Fake a Clean House for Last Minute Guests

Surprise!  You invited friends from a play date at the park over for dinner tonight, or your significant other called and is bringing home dinner guests.  You look around and realize your house looks like a scene from Hoarders (well maybe not that bad).  How are you going to possibly clean the house and make a meal in a matter of a few hours? 

Take a deep breath and relax.  See my post from earlier this month on roasts or consider something in the slow cooker so you have more time to clean, but don't worry.  I'll give you a few points on faking a clean house in less than an hour.

Before you start anything considering serving your guests outside.  If you have a nice, clean, patio and the weather is nice consider having a bbq.  Guests won't mind helping wipe down a table and chairs for dinner and the less time they are in the house, the less time they have to notice dirt. 

Before you start cleaning crack a few windows.  Fresh air will make your house smell less stale and get rid of whatever odors your house normally smells like.  The fresh air will also help take away the vinegar smell or whatever products you use to clean your house. 

Clean up the clutter first.  Make sure you remove the clutter from surfaces like counters, tables maybe even the floor depending on your house.  We keep a mail tub with all of the random papers we collect and when guests come over we just move it to the desk in the office.  Honestly, you just have to move the clutter to a bedroom or office, a room the guests won't be seeing.  You can easily close the door to a messy room.  Clutter makes the house look smaller than it is, it also makes the house look messier than it actually is.  Cleaning off the clutter is the fastest way to make a house look cleaner. 

After the clutter is put away clean off the surfaces of everything.  I run a quick duster over bookshelves and the tv.  I also use vinegar and a rag and clean off the table and counter tops.  The counters may get dirty again from dinner, but that's explainable and crusty dinner from last night is not.  While I'm doing this I also take a quick check of the walls and knock down any new cobwebs and scrub any big marks on the walls. 

Peek into your guest bathroom.  Make sure there is tp, soap and a clean hand towel.  Sweep the floor or wipe down the toilet or sink if they look dirty.  You can basically clean an entire bathroom in less than 15 minutes so it shouldn't take very much time at all to check and clean anything that needs to be fixed.

Lastly, I clean the floors.  I usually vacuum them and if I have extra time I'll steam mop or use a little mop and glow to make them extra clean.  I might also vacuum off my couches if they are full of dog hair and I have extra time. 

Your house is ready!  At least it looks clean even if the bedrooms are a disaster area.  Remember you are the harshest critic of your own house.  Guests just want to spend time with you, they don't care about your house.  As long as you make them feel welcome, have fun and maybe go the extra mile to serve something yummy, your guests will have a wonderful time.

Organize Your Household Contacts

I know many people already a household notebook, but if you don't I suggest you make one this weekend.  I learned how important they are during my wedding, when I had a wedding notebook.  All of the information I needed for my wedding from caterers to flowers was in one place.  After I got married I took the same concept and applied it to my home life. 

It's a running joke in my family that my dad has a "guy" for everything.  He has a floor guy and a yard guy, he even as a concrete guy.  The truth is, it's important to have maintenance people that you trust and would hire again.  Whenever I have someone do maintenance at my house and they do a good job, I take their business card and put it in my household notebook.  This way I can either hire them again, or if someone ever asks me for a an awesome duct cleaning guy I have his number. 

I also put recipes and take out menus into my notebook. You may want to use a separate binder for these things, it just really depends on how many contacts you have. We are just starting out so we only have one binder, but I'm sure one day we will build up to having more.  The good thing is the menus and recipes aren't in a junk drawer or pinned to the fridge, they are organized in one place on my bookshelf. 

To make my notebook a little more durable, especially because I use it in the kitchen when doing a recipe, I put each piece of paper in a clear page cover.  I also place the business cards into the same pages kids but their baseball cards into.  You may be able to find ones especially for business cards, but it was much easier for me to find the baseball card holders. 

