To wish my house was permanently guest ready?

[apples83]

DH and I have some friends coming over for drinks tonight. As ever in this situation, I’m frantically cleaning the house to try and get it looking half presentable for when they arrive (DH did upstairs and the front room earlier and has now gone to visit his mum). Cue mad dusting, vacuuming, mopping and a big tidying away session. I’m now slumped on the sofa shattered and am only halfway through!

Every time this happens I vow that I won’t be in this situation ever again and that if someone is coming round, my house will be such that I simply need to tidy away a few bits and bobs give the kitchen surfaces a cursory wipe. As it is I have to give up half of my weekend doing some sort of deep clean like a crazy woman.

Does anyone have a guest ready house at all times and if so, how do you do it? (Cleaner not an option here as budget doesn’t allow sadly).

I've been told by guests they like that we are relaxed about hosting.

Not sure if that means I'm a slattern.

My main tactic is to ask people round at night, turn down lights and light candles.

Then give them a large drink quickly and feed and entertain well so they forget to judge whether the house is 'guest ready'.

I've been told by guests they like that we are relaxed about hosting.

But you can be both relaxed and tidy.

True! But other people's houses often seem more show homey than ours.

My house is not guest ready for my standards usually (I am a bit neat obsessed) but my friends have shown on many occasions embarassment when I visited their homes because it wasn’t appearently as tidy as mine (I didn’t think of it like that) and this is the clue: people generally don’t see your home the same way you look at it.
They don’t know you had no time to hoover or change the towel in the toilet etc unless it’s obviously very dirty.

Some things I do:

Don’t put too much stuff in your home. Minimalism looks tidier.

Put the stuff you have away. For example put your DC’s toys in a basket instead of scattered around the place.

Put fresh flowers on the kitchen table and nothing else.

Make sure your home smells nice. I use a room spray from Zara Home (Gardenia) or use a scented candle.

Make sure your toilet is always spic & span. It makes people think you’re a super clean person. I usually mop the floor, wipe the toilet seat and put fancy soap there before guests arrive.

I don't tidy up after my family, but if they leave stuff lying around, I do put it into supermarket bags for life (one for each person). Superficially it looks tidy, but without me doing lots of work. When they go looking for something and can't find it, they go through their bag for life and put it away

Love it! That is genius!

(1) robot hoover
(2) a cleaner once a week. The night before she comes I make sure everything is tidy so she can do her job; she also irons so I make sure the washing is done and either put away or ready to iron.
I grew up in a messy household and still have a tendency to procrastination and hoarding; but I finally feel I'm 'on top of it' most of the time now.

True! But other people's houses often seem more show homey than ours.

At the end of the day, all that matters is whether you're happy - you're the one who lives there after all!

You lot sound organised. I'm getting inspired.

Which robot Hoovers are good? Quite fancy getting one. Big house, hairy dog.

Good storage and little clutter.

You have to be ruthless throwing things out.
I keep a basket at the bottom of the stars and anything I find downstairs that belongs upstairs goes in the basket. At the end of the day I take the basket up, do a scope around upstairs and bring downstairs items down.

With the bathroom/ Kitchen we wipe down as we go. Last one to use the bath each day gives it a Cif and a squirt of bleach in the loo. Wipe up the kitchen while dinner is in the oven and pans straight in the dishwasher once served.
I do laundry on a saturday am. wash it all (3 -4 washes on an eco wash), then take it up the laundrette to dry it in the industrial dryers. The weeks worth is dry in about 20 minutes.

we are 'statementless' with most paperwork as I found filing away total brain ache. If I need a statement, which is a rarity, I go online and print what i need.

It's like everything, it takes ages to get into a habit, but once you are it pays dividends.

Which robot Hoovers are good? Quite fancy getting one. Big house, hairy dog

Roomba by i-robot

Expensive (we paid about £300) but worth every penny. Great for kitchen floors

Thanks for recommendation

Our downstairs is always presentable, upstairs not so much. We have NO clutter and nothing on kitchen worktops.

So if friends are coming for dinner, we only have to do a 5 minute titivate as they won’t go upstairs. The 2 downstairs rooms that might be messy are the study and utility and thankfully, guests don’t go in either.

I'm a naturally messy person who has become a tidy person. Our home is very small and the front door opens onto the living room so there are very few places to hide clutter so we have none. I favour a minimalist look so hate things dotted around, thankfully DH is not a hoarder either.
Having a dishwasher is fantastic for hiding all dirty pots so the surfaces are always clear. We've only just got a tumble dryer so now we have no washing hanging around and fewer items to iron. My kids can make as much mess as they want but the table must be clear before dinner and everything goes away at night.
So my tips are declutter as much as possible, clever storage, quick tidy before bed, everything in its place. I don't find it too much trouble to keep on top of at all.

