Stop comparing yourself to other people.
Just do your personal best for this get together with the time
you have and whether you do things right or you just do them
depends on how much time you have left.
When your house is a mess and you're feeling the stress, what
you need is a friend in your ear.
Start the job and you'll see it through with Ronnie talking to
you. Make the Chaos Disappear with Me
podcast is here. Thanks for joining me.
In today's episode, I'm going to talk you through deep cleaning
your kitchen and then taking care of some finishing touches
throughout your house to get it ready for your holiday guests.
Let's get right into it. It's time to gear up for our
cleaning session. Maybe you need to get your house
smelling fresh. Take out the trash, reline it.
Wipe down the exterior parts of your waste baskets.
OK, maybe you need to let some fresh air circulate or open some
curtains to kind of energize you.
Although going outside to take out the trash is a great way to
kick off a cleaning session because, you know, you get
moving and you get some sunshine, and that's often the
way I get started. I'm not going to talk about
laundry because at this point I'm assuming you're getting
close to your guests arriving and you don't want to keep doing
laundry. The only exception is if you
have to wash some bedding for guests.
I did instruct my teenage son to wash his bedding because his
room is one of the potential guest rooms.
OK. And then my office in the back.
I've already got fresh bedding on that one.
Just for quick, just a quick recap while you're doing
whatever you need to do to gear up for your, your cleaning
session. Maybe you need to get yourself
presentable, but while you're doing whatever you need to do.
In case you haven't been following my series on deep
cleaning for guests, I've been having people #1 store more
stuff out of sight #2 deep clean surfaces #3 buy anything you
might need for your party or overnight guests, like for the
shower or something, and #4 wash any bedding they might be
sleeping on. OK, so I'm going to kind of
revisit those topics throughout the episode.
So I just wanted to let you know those are kind of my 4 main
steps. And I realize number one and two
are pretty involved, but I'm going to assume that you've
already done a lot of the early preparation.
And today you just need to make sure that your kitchen is ready
and then do kind of a whole house walkthrough and of course,
clean the floors. We're going to talk about all of
that in this episode. But right now you're just
gearing up. Maybe you need to freshen up for
the day. I wanted to bathe before I
started recording. My hair is still wet, but I'm
well on my way to being ready for the day I'm dressed.
Or, you know, maybe you need to have your waste baskets empty
and relined for your cleaning session because we are going to
be cleaning out your refrigerator and most likely
you're going to be throwing some stuff away as part of that
process. My husband even checked the
expiration dates on our salad dressings and tossed some.
Our ranch in 1000 Island never expire because we use those so
often, but he found some other dressings that were expired
because we don't use them as often.
But we'll get to that. We'll get to that.
Right now you're just kind of gearing up for your cleaning
session. As with any cleaning session in
the kitchen, I want you to gather up any dishes from around
the house. Maybe you have a mug on the
night stand or your teenager has a cereal bowl in their room.
It's time to get all that stuff to the kitchen so that when you
do dishes, you're you're taking care of everything at once.
OK. And I'm assuming that your
guests are arriving today in this episode, but obviously
these episodes will be beneficial whether you're having
guests or not. You can always use these as fall
deep cleaning episodes. And if you haven't heard the
other episodes in the series and you have more time, definitely
go back and listen to some of the other ones after this to
make sure you've taken care of everything that needs to be
done. OK, while you're gathering up
those dishes, I will just give you the reminder that your house
doesn't need to be perfect. You just don't want to have any
build up anywhere that looks like you haven't cleaned in a
while. And you want your guests to feel
comfortable and that that like they're eating food that was
prepared in a clean kitchen because it was OK.
And people might be helping you in the kitchen.
That's why that's an an area of focus.
Even though you probably keep your kitchen sanitary, you wipe
down your countertops regularly and clean your stove top and you
clean out your sink, it's not going to give the right
impression if there's food smears on your lower cabinets,
for example. So we're going to be taking care
of all that. I'm going to help you check
those boxes so that you don't worry about anything, but I'm
also going to be assuming that you've listened to the other
episodes in the series. OK, While all of these episodes
are kind of standalone, ideally you started preparing for guests
weeks in advance. But again, if you didn't after
this episode, go back and listen to the other holiday deep
cleaning episodes. You just Scroll down and they're
the recent ones. That way you can make sure that
you've checked all those boxes, especially if you have several
hours before your guests arrive. But that having been said, we're
going to be taking care of the most important things in this
episode that you would do just before your guests arrive.
