Is your home always 'guest ready'?

[Bigbonesmeatandgravy]

If someone drops by unexpectedly would you be happy to let them in or would you feel embarrassed about the state of it? My house is always a bit of a mess and I feel conscious of unexpected visitors more often not. Things like the bin needs emptying, crumbs on the floor, dishwasher needs loading, clothes strewn around randomly. I feel like I spend half my life tidying so it's not laziness, it just gets messy again straight away. I also have one spare room that is a dumping ground and such a mess at all times that I would be mortified if anyone entered it.I have 2 kids under 4 so that's my excuse! YABU My house is always visitor ready YANBU My house is rarely visitor readyAnd if your house is a bit of a mess, do you care what people think?

Yeah cause I expect guests to take it as they find it and couldn't care less of they judged

Its relatively clean and tidy.

Good enough for us.

I agree with @HerTableLaid

Despite the protestations that men care I think this is still a sexist thing society (ie other women) judge women for.

Depends from day to day. I’m the tidy one whereas DH has a habit of leaving his arts and crafts stuff all over the place 😆 I keep telling him it needs to go in his mancave but it just ends up back in the kitchen.

I keep my house like a hotel. Everything has a home/a place and is put away. Everything has a sense of 'clean'. Fresh flowers continuously replaced as and when needed. Fluffy white towel bales ready to grab/use in the airing cupboard at any time (I bin any that have gone off colour). Continuously stocked on all essentials, we never run out. All essentials are placed easily to hand. The fridge gets a full clean inside every week when I do a food shop. Kitchen drawers are well arranged, I even hoover my cutlery drawer. I did a huge declutter when we moved in, a hell of a lot of stuff went. We now have no clutter.
The DC bedrooms are a different kettle of fish. I close the doors on those.
I enjoy having my house like this. I'm an introvert and don't go out much. I get a sense of calm from my house being like this. I have a huge mortgage at over £2k a month, so making sure my house is the best it can be is important to me.

Nope - far from it. Dogs, kids, working long hours from home and just life!!!!

Don't have the funds for multiple hours of cleaners and gardeners unlike my MiL who's house is immaculate, as is she. Never a hair out of place and her house is like a show home. She is also very judgmental and the person that instills the most anxiety at the prospect of just turning up on the doorstep.

My house probably isn’t up to some peoples standards (looking at you FILs wife) but as far as I’m concerned those that matter don’t care and those that care don’t matter! The kettle always works and my mugs are always clean!

I love this approach!

Nope. I don’t like visitors just dropping in, tbh I wouldn’t answer the door.

@Thefroglover

I keep my house like a hotel. Everything has a home/a place and is put away. Everything has a sense of 'clean'. Fresh flowers continuously replaced as and when needed. Fluffy white towel bales ready to grab/use in the airing cupboard at any time (I bin any that have gone off colour). Continuously stocked on all essentials, we never run out. All essentials are placed easily to hand. The fridge gets a full clean inside every week when I do a food shop. Kitchen drawers are well arranged, I even hoover my cutlery drawer.

I'm guessing you don't work full time?

Yes. I was brought up in a dirty, messy house and that shit stresses me out.

five people and four dogs and I’m still always visitor ready.

@Thefroglover

What a waste of time and energy. And towels

@Bogofftosomewherehot I do work FT and I have 2 SEN children. I don't have a cleaner. DH works FT too, but he does nothing to help in doors. He never sees mess/dirt.

No my house is usually only guest ready 5 min or less before said guests are about to arrive!
I try to keep the hall and kitchen reasonably civilised and contain unexpected "drop ins" within that area. Dh appears totally mess-blind and does almost no cleaning or chores at all and happily leads guests all over the house and I feel so embarrassed.
I am not naturally tidy but my DS and DH especially are forever leaving bags, sports kit, random items of clothes (clean and dirty), glasses (spectacles and drinking glasses!!) or cooking ingredients around.

The towels sometimes go into my emergency old-towel pile, which is in case we have a flood (as we have done in the past) or need to mop up sick from the DC or otherwise.

My home is never guest ready. Even when expecting guests it's a real struggle for me to get it reasonably OK. I am disabled and don't have a cleaner. People must accept me as they find me these days, I'm too old to let it bother me!

