Companies must be cleaning out their closets because there seems to be a slew of end-of-the- year giveaways online and in magazines.

TV Guide's "Ultimate Living Room Sweepstakes" (www.tvguide.com/ikeasweeps) is handing out a 50-inch HDTV and a $1,500 gift card from IKEA. That's enough cash to fill your tv-watching room with a KIVIK modular sofa and HEMNES coffee table.

House Beautiful magazine is breaking the bank with a "Dream Kitchen Sweepstakes" doling out an extravagant $250,000 kitchen makeover (www.housebeautiful.com). The official rules do not explain how or who turns your 1970s laminate eyesore into something straight out of House Beautiful - but you can worry about that when you win.

At Better Homes and Gardens, they'll hand out an $8,000 check to the winner of "Celebrate the Season Your Way" promotion (www.bhg.com/season). Although you just might be tempted to sign up for a free trial magazine, the contest rules assure that a subscription is not required to win.

And if you just couldn't make it to the December tapings of "The Martha Stewart Show" her magazine is gifting "Martha's Merry Gifts." It's all the stuff the audience scored on their way out the door (www.marthastewart.com/sweepstakes). Stewart probably told producers to declutter the studio and award a lucky viewer a KitchenAid mixer, Canon camera and boxes of Martha Stewart crafts.

The ultimate life-changing giveaway is the HGTV Dream Home (www.hgtv.com/dreamhome.) This year it's a 4,000 square foot modern ranch house near Park City, Utah (great room, pictured). My fave space is a rustic outdoor room outfitted with a stone fireplace, hot tub and mountain views. Every year I debate over whether I would move into the Dream Home and live there all year long, use it as a family vacation house (charge a fee to pay for property taxes, of course) - or simply sell it. But I'll worry about that if I win.

HGTV's Dream Home sweeps starts Dec. 29 -- and you can enter one time per day until Feb. 17.

I've tried my luck with all of these sweepstakes and even checked off the boxes for newsletters, special offers and product information. Why not? They're all a pipeline to finding out about more freebies for my home.

Do you enter these contests? Have you ever won anything?
What do you like best about the HGTV Dream Home?