Any longtime resident of the Great Lakes State can attest to the fact that summertime in Michigan is often a fleeting and all-too-brief affair; it almost seems as if we Michiganders go from boating, fishing, barbequing, and watching Tigers games at Comerica Park to shoveling snow overnight.

After enduring six months of snow, slush, and frigid temperatures, the last place most Michigan residents want to spend their time is indoors. Now that the first day of summer is officially less than three weeks away, it’s probably safe to trade in your windshield scraper and snow shovel for a beach towel and your favorite pair of shades.

Michigan has a longstanding reputation for being a winter wonderland, but many people don’t realize there are plenty of places to see and activities to enjoy during Michigan’s warmer months, too. Whether you enjoy the serenity of reading a good book while listening to the two-note call of a common loon on one of Michigan’s many lakes or you prefer the action of riding the rapids in your kayak, you can rest assured that Michigan has a summer vacation hot spot that’s perfect for you and your loved ones.

To help you plan your best-ever summer vacation, we put together a list of five of the most popular summer vacation hot spots Michigan has to offer.

There’s no better place to get in touch with nature than in the Keweenaw Peninsula. Located in Michigan’s rugged Copper Country, the Keweenaw Peninsula boasts white sand beaches, miles of beautiful coastline overlooking the picturesque waters of Lake Superior, and one of America’s few island national parks.

Isle Royale—accessible only by boat or seaplane—has 244 campsites and 165 miles of hiking trails to appeal to even the most adventurous wilderness explorers. You can visit Isle Royale at any time between mid-May and September, but you will need to call ahead to verify with the park ranger that there are still camping permits available.

For more information, visit the National Park Service’s website at https://www.nps.gov/isro/index.htm

Conveniently located between Ann Arbor, Lansing, and Detroit, the Brighton Howell Area has twenty golf courses, 123 miles of trails, 184 lakes, and more than 50,000 acres of parks for you and your loved ones to explore.

When the day is done and your stomach begins to rumble, head to downtown Howell to enjoy the fare at one of Howell’s eateries and a pint from one of the area’s craft breweries. Howell’s residents and business owners take great pride in the downtown area.

Howell received the 2018 Great American Main Street Award from Main Street America, a nonprofit subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Only 600 people lay claim to a year-round residence on Mackinac Island, but Mackinac (pronounced Mack-in-awe) is one of the most popular vacation spots for residents of the Great Lakes state.

You’ll have to travel to Mackinac Island via ferry—automobiles are not allowed on the island—but the trip is well worth the scenic views and 19th Century charm you’ll find on the front porch of Mackinac Island’s Grand Hotel. Once there, you can spend your days touring the Island’s 3.8 square miles via horse-drawn carriage or by bicycle.

Visitors to Mackinac Island can spend their days golfing, shopping, and eating creamy, delicious fudge from one of the Island’s many candy makers.

Michigan’s Sleeping Bear Dunes is a popular tourist destination perched some 400 feet above the pristine waters of Lake Michigan’s northwestern shoreline not far from Traverse City. Camping, canoeing inland lakes, bird watching, and hiking a trove of beautiful trails are just a few of the activities that visitors to Sleeping Bear Dunes enjoy during the summer months.

Well known for its wine tours, four-star dining establishments, bed-and-breakfast lodging, and the National Cherry Festival, Traverse City is four-season playground for visitors from around the Midwest.

For more information on Traverse City vacation ideas, visit https://www.michigan.org/city/traverse-city

Prospective homebuyers list hardwood flooring as one of their most-sought-after features when they begin shopping for a new home.

Hardwood is timeless, beautiful, and resilient. If properly cared for, a hardwood floor can last upwards of 100 years. But have you ever wondered how your home’s indoor environment affects hardwood flooring?

Incontinent pets, children’s toys, high-heeled shoes, spills, and a busy family can all cause damage to a hardwood floor, but the greatest threat your floor faces may be the environmental factors that you can’t see.

As a natural product (it is wood, after all), hardwood flooring is extremely susceptible to changes in temperature and humidity. Installing a hardwood floor in a geographic region where temperatures and humidity fluctuate wildly from one season to the next can be a tricky endeavor.

If your flooring contractor installs the planks too closely to the walls without allowing room for the wood to expand and contract, there is a strong probability that your flooring may begin to peak during humid months. Alternatively, when the humidity drops, you may notice unsightly gaps between the planks.

Let’s face it; having hardwood floors installed in your home costs a pretty penny. If you choose the wrong contractor or you pick a wood species that doesn’t react well to fluctuations in temperature and humidity, thousands of your hard-earned dollars might end up in the nearest landfill.

It’s in your best interest as a homeowner and a consumer to do your homework on individual wood species, the Janka scale (the Janka scale measures how much pressure a wood species can handle before denting occurs), and how the geographic region you live in may affect the longevity and beauty of your hardwood floors. Hardwood flooring in a home in Michigan won’t react the same way to seasonal changes as a home in south Florida will.

Anyone who has renovated a home before can attest to the fact that making significant upgrades can turn into a very costly endeavor in no more time than it takes to blink your eyes. Many homeowners try to save money by going the do-it-yourself route only to realize that they bit off more than they could chew.