Now that you've gathered up all of your dishes, it's time to get
started on your dishes. And the first thing I want you
to do is put away your clean stuff.
I want you to empty that drying rack and clean it and clean the
countertop under and around it. If you have a drying rack.
I also want you to empty your dishwasher because of course, if
you have a dishwasher that you use, you're going to be loading
it OK. And I encourage you that if you
hand wash, you might even want to put your clean hand washed
dishes into that dishwasher that you don't use and use that as a
drying rack because then your dishes are going to be drying
out of sight. That would be a good trick.
If you know the assuming the inside of your dishwasher that
you never use is clean and that your guests are arriving fairly
soon and that you might not be able to put everything away,
that might be a way to have your countertops cleared and looking
streamlined for that first impression when your guests
arrive. And you could always empty the
dishwasher later. Oh, you have a dish?
Well, I'll use it as a drying rack.
Whatever. OK, it's just a thought.
I'm saying that because my husband likes to hand wash and
sometimes uses the dishwasher as a drying rack, so I'm just
throwing that idea out there now for some get togethers.
I actually stash my drying rack in the cupboard under the sink
just to make my kitchen look more spacious.
But that's more for somebody stopping by or, or you know,
having one meal that I've already prepared or something
like that. Thanksgiving is a time where
people are working with you in the kitchen and they're going to
be helping you probably by not everybody, but they're probably,
if you're having several people over, there are a couple people
who are going to step up and like start kind of washing
dishes as you go. And they're going to need a
place to put stuff. So you're probably going to need
your drying rack, but you're going to want to make sure it's
clean. OK, So.
And yeah, mine has hard water discoloration, like almost
everything in my house. OK, my shower walls, my shower
doors. And a friend of mine told me
this a while back. You can deal with the hard water
by scrubbing with like an abrasive scrubber and some
vinegar, but some of us don't always keep up on that.
We're just kind of spraying glass cleaner on our glass and
wiping it down. And, you know, we're washing our
our drying rack tray with dish soap and not necessarily soaking
it in vinegar. But if you have time and you
have super hard water, maybe you could soak the tray of it and
vinegar for a little while while we're doing other things in the
kitchen, especially if you're already caught up on dishes.
But as long as there's no dirtiness on it, it's going to
be OK. The water spots are not that big
of a deal, so once all of your clean dishes are put away, go
ahead and start washing your dishes.
But something I want you to do differently is check the
refrigerator for anything that needs to be washed.
Maybe you have a nice glass container that has leftovers in
it. You're going to want to purge
all of your leftovers before cooking a holiday meal, OK,
because nobody's going to be eating those older leftovers.
They're going to be eating the Thanksgiving or Christmas
leftovers, depending on when you're listening to this episode
or insert holiday that you're cleaning for.
But for a lot of us, the time that we have a lot of people
over is usually going to be Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Let's just make sure that your dishes are clean and that your
drying rack is clean. If you do air dry your dishes in
the drying rack, unlike usual, try to put them away a couple
hours later after they've dried. OK, I realized that maybe you
leave your stuff in the drying rack and then maybe empty it in
the morning while your coffee is brewing or maybe right before
you start to wash more dishes. But I encourage you to kind of
start with a clean slate. You definitely, I mean, there's
a lot of dishes involved when you're cooking a huge meal with
several courses, you've got to get down to dish zero.
OK, you've got to clear those leftovers out of your
refrigerator. And I do remember I said if you
have a nice glass container with leftovers, I said that for a
reason because those semi disposable containers, the
Gladware or whatever, you can just toss to save time.
OK, We've got to be ruthless about throwing stuff away and
focusing on what matters when we're in that final cleaning
session before guests arrive, like the the night before or the
morning of. I've mentioned this before, but
I like to save the Hillshire Farms lunch meat containers.
And no, we don't eat a ton of processed meats, but my son
takes a ham sandwich to school twice a week and there are no
added nitrates in the Pilshire farm, so it's not too bad.
And what I love about that brand, because I could buy other
brands, but what I love about the brand is those containers
that I can reuse. But I always reserve the right
to throw away semi disposable containers.
And I also sometimes just buy a package of those types of
containers. We usually wash them and reuse
them, but I definitely toss them at times as well.
So once you've removed any containers from the refrigerator
that you need to wash, just start plugging away at those
dishes. You might need to get the
difficult items soaking and then wash the easy stuff.
If you're a combo washer like me where you use a dishwasher plus
hand wash, you want to get those difficult pots and pans and
leftover containers pre rinsed and then full of hot soapy water
and soaking. And then the easy stuff like the
glasses and silverware. You could be just kind of
rinsing under running water and then scrubbing with your
dishwashing brush or your abrasive sponge or whatever.