The living room is always tidy unless a game is underway and then visitors can put up with it. Bathrooms are always presentable, though DH's one sometimes needs a few bits moved. The kitchen varies hugely between tidy and a day's worth of crap everywhere, so people will be shooed into the garden or living room if it's having a bad day. There is always tea, coffee, juice, alcohol, some kind of snack (though not necessarily everyone's preference) and ability to make a quick meal for 10 at short notice. I've literally put together lunches for 7 guests plus us within an hour several times because my family called to say they would be passing and we invited the PIL so they could say hello (all are friendly), or because we arranged on short notice for a bunch of nursery kids to stop in with mums for lunch and garden play.

We keep everything in boxes; when things have a place to live there is no mess because it all gets slung back in. The living room gets tidied at DS dinnertime and everyone is so used to it that it isn't even discussed, the kitchen almost always gets a full clean in the morning at breakfast, and any bathroom mess gets cleaned at the time. We also have a cleaner, which means there isn't residual build-up of dirt.

Our front and back gardens on the other handare a shit tip of overgrown plants, weeds, leaves, stuff the foxes dragged in, some large garden toys, bird crap on the tables/ chairs and random crap DH puts there instead of dealing with it. If we want people in the back garden then it usually takes half a day to get it respectable and it isn't even big. We really need a gardener.

Just to add that I never used to be like this. I am peri menopause and have gone into major nesting. I have had to give up some hobbies to save cash due to the cost of living crises (the hobbies were £££ and cost a lot more than a few towels, before anyone harps on about the towels) so my spare time is spent at home. I don't really watch TV or listen to music much. The D are doing their own thing as they are teens, I cant go out and leave them alone in the house when DH is out, so I clean and tidy.

Why is it a waste of time and energy if it’s something that instills a sense of calm in a person topgub? It’s not for us to judge what keeps another person happy.

Rarely.

I try, I really do, but a combination of lazy family (and I include myself here!) renovations and just loads of stuff means it's almost always untidy.

We're also more dirty that I would like - but again, mainly down to renovations and an old house.

My mother is consistently horrified at the way we live. I've learned to switch it off tbh.

Kitchen and bathroom yes, living room ehhhh the sofas are a bit gross looking, bedrooms absolutely not!

I know this isn’t what you were focusing on, but please think about recycling or ‘fabric bins’ rather than chucking out towels just because they’re a tiny bit dingy/not perfect white.

I must say I agree about a tidy and clean home and I hate any mess or dirtiness or clutter, but I also dislike waste for waste’s sake. I try to sell/recycle/donate rather than throw things in the bin. Even discolored items (especially if they’re white) can often be bleach soaked back to a good condition. I used to know a woman who threw all her kids uniform stuff away as soon as it was not dazzling white and it drove me loopy, mine were passed down if possible and if they were still in good condition could always be washed and mended for someone else to get the good of them.

It's not because I care what people think (we never have visitors) it's more just because I got sick of having a messy kitchen all the time so now I wake up half an hour earlier each morning and clean the house before everyone else wakes up. Enough time to clean the kitchen, get the dishwasher on, sort some laundry, wipe down the bathroom, empty and turn on the robot hoover, and whizz around the living room. I tend to keep a bit of a tracker of what's been done and when and then I make a to-do list for the next day so that it follows on properly and things keep maintained. It's working well.

I had the attitude of 'meh it'll just get messy again', but actually it doesn't. There's daily mess sure but it doesn't build up and because we like how clean it is every morning, we make more of an effort to tidy up as we go during the day, as everyone now sees how nice it is when tidy.

If a visitor turned up unannounced, they might see dirty dishes piled up, waiting for the dishwasher to finish its current cycle, but that's about it

I think ruthless decluttering, and putting things away (rather than just moving them around) is the key

Although I agree with another poster that it’s about you more than guests. I’d find it a bit sad if my home needed to be improved for someone to sit with a cup of tea for an hour but was acceptable for me and my kids every day.

Absolutely not. Both me and DP work long hours and have a DS, dog and pregnant again so I give up. I try to keep the kitchen and bathroom in reasonably clean and tidy but am of the opinion life is too short to keep a house spick and span 100% of the time even if I did have the time, there are other things I’d rather be doing.

Sometimes if the stars align the mood to clean will strike me and then a guest will show up shortly after and give the impression I have my life together 😀

Probably only guest ready in as much as are there a few beers in fridge😁