Party Canapes And Wine

Top 5 Easy Cleaning Tips for Entertaining

April 15, 2016 | Cleaning Tips | No comments

Fitting in the time to keep your house spick and span can be tricky when you have a busy job and/or hectic schedule. We understand. But if you’ve got guests coming over you’ve got a great excuse to take the bull by the horns (and the vacuum cleaner by the handle) and scrub, clean and polish your home to perfection. Whether you’re hosting a birthday party, housewarming party, dinner party or just a friendly get together, here’s our advice for an easy pre-party spruce up.

Clean smart to avoid having to re-visit areas

Cleaning Stainless Steel Sink
Clean your floors before you do your dusting and you’ll find a whole lot of dirt falls on your freshly mopped tiles. Not ideal! Don’t work against gravity (because you won’t win); clean your home from top to bottom to avoid having to vacuum twice. Plan your cleaning order to avoid undoing your hard work too; if you’re constantly using the sink while you’re cleaning to wash your hands and rinse cloths clean it last. Empty your vacuum bin or change your vacuum bag after vacuuming as well to avoid the debris and dirt sitting in the vacuum cleaner and smelling.

Pay most attention to areas where guests will be

Once you’ve got into cleaning mode it’s easy to get sidetracked. Suddenly you find yourself two hours later having achieved nothing more than colour coding your wardrobe or organising the plant pots in your garden shed. Whilst (don’t get us wrong) these are perfectly worthy endeavours your guests are much more likely to notice a dirty toilet or dusty coffee table. Save the organisation of your cupboards for when you have a spare afternoon. Concentrate instead on your on living room, bathroom and guest bedrooms if your guests are staying over. These are the areas of your home your guests will actually see and you’ll be able to check cleaning off your pre-party to do list more quickly. (Now you’ve just got to tackle grocery shopping, food prep, decorations… the list continues…)

Clean out your fridge

Bottle Rack For Fridge Shelf
Having said that guests won’t see hidden messes, there will be places they’ll see that you may not have thought to clean. The inside of your fridge for example. Yes there’s a shrivelled old carrot in the vegetable crisper and a substantial collection of half full jars but who cares, the mess is hidden behind closed doors. Hidden, that is, until a helpful guest opens the fridge to help you serve up food or to pop some drinks in to chill. Cleaning out the fridge before a party is a good idea, even if just to make room for those extra bottles. You could even invest in a bottle rack for your fridge shelf to make best use of the space. (On a similar vein, if you have particularly nosey guests it may be a good idea to clean out the bathroom cabinet too!)

Open a window

One very simple trick to make your home smell fresher and the air feel cleaner is to crack open a window. Airing out your rooms will remove any musty smells or lingering food or pet odours. If the weather’s good you can leave the window open to add a nice breeze to the party atmosphere. If there’s a chill in the air though, adjust your heating accordingly after ventilating your rooms so your guests aren’t shivering when they arrive! Rooms still smelling a bit musty? You can easily add some freshness to your home while you vacuum with carpet cleaning powder or vacuum cleaner air fresheners.

Make space for additional clutter

Shoes In Shoe Rack
Sometimes you can spend all day cleaning, but as soon as the party starts chaos reigns over your home once more! If you want to minimise clutter during your get together, plan ahead. Empty bins to leave plenty of space for used napkins and bottles and make room on your coat stand and in your shoe rack for your guests’ accessories. Most important of all prepare yourself for the fact that spills are likely. After all the hard work you put in cleaning too. Sigh. But don’t let accidents interrupt the festivities. Concentrate on having a good time instead, what will be will be.  (Though keeping some old towels on hand to quickly deal with any messes doesn’t hurt.)

All said and done, there’s no need to exhaust yourself making everything spotless just because company is coming. Your guests will be far too busy having a good time to notice peeling wallpaper or that cobweb you missed on the ceiling. And after all the effort you’ve put in scrubbing and polishing you deserve a drink yourself. Time to get the party started!

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