Just kind of removing the food, putting them into the
dishwasher. OK with the idea that once the
dishwasher is loaded, those other difficult items have had a
little time to soak, you can go ahead and hand wash them.
Or maybe you have room in the dishwasher to finish pre rinsing
those items and place them into the dishwasher.
We definitely try to stop generating dirty dishes when
we're getting closer to having guests arrive.
I mean, my husband did cook dinner last night, but he made
something simple. But, you know, you could also
consider, if you're listening to this the night before your
guests arrive, you might want to consider ordering some pizzas or
something if money permits. That way, you know, and just
eating them out-of-the-box or off of napkins, you know, or
paper plates. That way you're not generating
more dishes to wash when there are other deep cleaning tasks
that you want to focus on. OK, so I'm assuming you don't
have a huge pile up of dishes, but no judgment here.
If you do, you can always pause the episode, listen to some
music, come back to it, you know, whatever works.
But I'm going to give you a couple more minutes to take care
of those dishes, and then I'm going to have you start cleaning
out your refrigerator. People are going to be in and
out of your refrigerator. OK, that might be because you're
cooking a huge meal where maybe people are eating at like 1:00
in the afternoon and then they're reheating leftovers at
dinner time or getting a, you know, a cold pumpkin pie out of
the refrigerator. I love pumpkin pie when it's
cold or they're going in there just for the whipped cream.
They're going to be opening your refrigerator if it's kind of an
all day feast. Also, if it's a potluck, people
could be bringing things over, placing them in your
refrigerator. People could be helping you
clean up, putting the leftovers into containers and placing it
into the refrigerator. You know they're going to be in
the refrigerator, so you're going to clean out your
refrigerator and microwave. OK, you're not going to make a
big project out of it, but if you're if your refrigerator is a
total nightmare, you might want to listen to my dedicated
refrigerator episode after this. If you have a lot of time and
you're like, I'm not going to clean the refrigerator right now
because it's going to take me a long time.
You're probably overestimating how long it's going to take.
But I do have a dedicated episode that gives you like 30
minutes to clean your refrigerator.
So I will link to that in the episode description in case
somebody wants to spend a little more time on that, you know, and
maybe, you know, you're dealing with other surfaces in your
kitchen. OK, just while I talk, I want
you to be cleaning out your refrigerator and microwave, and
you can always just use dish soap and hot water.
Hot water is your friend when you're cleaning areas that have
dried on food. You want to get the water as hot
as possible. OK, I often clean my dishwasher
shelves with just a rag and an abrasive sponge and some liquid
dish soap, super hot water. And then I shine the shelves by
cleaning them with white vinegar and a paper towel or microwave
microfiber cloth. OK when my husband cleans the
refrigerator, he takes the shelves out and cleans them.
But you know, you might be cleaning it and, and obviously
that's the best way because it gets the stuff that's around the
edges or whatever. That's a thorough way is to kind
of take everything apart. But you might be cleaning at the
last minute. So you might want to just scrub
the visual area, you know, visible areas and just get up
next to the edges or whatever. But you'll see if there's some
kind of a spill where you ought to remove something, like if
there's a visible spill and you wipe down a shelf and you can
see some kind of a substance around the edge, then then you
know you have to remove it. OK.
But yeah, you just pull everything out.
It's not going to get too warm in the amount of time it takes
you to clean the refrigerator. You can either pull everything
out at once or you can do it shelf by shelf.
Like you can start with the door, then you can clean the
bottom shelf. And, you know, you could start
at the top or bottom, depending on what you're worried about,
whether you have a, you know, you shouldn't have open
containers of food. If you do, you're going to move
those out before you clean. OK?
Like, if you have just some uncovered item in there, it's
not as hard as you think. It's one of those chores that
you tend to procrastinate on because you think it's going to
be more involved than it is. It it really isn't.
You just need super hot water, something abrasive, some kind of
soap. You know, the liquid dish soap
is safe to use inside your refrigerator.
And if you are worried about like the glass being cloudy, you
can fix that by using white vinegar as your glass cleaner.
And we all know about those little tricks for cleaning the
microwave where you put some hot water with like lemon or vinegar
and you like boil it to loosen the debris or whatever.
OK, you can do that. But you can also just use an
abrasive sponge, like a, a sponge that has an abrasive side
and a soft side and the liquid dish soap and the hot water.
