Getting Ready for the Holidays: Cleaning Your Home Fast
Posted: Wednesday, November 23, 2011
by Heidi DeCoux
Clear Simple Marketing and Clear Simple Living
It’s time for the holidays. You’ve done the shopping , planned the meal, and invited family and friends. Now it occurs to you that it is time for the least fun job. Cleaning the house. You’ve waited until the last minute and now there isn’t much time to get it all clean.
Not enough Time to Clean.
Pay attention the next time you visit a friend’s home. Are you inspecting their floors and ceilings? Probably not. Most of your guests will be looking at what is at eye level. You’ll want to focus your cleaning efforts from waist to head level.
Keep moving! Make a plan and stay on task. You are hosting Thanksgiving, your guests will be spending most of their time in your foyer, living room, dining room, kitchen, and bathroom. These are the areas that will need your attention. Before guests arrive pull closed doors on closets, bedrooms, and other areas you don’t want your guests. Don’t allow yourself to be derailed by a cleaning or organizing task that can wait until after company, remember the clock is ticking!
Still Seems Like a Lot….
Try following the path in your guests will. In your foyer and living room the most important thing is clearing the clutter. You don’t have time for organizing paperwork, but you do have time to put loose mail into a basket with a cover or a small drawer. Same with your old magazines, if you have stacks of them either recycle them or tuck them away. Extra coats, shoes, and outerwear that build up in your foyer can be tucked back into a closet, or a bedroom you won’t be showing your guests.
Run a dust cloth over your coffee tables, tv stand, and other surfaces that your guests will be setting drinks on or congregating around. A quick fluff of pillows and refolding of blankets and these areas should make the grade for your guests. If you have pets you may have to spend a little extra time de-furring the furniture.
Where Everyone Wants to Be.
If you’ve hosted a party before you know people congregate in the kitchen. It could be the smallest room in the house, but we are still all drawn to it! It may seem this room is difficult to clean since you will be in the middle of Thanksgiving preparation, however there are a couple things you can do to make it sparkle too.
Since you are bound to have a lot of people in your kitchen get rid of all the rest of the extra “stuff”. Again clutter is the enemy. Clear off as much as you can from your counter and table tops. Appliances that will go unused are a great place to start. Don’t get lost in organizing paperwork, just tuck your loose recipes and papers into a less frequented cabinet or drawer. Just don’t forget where you put them!
A wipe down of your faucet, sink, front of the fridge and counter tops to eliminate water spots and sticky areas. Guests won’t fault you if stuffing spills during Thanksgiving preparation, but they might judge if they put their hand in lunch from yesterday.
Important Tips.
Vacuum selectively. Run through high traffic areas with your vacuum. Make sure you catch any loose fur from the family pet. Want to save time on vacuuming? Vacuum the bottom portion of the staircase, don’t drag your vacuum all the way up. The lower few stairs will get the most traffic and be most visible to your company.
Go through and collect garbage out of all of your cans and replace them with fresh can liners. Finish freshening up your space by lighting some seasonal candles.
Time to get your home clean. Make a plan and take action. Organizing paperwork is not top of the list, but clean garbage liners, and fresh towels can make all the difference.
productive round of speed cleaning! Don’t get caught up in details, like organizing paperwork, those projects are better left for another day. Stay focused on the big tasks and then relax and enjoy your company.
This Article has been viewed 159 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
No comments yet.We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.