or some tinsel, and you have an inviting holiday element.

Finally, find consistent elements to pull your holiday decorations together. Maybe you can pick up several bunches of two-color holly at a florist and use that to connect your holiday décor. Possibly staying with a few colors or a style will help your decorations feel like they are planned rather than random. Don’t be afraid to use contrast to make things interesting. Take a look at how the photo combines rustic natural elements with classic white and gold decorations – that took courage but it works.

Remember, you get to start over every year – experiment and have fun, and your home will be an inviting place for you and all of your holiday guests.

Preparing properly for the carpet cleaners is part one of the full carpet cleaning process. Now that we’re facing winter weather, part two is even more important – drying your carpeting. If you let your carpet dry slowly and naturally over a few days, you run the risk of mold in your home. It’s best to make sure your carpeting is dry within 24 hours.

The drying process is straightforward. The most important step is turning the fan on your heating system from auto to on (you will find this switch on your thermostat). You may also want to turn the heat up a few degrees to speed drying. It will help to turn on any other ventilation fans you have in your home, such as bathroom and oven vents, and possibly open a few windows if it’s warm enough.

Do you have any ceiling fans? They will dry the carpet quite quickly when turned on high. For corners and fan-free rooms, use portable fans, or rent a professional blower from your carpet cleaner. Move these around to ensure that every space has a chance to dry. Check for dampness by pressing the carpet hard with your hands.

Be sure to double-check any transitions from carpeting to hard flooring surfaces. Residual water can make those thresholds slippery. Dry them off and watch out when walking because the soles of your shoes can be damp. If you have pets, damp paws can be addressed by covering any pet-friendly furniture with towels until everything and everyone is dry.

This may sound complex, but with a few hours of effort, your carpeting will be dry and beautiful, ready for your holiday entertaining.

Do you love your Fulton home? If you do, shoot a 30-60 second video (use your phone, a flip or any camera) telling us why you love your Fulton home. Then upload to our Facebook page www.facebook.com/FultonHomes and you could win  a GE Profile Harmony Electric Washer and Dryer in Platinum that talk to each other.  ($2000 retail value.) Contest ends 1-11-11. Here are more details about the prize.

GE Profile Harmony High-Efficiency Top-Loading Washer

With this GE washer, you get a King-size, 4.0 cu. ft. stainless steel wash basket — one of the largest-capacity washers available — for washing up to 24 bath towels or 50 T-shirts in a single load. Plus, the GE Harmony washing machine uses as little as 17 gallons of water for a small load and 24 gallons for an average-size load. **Please leave a comment if you need help uploading the video to our Facebook page. Good luck!

Now that Thanksgiving is over it’s time to prepare for the rest of the winter holidays. You may want to start the process with a professional carpet cleaning. Consider the following tips to make cleaning easier and more effective for you.

The first big step is finding the right cleaners. Unfortunately, a well-known name or lots of advertising are not your best source for evaluating quality and service. Check with friends and neighbors as well as the Better Business Bureau to find a good cleaning company.

You may also want to look into the type of equipment they use. The truck-mounted steam cleaners do an excellent job and leave no soap residue. Ask about the availability of professional blowers to help dry your carpeting afterwards. Generally cleaners have them at a reasonable price – around $20 per day.

Before your cleaner arrives, taking the time to make your home ready leads to a much better experience. Remove every piece of furniture that can be taken to a room with a hard surface. This may mean that your kitchen and bathrooms are a bit crowded for a day. For wood furniture that is too big or too heavy to move, be sure to place squares of plastic or wax paper under the legs. Sometimes wood stains will seep onto your carpet with the hot steamy water. As you are moving things around, be sure to pay attention to any spots, so that you can point them out to the carpet cleaner.

Be sure to place your pets in a safe spot, away from the cleaning and the open door that’s required during the process.

Having your carpet cleaned may be a nuisance, but the end result is well worth the effort – a carpet that looks like it was just installed.

We are pleased to announce the winner of the Facebook and Twitter fan contest. Congrats to Facebook fan Sharon Halpern Goode – the winner of the GE Beverage Center. (150 can capacity and it’s a $1200 value)

Stay tuned for more upcoming contests that you can participate in and win!

Thanks so much to everyone that participated and wrote to us about why you love your Fulton Home!