Hey Honey Badger,

Welcome to the first edition of the Main + Tenacious newsletter! We’re here to simplify home ownership – whether you have been in your home for decades or just moved in, there is something for you.

What you will find inside:

• Monthly home maintenance tasks
• Skill building tips related to that month’s tasks

A well-maintained home is a haven of comfort, peace, and joy. Let 2024 be the year you transform your relationship with your home.

(p.s. curious about the greeting? Find out why you should consider adopting a honey badger as your mascot by visiting https://maintenacious.mn.co/)

Gateways and Transitions

Ah, January, where we bid adieu to the holiday break and welcome the embrace of routine. Yet, it’s also the time for new beginnings and setting intentions for the upcoming year. If you’re like me, you struggle to balance the comfort of the old and the excitement of the new.

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For many, this tension becomes motivational—a chance to declutter, clean, and make room for the new. It allows one to bid farewell to the clutter and dust of the past while welcoming in fresh energies and opportunities.

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Consider Janus, the Roman god of doorways and beginnings, depicted with two faces—one facing the future, the other the past. Janus embodies the idea that an end often brings about a beginning, the past flows into the present.

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Just as Janus symbolizes this duality, cleaning and refreshing your home for the new year can have the same effect. You can take care of the home that you’ve made memories in the past year and cherish those connections while clearing the way for new opportunities in 2024.

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I invite you to make home maintenance part of your new routine for 2024—a fundamental aspect of tending to your household.

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Why?? I hear you say. This is boring, and I am too busy with life, too busy putting out fires. I have no more time! I am drowning in to-do lists!

Look, no matter how much you argue, you WILL spend time on home maintenance. How that time goes, well, that choice is yours.

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You can remain reactive, addressing issues as they arise, often at inconvenient times and higher costs.

~OR~

Or, you can opt for a proactive approach—easier, cost-effective, and less time-consuming.

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Let’s embrace this change and take charge of our surroundings. Just as Janus is associated with beginnings and endings, make this month your chance to refresh your relationship with your home. January, or Janus-ary as we’d humorously call it, marks our chance to refresh our relationship with our homes.

Join us as we embark on this home maintenance journey together. Stay tuned for tips, hacks, and inspiration to make this endeavor not just a chore, but a transformative and fulfilling experience.

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Main + Tenacious is your one-stop resource to streamline your home maintenance. Find everything from shopping lists to instructions, tips, tricks, moral support, and professional advice—all in one place to help you save time, effort, and money.

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Wishing you a vibrant and refreshing start to the year!

January Tasks

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Reoccurring Tasks

Y’all up north have an extra chore, but don’t worry, you get to laugh at us in the south all summer long.

1. If you have a water softener, take a peek at those salt levels.
2. Is it time to change your HVAC filter? When you are done, mark it in your calendar and order new ones if needed.
3. Live somewhere brrrr cold? Check the roof for ice dams and icicles.

Maintain

This month is easy enough since putting up Christmas is a large task itself.

1. Tidy and clean the garage. You are in their putting Christmas up, might as well spend a few minutes cleaning and tidying it up too (unless its super cold….then I give you a free pass)
2. Inspect and clean the bathroom fans (for real, these things can cause fires… and fall on you….or lead to major mold and structural problems). It’s well worth an afternoon to prevent $$$ issues down the road.

Prep

Haven’t been keeping up with home maintenance? Keep it simple and just do these tasks to start. These tasks are the one and done tasks you can do that will make future maintenance and DIY task so much easier.

1. Create a home maintenance budget.
2. Make sure fire extinguishers are easy to find, place correctly, and are charged.
3. Create a plastic bag dispenser and disposable buckets. Super handy for messy cleanups.
4. Get rid of common hiccups to home maintenance carefully assessing those things that make chores bigger than they need to be (i.e. creating access to common maintenance places). No body wants to do two big chores at once! See the Prep course for more on this.

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Need help with any of those tasks? There is much more information inside our community.

Join our Community

Cleaning out the garage?

You might want to hang up some hooks or other things to help you organize. If so, here are some videos to help you along your way. If you are a beginner, get your drill, some screws, and a spare piece of wood or drywall and practice along the videos.

A pro tip – as annoying as it can be, we highly recommend that you put hooks and shelves in the garage into a stud. Why? you may think it will hold something light forever, but some stuff in the garage is HEAVY. If you forget that it’s just a drywall anchor, and hang something heavy on it, you will make yourself a project later on down the road.

That’s it for this month’s newsletter. We hope you enjoy it and find it helpful in your homeownership journey. Don’t forget to share your progress and insights with our community on social media or Main + Tenacious!

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Keep learning and growing,

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Rita

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