OK, you can clean almost everything in your house with
dish soap and water, like other than your glass and mirrors,
which would obviously be clouded, but you'd be surprised
how much you can do with just some liquid dish soap.
I think the reason we get other products is just sometimes we
don't want to have to scrub as hard and different products are,
you know, good on different things.
I am still going to be wiping down some cabinets today.
So I wanted to mention that the product that I especially like
for that is and I'm not, you know, sponsored by these
cleaning products, but like some of you are asking for product
recommendations. There is a pledge multi surface
cleaner. It's not that old school pledge
that your mom used just on like the wooden furniture.
OK, it is a different one that's like in a blue and orange
container. It's a little expensive, but
that stuff's great because it works on glass and other
surfaces like wood. It works on your countertops, so
if you needed to clean your kitchen with just one product
other than the dish soap, that pledge is definitely 1 to get
because you can use it on the glass windows of your appliances
or your stainless steel appliances.
You know, obviously, disclaimer, read your owner's manual if you
have such fancy stuff that you've got to use certain
products, but I use it. I'm just telling you what I use.
I will use that on the stainless steel refrigerator on my
appliances that are a combination of stainless steel
and black and have windows. It that product does all the
things. OK.
So that's definitely an easy way to go.
But it and I'm I'm excited about scrubbing my cabinets with it,
but at the same time, I could use dish soap if I needed to.
OK, you might not have time to go to the store, so you might
need to just use whatever you have.
And then I also have a more natural cleaning spray, the
Myers. But when I'm deep cleaning for
guests, that's not the time for these soft products.
OK, in my opinion, that's more of a nice everyday product where
you're, you know, you're limiting your, if you're
limiting your exposure to toxins and you want to, you know, be
careful with the sprays you use and stuff.
And there's science to back that, OK.
But special occasions call for the stronger products in my
opinion. So just be working in your
kitchen while I talk. And then after we're done
talking about the kitchen, I'm going to talk about going
through a whole your whole house and just doing kind of a
walkthrough and putting things away.
I'm going to talk more about that in case you have anything
that's out and you're also going to be looking for certain
problems. I'm going to tell you what to
watch out for. I'm going to help you look at
your entire house through, you know, the lens of a guest.
And then of course, you're going to do a little bit of dusting
and vacuuming, sweeping and mopping at the end.
You're probably going to want to put on some music for that.
It definitely helps keep you energized.
You might need some more caffeine.
Maybe you need to pause the episode right now because you're
feeling a little bit overwhelmed and caffeine kind of calms you
and energizes you at the same time.
Don't come at me if you're not into caffeine, but when I have a
lot of cleaning to do, there's definitely an iced coffee
involved and it might be my second or third one of the day,
but I'm still going to drink it if I have a lot to do.
OK. And I don't know, does anyone
else drink coffee more for like the mental relaxation that it
provides? I'm not saying that coffee is a
downer to me. I know people like with severe
ADHD or whatever, like coffee might be like a total downer for
them. Like it has the opposite effect,
or at least they say it does. OK that's not what I'm talking
about. Coffee does energize me and make
me feel like getting up and moving around but at the same
time it relaxes me mentally. So like during the visit I might
have like my Stanley full of some iced tea or something just
as my 0 calorie companion drink. I'm not sure if I mentioned this
before, but I've I've discovered doing like cold brew tea and at
first I thought I had to buy like a specific product for
that. But then I saw something online
that you can do it with any tea bag.
And it's kind of that same principle where our mothers used
to make sun tea. They'd put some tea in a jar and
the water wasn't hot, but they'd put it out in the sun and let it
sit. Well, you can actually just put
regular water, whether it's room temperature or cold, in your
Tumblr. Drop a tea bag or two in there
and then let it sit for a while and add ice, or even add your
ice right away. And the tea does provide flavor
to the water. Maybe it's not as strong as if
you'd heated the water and obviously it doesn't brew as
quickly, but it does flavor the water.
It does work and I, I find that it's super convenient and just
be working in your kitchen, OK, Your refrigerator, your
microwave, your countertops, your sink, your stove top.
OK, I'm assuming you already deep cleaned your oven a while
back, but I find that it's convenient on those days that I
work at the school, I work at the school twice a week to make
these cold brew teas just by throwing in water iced tea bags
and then, you know, screwing on the lid.
And by the time I get situated at work, you know, maybe an hour
after I put this drink together, it has a lot of flavor.