The point of the binder is to organize your life and all of the little papers that would normally be shoved into a junk drawer and lost or pinned up somewhere in the house, making it look cluttered.  This means every so often you should go through the binder and clean it out.  I find that the take out places especially go out of business or change their menus so I try to stay on top of cleaning out the old menus. 

Having all of your "guys" in one place is going to make your life so much easier.  The last thing you want to do when a pipe bursts in the middle of the night is boot up the computer and do a search, trying to remember the name of that company you used that one time.  All you have to do is pull out the notebook and flip to the page. 

Spring Cleaning Checklist

This is my spring cleaning checklist.  I saw a cute idea on an article on theknot.com where points are assigned to each chore depending on difficulty and time it takes to do the chore.  Then you compete with your significant other or your entire family and see who can earn the most cleaning points. Not every house is the same so your list might be different from mine, but this is a good list with some tips to help you get started on your cleaning.  If I forgot anything please feel free to leave a comment and add it to the list!

Don't be a crazy person and try tackle all of this in one day, pick and choose one or two chores to do in a day.  Think about maybe making simple or quick and easy dinners for days you decide to clean so you don't have to clean all day and then cook all night.

While your working on a room try to at least open the windows in that room if not the entire house.  The fresh air is going to get rid of that stale smell.  Fresh air has also been known to reduce illness and asthma.  The other reason to open windows is to ventilate if you are using any chemicals. 

First off clutter cleaning is the most important.  One of the quickest ways to make the house look cleaner is to remove the clutter.  Consider donating the items you no longer need, some places like St. Vincent de Paul will even send a truck to your house and give you a receipt for tax purposes.  Look for outgrown clothes, old toys and gadgets when you are sorting through your house.  Removing these items will put you on your way to a clutter free house.

Living Room

• Wipe down all walls and knock down any cobwebs
• Dust ceiling fan and wipe it down with a cloth dampened with vinegar
• Turn off gas to fireplace and dust under the fireplace (I have 4 dogs so it gets dirty)
• Wipe down every blind with a cloth damped with vinegar
• Dust off tv and wipe down all wires behind the tv
• Vacuum under all couch cushions
• Vacuum dust off bookcase and dust by hand
• Steam mop floors

Bedrooms

• Wipe down all walls and knock down any cobwebs
• Dust ceiling fan and wipe it down with vinegar
• remove winter sheets, wash them, and put them away
• Freshen the bed by sprinkling with baking soda and then vacuuming off after a few minutes
• Put spring sheets on the bed
• Remove any unwanted clothes from the closet
• Bring spring clothes to the front of the closet
• Dust off nightstands and dressers
• Remove aluminum blinds and wash them in a bath tub making sure to dry them off

Kitchen

• Wipe down walls
• Remove aluminum blinds and wash them in bathtub
• Throw out all expired food from fridge and wipe down all shelves and drawers
• Defrost freezer
• Throw out that tv dinner or whatever else that nobody in your family is going to eat ever
• Organize pantry by putting your oldest cans in the front, tossing expired food and donating the food your family will never eat
• Deep Clean oven
• Wipe down all drawers and shelves
• Clean out that pesky junk drawer
• Put ice down the garbage disposal to sharpen blades
• Put orange peels and baking soda down garbage disposal to give it a fresh clean scent
• Wipe down all appliances that sit on the counter

Bathrooms

• Scrub shower with vinegar and baking soda
• Clean off mirrors
• Knock down cobwebs and wipe down walls
• Replace or wash shower liner with a towel in the washing machine if you have one
• Scrub down toilets, sinks and trash cans
• Steam mop the floors

Office

• Dust down everything
• Wipe down walls and knock down cobwebs
• Toss out old files and papers (Shred them first!)
• Wipe down the wires
• Freshen the sheets on the guest bed by washing them

Outside

• Weed all garden beds
• Power wash sidewalks and driveway
• Sweep out garage and make sure everything is organized
• Wash screens with soap and water

Time to celebrate because your house is clean!  Have a glass of wine and order some Chinese food for dinner tonight.  The person that collected the least amount of points has to order, pick-up and/or pay!