3 Holiday House Cleaning Tips
HOME TIPS
Holidays mean guests and photo opportunities, and that means more chances than usual for someone to notice if your house isn’t as pristine as you would like it to be.
Sure, you keep a clean house, but it’s easy to put off some of those deep cleaning chores, like scrubbing the baseboards or cleaning and organizing the bathroom medicine cabinets. During the busy holiday season, you might even find yourself falling behind on some of the day-to-day chores like laundry or vacuuming.
When you know that you have guests on the way and you’ll be taking pictures to share with friends and extended family members, it’s time to get into gear. Take a look at some tips that will help you get your house ready in time for the holidays.
1. Take Inventory
Some messes become part of the landscape of your house after a while. A stack of junk mail on the hall in the table? You may be so used to dropping it there that you don’t really see it anymore until it’s covered the table and started falling onto the floor. Is the coat closet a mess? Your everyday coats are probably right in front, so it’s easy to look past the jumbled mess in the back.
To get your home ready for visitors, you first need to look at your home like a visitor might. Walk through the house, starting with the front door, and pretend you’re seeing it all for the first time, or the first time in a long time. Take note of the things that a guest might notice but that have started to fade into the background for you. Make a special effort to look closely at guest areas – bathrooms, spare bedrooms, normally unused closets, and so on.
2. Make a List
Don’t assume that you’ll just remember everything as you go through the steps of cleaning. It’s easy to get caught up in one room and forget a couple of things you meant to do by the time you get to the next room.
Write down everything that needs to be done. That way, you can go through each chore one by one, checking them off the list as you finish. It’s the best way to be certain that you get to everything.
3. Delegate Where Possible
You don’t have to do everything on your own. The more people pitch in, the faster the work will get done, and the less exhausted you’ll be. After all, you want to enjoy your holiday celebrations, not just use up all your energy getting ready for them.