It just does so. And I don't recommend
necessarily paying extra for the cold brew tea bags because I
couldn't really tell the difference and I just have a lot
of tea bags in stock. My personal favorite companion
drink, 0 calorie companion drink is and what I mean by a
companion drink is just something to kind of carry
around and keep near you. Like you know, you're visiting
and you have that on the end table or whatever, or you're,
you're going to work and you have it in your tote bag.
But I'll do 1 green tea bag and one mint tea and I think I have
a green tea with lemon tea bag that I sometimes use with
another tea bag that's mint. But yeah, use your favorite tea
bags. And I drink a lot of plain
water, but we all get bored with water sometimes and some of us
have a little caffeine addiction.
I have a lot that I need to squeeze into this episode.
And I'm not expecting you to get all of this done necessarily
during the episode. You might need to go into
overtime, especially to clean your floors and whatnot, which
I'm going to kind of advise you to do at the end, but just make
sure that you clean the inside of your refrigerator and
microwave and spray and wipe down your stove hood.
That might be an area you don't deal with very often.
If you're tall like me, you don't really see this, the
inside part of the stove hood, but you might have somebody
shorter helping you in the kitchen and they're going to see
it and it needs to be cleaned anyway because that's gross to
just leave it gross. So spray and wipe that down.
Don't obsess over it. Just spray and wipe it down so
there's no debris that might fall into the food or something.
Gross. OK.
And wipe down your cabinets. I think I mentioned that.
And then just look around, you know, do you need to clean any
outlets, switch plates, pantry doors?
OK, but you've probably been dealing with things like that.
You've probably already cleaned baseboards.
I'm also going to link to my baseboard episode in the
description in case you're listening to this at a time
where it's not really the last minute for you and you you still
want to go back and do that. There is a bonus episode that's
all about baseboards for financial supporters.
Another thing, and I'm just throwing things out there, I
know I can talk faster than you can clean, but another thing to
notice in the kitchen, are your windows OK?
I'm a little disappointed because a few days ago I washed
the kitchen window and the sliding glass door inside and
out meticulously, and my dogs have already dirtied up the
sliding glass door and I said something about it.
And my husband's just like, well, we have pets and he's not
even really into the pets, but he's just trying to tell me like
it's normal that they're these doggy prints or whatever.
Obviously, I'm not going to be able to keep up-to-the-minute on
that, and I have other things to focus on.
So I told my daughter, who's kind of the main one who lets
the dogs in and out. Like, can you just shut the
curtain this week after letting the dogs in and out?
Because I have a sheer curtain that covers that sliding glass
door. It lets a lot of natural light
in, which makes my house look bright and big.
I love my sheer white curtains, but it also disguises those
smudges on the sliding glass door.
But if you haven't at least cleaned the old build up off of
a kitchen sliding glass door or a kitchen window and you have
time, that's something to think about.
But windows probably should not be your top priority if you are
running out of time. You want your kitchen to look
sanitary and the windows aren't super important.
You should have done it in advance.
All right? That said, if you have a kitchen
window sill, this is so random, but this was one of the things I
did a few days ago where you've grown seedlings and stuff.
There could be like a little bit of spilled dirt in the window
from these little projects if someone in your family puts
little plants in the window or whatever.
So make sure you vacuum those up and wipe down those window sills
and vacuum out those window tracks because it looks dirty.
Even though you know it was for an herb garden or whatever, it
looks super dirty to have visible dirt there, whereas your
dog's putting muddy footprints on the back door doesn't make
the inside of your kitchen seem dirty.
Choose choose your battles. I've got to get this cat out of
here. She's meowing.
I did not know that my daughter's cat was in my office.
She started meowing like right next to me 'cause she wanted me
to let her out of the room. Speaking of cats, your guests
don't want to see your litter box.
Days ago, we relocated it to my daughter's room and I'm hoping
that it stays there. Obviously, once you've cleaned
the upper surfaces in your kitchen, you're going to want to
sweep and mop or vacuum and mop, but I'm going to have you do the
floors in your entire house in one fell swoop.
When I'm doing something like cleaning floors and vacuuming, I
like to hook up whatever I'm listening to to a large
Bluetooth speaker rather than wearing like the earphones and
earbuds. Like, I tend to have headphones
on when I'm cleaning out a closet or folding laundry or
doing dishes. But when it comes to those
heavier chores where I'm, you know, using a vacuum that makes
noise and things like that, I like to switch to a large
Bluetooth speaker. Let's talk about walking through
the rest of your house. If you need more time in the
kitchen, pause or rewind the episode.
But let's talk about things. Do you have an entry?