Our front door opens directly into our kitchen so no hiding. Downstairs and the bathroom is always visitor ready. We do it as we go along so no build up of washing up etc. Occasionally clean laundry piles up on the end of the kitchen table where I take it from the tumble drier in the utility room and fold it on the table but one of us will take it up to the bedrooms once a day or so.

The bedrooms are a different matter and can get untidy during the week, though we are really trying to stay ontop pf them more now.

We had a load of friends over last month and went REALLY deep clean before hand so it's easier to maintain now.

The kitchen is always clean and tidy as is the sitting room.

Having a clean and tidy home does wonders for my mental wellbeing. I get very stressed when there's crap everywhere. I'm a Team TOMM follower too, so I'm not cleaning all the time but my house is always acceptable. It's never show home, but I'm not embarrassed to have people round.

And if all else fails, I was once told that if you spray polish on your radiators (so the smell of polish goes round your house) and clean the downstairs loo, people are tricked somehow into thinking your home is immaculate.

Over the last 10 years I have slowly moved from "have to spend an entire week decluttering and deep cleaning before a guest can visit" to "have to spend 30 mins running the hoover around, clear some stuff off the kitchen counters and spritz the bathroom" and I think that's a pretty big improvement. I'd like to get it down to a 5-10 minute spruce up but that's not really easy with 2 young kids.

And I agree ALWAYS make the loo and bathroom sink spotless and shiny before visitors come. To me the loo and sink say far more about someone's standards than if they have a couple of mugs that need washing up on the kitchen counter, some paperwork piled up on the side, and toys scattered in the living room. Those things are just signs of living, whereas a dirty loo and sink makes it look like you don't care about hygiene.

I find this thread really worrying. Such high levels of anxiety : 'I cant go to bed unless its perfect'. Very worrying sign. Where does all this anxiety come from? It doesn't bother me, I wouldn't care. My house is reasonable, most of the time. And that's good enough!

Once we had a big party. How are you one guest asked a young ds2.
"oh its been awful, he said, we've done nothing but clean. I've been down on my hands and knees doing the skirting boards".

I don't know, it just is. I mean, I'm just back from the gym and the only things that stand out are the sofa cushions needing rearranging, a glass bringing through to the kitchen, the washing up needing to be done and the hoovering to do. All of which will take me about half an hour.

I made the bed, tidied our room and wiped round the bathrooms and put loo cleaner down the loos while I was getting dressed this morning. Stuck a load of washing on before I went to the gym and tidied up the den and opened up the curtains on my way out.

Can you make a list of set jobs for each day so that at least everything is being done once a week, so:
Monday- laundry, mop floors, clean bathroom
Tuesday - ironing and dust downstairs
Wednesday- change beds and dust and vac upstairs
Thursday- wash towels and tidy up
Friday - food shop and general whizz through with vac.
Every day I wipe round the bathrooms quickly and do the loos, vacuum (2 hairy dogs), do the washing up and redistribute people's belongings they've left laying around. Takes maybe 30-45mins.

We have a guest ready house with a 5 and 1 year old. Our strategy is weekly cleaner, and tidying as we go along and before bed every night. Everything has a place in our house and we are clutter-free (regular trips to charity shop), so tidying is very quick and easy. We have a separate playroom which really helps too, and our daughters tidy up after themselves (not so much the younger one yet!).

I find this thread really worrying. Such high levels of anxiety : 'I cant go to bed unless its perfect'. Very worrying sign. Where does all this anxiety come from?

I agree, I think it's deeply concerning. And actually deeply depressing to see women normalising the extent to which they still appear to think that a clean house is a sign of their self-worth.

I find this thread really worrying. Such high levels of anxiety : 'I cant go to bed unless its perfect'. Very worrying sign. Where does all this anxiety come from?

Worry about your pension; about your children; about your mortgage but don’t for heavens sake worry about the fact that I LOVE making sure my kitchen is beautifully clean before going to bed and then walking in to it spotless the next morning. Makes me happy!

@mingvase why do you consider it to be a sign of self worth? It's nothing of the sort for me, this is simply how I prefer my home and surroundings to be. I love knowing where something is when I wish to use it and not having to scurry round like a mad woman should someone want to pop in for a coffee. It makes me feel calm and happy to have a beautiful home.

The word for frantically cleaning before guests arrive is to 'scurryfunge'.