Some homeowners cut corners by purchasing entry-level materials that end up disappointing them when the product fails after six months. Consumers often ask if it is possible to buy cheap flooring that looks expensive. Unfortunately, the answer to that question is a definite no.

When you purchase new flooring, think of it as purchasing a new car; the good ones aren’t cheap, the cheap ones aren’t good, and you can’t buy a new Maserati for the same price as a used Mazda.

If you’re looking to make a quick aesthetic fix on a rental property or a flip house, it may not make sense to pour thousands of dollars into a home improvement project. But if you plan to stay in your current home for any length of time, you’re better off seeking financing options or saving your money until you can afford a reputable product and have it installed by a professional flooring company.

If you’re unsure of how to differentiate between a good flooring product and a cheap product, your best bet is to do your homework on the manufacturer and the warranties that company uses to back their materials.

Say you’re planning to change the flooring in your bathroom or your kitchen and you’d like a luxury vinyl product, but it isn’t in your budget right now. Cutting corners by installing a cheap peel-and-stick tile from your local big-box store isn’t going to give you the kind of results you’re looking for, and you could wind up with a big mess on your hand if the adhesive on those tiles begins to fail.

Another way to be sure you’re buying a good product is to explore options with a shop-at-home flooring retailer based in your community. One of the benefits of using a shop-at-home company’s services is that you’ll be able to look at flooring samples in the comfort of your own home, at a time that’s most convenient for you. Look for a company in good standing with the Better Business Bureau, and be sure that they back their work with a written lifetime installation warranty.

Homeowners often ask us if they can use bleach to clean and disinfect their hardwood flooring. Using bleach as a household cleaning agent is a cost-efficient way to disinfect the bathtub and keep your socks looking bright and clean, but bleach is a highly caustic chemical; using it to clean your delicate hardwood floors could cause serious, irreparable damage to your floor’s delicate finish.

A quick Google search will turn up a trove of information on just about any topic you can think of, but just because someone posted it on a website doesn’t necessarily make that information reliable, accurate, or truthful. Some self-proclaimed home improvement aficionados tout bleach as an effective method for pickling certain species of unfinished wood.

If you’re trying to lighten reclaimed banisters, moldings, or chair rails, bleach may work for those specific purposes; however, using bleach to lighten or pickle your hardwood flooring will weaken the wood’s fibers, making your flooring more susceptible to damage caused by foot traffic.

Some people claim using steam is the best way to clean a hardwood floor. Steam may work to remove dirt from the surface layer, but steam will cause the wood to swell and contract, which could lead to unsightly gaps between the planks. Additionally, steam may cause your flooring to peak, creating a trip hazard that might send you or a loved one to the emergency room.

The best method to maintain hardwood flooring’s beauty is inexpensive and easy; all you need to do is remove your shoes as soon as you enter your home.

The treads on your shoes pick up tiny rocks and other abrasives that will inevitably cause unsightly scratches and dents on your hardwood flooring. Removing your shoes and maintaining a regular sweeping schedule—always with the grain, never against it—is the best way to keep your floor’s finish looking beautiful and scratch-free.

When your flooring is in need of a more thorough cleaning, we recommend using the Bona hardwood floor cleaning system. Wilhelm Edner, founder of Bona, made floor wax as a means to supplement the income he earned selling coffee in Sweden back in 1919.

As demand for Bona’s products began to grow beyond the European marketplace, Bona started to expand its existing product line. Ninety-nine years after Wilhelm Edner made his first sale of floor wax, Bona’s award-winning line of sealants and cleaning products are available to consumers throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and South America.

When you want your floors to have the very best protection, maintain them with one of Bona’s floor-cleaning solutions. For more information on Bona’s superior cleaning products, visit bona.com/en-US/.

Unless you drink only from Sippy cups similar to the ones toddlers use, anyone that ever picked up a glass filled with liquid probably has spilled a drink on his or her carpet at some point or another.

If you spilled water on your carpet, no harm no foul. But if you spill soda pop, wine, dark liquor, or Kool-Aid, well, you may have a serious problem on your hands. So, what should you do if you spill a drink on your carpet?

Before we answer that question, let’s start with what you shouldn’t do if you spill a drink on your carpet. Most people’s first instinct when they spill a drink on their carpet is to grab the closest towel, rag, or t-shirt in the vicinity to try to soak up the liquid; this is a mistake.

The correct approach to cleaning a spilled drink on your carpet is to find a clean, white towel, or a roll of paper towel that doesn’t have any sort of design printed on the absorbent material. Place the towel directly over the spilled drink, and gently blot (don’t rub; rubbing is bad) the spill until all the liquid is absorbed. (Depending on the amount of liquid on your carpet, you may need to repeat the blotting process multiple times and use multiple clean towels.)

Another thing you shouldn’t do when attempting to clean a spilled drink from your carpet is to soak it with a cleaning agent. Some of the chemicals in carpet fibers may cause permanent damage to your carpet’s delicate yarns.

If blotting the spill doesn’t remove the stain out of the carpet, contact a professional carpet cleaner. If having your carpet professionally cleaned doesn’t do the trick, you could try to use an area rug, a piece of furniture, or a houseplant to hide the stain from view.

In some instances, placing something over the stain to obscure it from view may not be practical. When all else fails, you will need to have your carpet replaced by a professional flooring company.