Do you have a tile entryway that you usually just run over with
the vacuum? Today would be the day to sweep
and mop that or vacuum and mop that to shine it up.
We do not mop our entryway that often.
We just go over it with the vacuum because it's not like the
kitchen where, you know, there could be food spills or whatever
it it's just kind of part of our living room.
But that's on the To Do List for today to shine that up 'cause we
have some really pretty shiny tile.
If you are one of my higher dollar Patreon supporters, you
know what my tile looks like because I recently posted a
picture in there of my Swiffer on the tile.
I have that tile in both bathrooms as far as the floors
and shower walls, and then my kitchen floor is that kind of
tile and then also my entryway and it's very shiny, so I do
like to try to shine it up for guests.
You might have other things to deal with in your entryway.
Maybe you need to dust a piece of furniture there or whatever,
but your entryway is a first impression area.
And don't forget about the front porch.
OK, Usually the way we clean our front porch is we power wash it
with a hose, like we power wash the front door and just kind of
the front of the house. And this time it's fall, my
husband needed to rake the leaves, which he already did.
We had so many leaves accumulating on our porch.
Like most people have leaves all over their front yard.
They rake them into a pile or whatever, the way the wind blows
in our area or something. All of the leaves just
congregate on our front porch and just pile up at the front
door. So that's been dealt with.
I'm just throwing that out there.
Maybe that's something you can delegate.
I feel like a lot of husbands prefer the outdoor.
Don't don't come at me for stereotyping.
A lot of them would rather do something outside.
I know someone who every time she's having a party at her
house, she will ask her husband for help cleaning the house.
And, you know, he's out in the yard trimming a tree or doing
something in like, you know, the remote corner of their backyard
that nobody's going to see. They, they like those outdoor
tasks better oftentimes. So it's quite possible that your
spouse might rather hear, hey, can you power wash the front
porch and rake the leaves? Then can you clean these
baseboards? But great if he can help you on
the inside of the house too. That's great.
And my husband does a lot both inside and outside, but he has
retired sort of OK. We are waiting for that to kick
in when he turns 62. So special thanks to our
financial supporters who support the show either on Patreon,
Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or some other way that's helping us get
through kind of a tight financial time.
Because if you don't already know this, my husband's company
shut down before he was old enough for retirement, but he's
already had a quintuple bypass and this and that.
So he doesn't really want to start a new job at this
juncture. So we're kind of just weathering
the storm for these next few months.
And your support is helping us to do just that.
And even after that, your support helps me justify the
time I spend on this show. If you're listening to this
episode in the future, there might be commercial breaks, but
at the time of this recording, I don't have any commercials, so
I'm only making money from the bonus episode subscriptions.
So you're making a huge difference in our lives, and we
appreciate that. But again, if I ever do get
dynamic ads again, they'll be inserted across all episodes.
So if you heard a commercial, it's because you're listening to
this in the future, OK? Also, focus on your main living
area. We talked about the entrance.
Let's focus on your main living area.
OK? It could be that people are just
walking through a front room and then they're going to be hanging
out in a family room that's farther back in your house.
Obviously you want your whole house picked up, dusted and
vacuumed. OK, But I want you to spend a
lot of time on the main room that they're going to be sitting
in. Let's remove clutter from that
room. For example, if you keep a toy
box in that room, then it weigh down, pack a lot of the toys
away so that the kids aren't going to make a mess at the last
minute. OK, my grandkids toy box is down
to like 5 items for during the visit where we're going to have
a lot of people over so that they aren't just spreading stuff
everywhere and creating an obstacle course in my living
room. I can bring back more toys later
or I might choose to keep it real minimal and just kind of
rotate the toys in and out. OK but there could be some other
issue. Just look around, check for any
cobwebs, any super 30 strips of baseboard, you know, grab a rag
and some cleaner and just deal with any problems in the main
living areas. OK, if you haven't dusted in a
while, quickly dust the furniture.
This could be as simple as grabbing a feather duster or a
dry cloth. OK, Just make sure that there's
not any visible dust and, you know, straighten those cushions
and make sure that the house looks good.
You also want the house to smell good.
If you know when your guests are arriving, light a candle like 30
minutes prior. And here's an interesting tip
for your living room. I was doing some research online
and I was like, how did I not know this?
But I watched so many videos about preparing for guests
because I like to kind of, you know, consume content before I
make content, just to kind of give me ideas.
And one thing that so many videos talked about was to use
lamps instead of overhead lighting.
And I do have a lamp in my living room, but it's just been
sitting there without a bulb for the longest time because we
typically turn on the overhead lights.
