Preparing your home to welcome some guests who are set to arrive over the festive season isn’t something you should be losing too much sleep over, although some effort is required to set the scene for some Christmas holiday fun times ahead. We have some tips to share with you so that you make sure to strike a good balance between maintaining that inviting, homey feel and making your guests feel special.
Deep-cleaning
In the Northern Hemisphere Christmas time comes with the cold of the winter and the magic of the white snow to make it a white Christmas, so we probably can’t refer to it as spring-cleaning, but that level of cleaning is perhaps required sometime before the guests are set to arrive. This way it will be much easier to just touch things up here and there when the guests arrive to recreate that deep-cleaned appearance.
The “trial” decoration run
Chances are you will have bought some new goods with which to do up your interiors, perhaps even to match something like having painted the walls, etc. There would be nothing worse than realising on the night before the guests arrive that everything doesn’t quite seem to work as far as the decor goes, so a trial run is perhaps in order. This will give you ample time to change things up and tweak things here and there if needs be.
The kitchen
For reasons which go beyond just the visual appearance (you want your kitchen to be clean to keep pests such as cockroaches away), the kitchen is perhaps the one area of the house which needs to be spotless at all times. Following the pre-guest-arrival deep clean, just ensure to leave out cloths, wipes, etc, within close reach of anyone who might be using the kitchen, just so that you encourage them to do their bit to keep it clean without being discouraged of their use of it.
The living area(s)
If you have a formal dining area then that should be kept separate from the other common living area(s), and you have “permission” from us to really go crazy and bring everything to town with your decoration of the dining room table and the formal dining area in general. This is where the magic of the holidays is going to happen, so make it special!
Guest bedrooms
So we’ve mentioned quite a few specific areas of focus, but you’ll probably notice that the general theme points back to that balance between things looking good (fit for guests) and maintaining that cosy feel of home wherein they’re not scared to make a bit of a mess and just “live.” What that comes down to is quality in the items of decor you have, with the likes of Julian Charles springing to mind as far as doing up the bedrooms go. A high-quality duvet cover for example looks great while at the same time it would take a lot to ruin it via any mishaps which are often synonymous with guests that come over with their party mood in-tow!
