Guests don’t always give you lots of notice before arriving. Sometimes, things just happen and before you know it, a bunch of people are coming over to your house soon. Or even if you do have more notice about company coming over, you still might not have a lot of time to spend cleaning your house if you have a busy schedule.
Even if you stay on top of your household cleaning, you want things to be extra nice for your guests. Cleaning your home to get it ready for visitors doesn’t have to take a lot of time and energy. Here are a few tips to help you clean your home in a hurry.
Prioritize
Whether you’re just having a few friends over for dinner or having a relative stay for the weekend, it’s very unlikely your visitor will be spending time in every single room of your house. If you don’t have a lot of time to clean, simply focus your time and energy on the areas your visitors will actually see. For most people, this will probably be places like the entryway, living room, bathroom, kitchen/dining room, or guest bedroom. You can always just close the doors to the rooms visitors won’t be seeing anyway.
Get Rid of Clutter
Eliminating clutter goes a long way in making your home instantly look more organized. Start by taking a look around the room for things that don’t actually need to be there. If you see things that actually belong elsewhere in your house, move them. Or if you see things you no longer need at all, like old magazines or newspapers that are a few days old, throw them out or recycle them. Now that you’re left with the things that actually do belong in the room, try to organize them the best you can. Doing simple things like organizing stacks of books, putting your kid’s toys in a box, or putting remote controls together in a basket will all help make a room look neater in an instant.
If you’re really in a hurry, you can always just temporarily hide clutter in places your visitors won’t be seeing. Yes, even professional cleaners condone this old trick!
Air Freshener
A clean house doesn’t just look clean, it smells clean, too. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to make your home smell nice without having to use artificial air fresheners. If the weather is nice enough, you can always open the windows to get some fresh air. Can’t open the windows? No problem. Simply boil a pot of water and add something like cinnamon sticks, lemon wedges, sliced oranges, cloves, or a few drops of an essential oil to get some nice smells in the air. And of course, candles will also do the trick.
Work from Top to Bottom
When you’re pressed for time, it’s important to clean as efficiently as possible. We’ve all heard the expression “cleaning the house from top to bottom,” but it really is the best way to clean. If you were to hire professional cleaners to clean your house, this is exactly how they’d do it. When you start cleaning at a higher level in a room, you knock dust and dirt down to lower levels until it’s all eventually on the floor and can be vacuumed, swept, or mopped up. That way, you don’t have to worry about going back to re-clean things that you’ve already cleaned.
Let the Light In
Once you’re done cleaning, don’t forget to open up your curtains or blinds. Even if it’s dark out, rooms with open curtains and blinds look more open and inviting than they do when they’re closed.