There's a light in the entryway, which is part of our living
room, And then there's a ceiling fan with a light.
Once we turn on those two lights, we have plenty of
lighting. And that's just what we've been
doing. But I mentioned to my husband,
like, supposedly, like we're supposed to be using lamps to
kind of, you know, create some ambiance or whatever.
So we put a light bulb in that lamp in the living room so that
in the evenings we can turn on that lamp.
Light the candles and it's going to be evening when the guests
arrive, so we'll have that lamp on, we'll have the candles lit
so the house will smell good, it'll look nice.
And this will also draw attention to our fish tank,
which is kind of an interesting focal point.
So just make sure that your main living area or sitting room,
family room, whatever you call it, looks presentable and it's
been dusted. And maybe create some ambiance
using lamps and candles. Obviously you don't want to go
to the extreme where you're, you've got the room just dark
and it's just candlelight. OK, you have the lamp on, so it
looks like you've got a light on, but then the candles are
also noticeable. The fish tank, if you have it,
is also noticeable. So those are just some staging
ideas. And in the fall, it's always
cozy to have a pretty blanket draped over the couch.
And even if we don't end up lighting the candles, you know,
because we're cooking or doing whatever, I have some fresh wax
in the wax warmer and the whole house smells like cinnamon.
Of course, you're going to walk down any hallways, check for any
problems. Hopefully you've already cleaned
the baseboards in your hallways. Again, I'm going to link to a
baseboard episode in case you still have time to do this.
But I'm assuming today is kind of the culmination where you're
just doing kind of a final walkthrough.
OK, Of course you're going to touch up your bathrooms,
especially your guest bathroom. But if you're having a lot of
people over, you definitely need to make sure that that secondary
bathroom is presentable as well. I have deep cleaned both of the
bathrooms. Make sure that there's toilet
paper, extra toilet paper, fresh clean hand towels for guests
that are going to be there for the day.
Also bath towels if you're having overnight guests.
And then you might need to, if you've deep cleaned your
bathroom recently, you might need to just touch it up with a
glass cleaner or a glass and surface spray.
OK, touch up the mirrors, touch up whatever.
OK, the most important rooms when having party guests are
your main sitting area, your kitchen and dining areas, your
guest bathroom. But of course, if you're having
overnight guests, you need to go into the bedrooms as well.
Or there's just a chance somebody's going to go into a
bedroom. Maybe they need a place to wrap
gifts, maybe they need to change a baby on your bed or something.
So make sure that the bedrooms look good as well.
Obviously at the the last minute, it's OK to lock a
bedroom if you need to. Oh, sorry, that bedroom's not
childproof, so we're keeping that one locked.
But you can go in this other room, you know, that sort of
thing. OK.
But obviously if you're going to have guests for like a week,
they're probably going to see into all of your rooms.
Look around your guest room, make sure that it's neat and
tidy and there isn't any dust building up anywhere.
OK? You basically want to get your
whole house vacuum ready, OK, if you haven't already done so.
And earlier in the series, one of the first steps or the first
step was to store more stuff out of sight.
We talked about like cleaning out closets so that you'd have
more storage. Well, now's the time to use that
storage space and start stashing things away.
OK, when you had a couple weeks before the get together, you
were organizing your closets, you were decluttering, you were
throwing things away, you were donating things, you were
organizing things. So ideally now you have some
extra space in your closet so you can hide that basket of
residual clean laundry that you're not going to have time to
fold. At this point you can stash
those random items that you're still storing on the floor
somewhere. You can clean your bedroom
teenager style and just stuff everything in the closet because
ideally you freed up space for that.
There's definitely a time to quit doing things the perfect
way and just put everything out of sight so that you can vacuum
and dust and your house will look good.
OK, It's not the end of the world if somebody opens a closet
and it's a little stuffed or whatever, they're probably not
going to be opening a closet. I mean, they might open a coat
closet if they're you live in an area that's cold and people wear
heavy coats that they need to hang in a closet.
They also might open a linen closet if that's where you store
your towels. But what they're not going to do
is open your bedroom closet. OK?
I mean, if you're worried about them maybe hanging things up in
the guest room closet, just open it and make sure there's nothing
super embarrassing in there. But your closets don't need to
be perfectly organized. You don't need to prove that
you're the perfect housekeeper. You just need to show that you
know how to throw a party and that you know you can dust and
vacuum and have a sanitary kitchen and a house that smells
good. OK, Very few of your guests have
a perfect home, OK? And if they do, it's because
they're in another season of life.
OK, maybe that guest with the perfect house never cooks, so
there's nothing to clean in their kitchen.
Or maybe their kids are grown or they're retired.
I mean, different people have different situations.
And I'm not saying that if your kids are grown or you're retired
that you don't struggle to clean the house and that you aren't
listening to this episode. But what I'm saying is stop
comparing yourself to other people whose priorities are
different. Their schedule is different.
They might be getting more help from a spouse, but then you
wouldn't want to be married to that guy because there are a lot
of bad things about him. OK, so there are too many
variables. Stop comparing yourself to other
people and just do your personal best for this get together with
the time you have. I mean, I could spend a lot more
time and money preparing my house for this get together, but
I have no desire. I have other things I need to
do. I'm going to be working on
homework later today. So again, just go through the
four steps to the best of your ability within reason, OK?
Based on the time you're willing to spend, the money you're
willing to spend, you're going to store more stuff out of
sight. Hopefully you've recently
cleaned out your closets or you just have some extra space.
Stick some things in there that aren't normally going to be in
there, OK, like your clean laundry basket or maybe some
items that you meant to take over to your daughter's house or
have her pick them up and they're still here, so you're
just going to put them in the closet.
OK? I'm using my own examples here.
So #1 store. Store more things out of sight
as you're doing your walkthrough #2 deep clean surfaces.
As you're doing your walkthrough, see if there's any
embarrassing surface that you failed to deep clean and just
get some cleaner and clean it. You probably cleaned most of
your baseboards recently, but if you see a dirty spot, clean it.
OK #3 buy anything you need. Maybe you need to go on a trip
to the store. I keep telling myself that I
might make the signature chocolate cake tonight, but I'm
not going to go get the ingredients for it because I
want to get my homework done first.
So I'm telling myself, if you get your homework done, you can
take this extra step of baking this cake at the end.
But it's not absolutely mandatory.
You know, sometimes you have to cut some things out of your
original plans #4 wash bedding. Yes, I'm going to make sure that
my son washes his bedding in case his bedroom becomes one of
the guest rooms. Set a timer to put it in the
dryer. Make sure you have clean towels
if you're going to have overnight guests, and decide
where you're going to store those towels, whether you're
placing them on the guest beds or under the sink in the
bathroom or on a towel bar or in the linen closet.
Just make sure you've got those clean towels and you know where
to find them. What I don't want you to do is
go dig them out of a laundry basket while your guests are at
your house. OK, Fold them and put them away.
And we talked about buying stuff.
If you have any finishing touches, you know, hang up those
cute towels you bought. Put out those decorations,
whether you're, you know, whether you're decorating for
Thanksgiving or Christmas. I decorate for Thanksgiving when
I'm having a Thanksgiving thing. So Christmas decorations are
either going to come out after Thanksgiving if my kids asked to
decorate or maybe even a few days later after the guests
leave. But I no judgement here.
If you like your house decorated for Christmas during
Thanksgiving. Like I didn't grow up with that.
So that's not what I do. My mom does it now so she can
take like cute Christmas photos of her dog and whatnot and just
'cause she has a lot of fun Christmas decor, but that's just
not how I do it. So as you're walking through
each room, just check for cobwebs, dusty areas, you know,
quickly dust the furniture doesn't have to be super
thorough. It could be it could be dry
dust, it could be wet dust, whatever is easy for you and
just items that you have out stash in the closet.
OK, I've definitely got a large container of clean laundry.
I'm going to just stick it in my closet.
I don't care if I can necessarily walk through my walk
in closet if the rest of my house is clean.
You see what I'm saying? Something's got to give
sometimes, and whether you do things right or you just do them
depends on how much time you have left.
So don't panic. Just dash everything out of
sight. Dust and vacuum.
Assuming you sanitized your kitchen during the beginning of
this episode and assuming your bathroom's been deep cleaned
recently. If not, prioritize that.
OK, now it's time to do that heavy work of doing all the
vacuuming and mopping and whatnot, so it might be time to
listen to another podcast or put on some music.
I hope you got a lot done during this episode.
I hope I motivated you and gave you permission to take some
shortcuts too. Oh, by the way, I was going to
schedule out another episode closer to Thanksgiving, but I I
decided to to combine the kitchen deep cleaning episode
with the finishing touches episode, which is what this was.
So I won't talk to you until after my guests leave and I'm
not even sure what day that is. So maybe I'll do a bonus episode
this weekend or maybe it won't happen till Monday.
Happy holidays, happy cleaning, and I'll talk to you sometime
after Thanksgiving.