With Christmas just a few weeks away, it’s time to start getting your home ready for the holidays. Hosting the festivities in your personal space is often a stressful task, but it can be made so much worse if you fail to prepare properly. Whether you have one guest, two, or a whole horde of family and friends invading your house, you should make sure that your home is clean, tidy, and full of Christmas spirit. With that in mind, here are seven things that you need to do to prepare your home for the holidays.
Clear Out Any Clutter
With people, food, gifts, and more being bought into your home over the next few weeks, you need all the space that you can get. Because of this, it’s important that you go through every room and clear out any belongings you no longer want or need. You should throw away or recycle broken and worthless items, but try donating or selling everything else. This way, you either help out a worthy cause or add a little extra cash to your Christmas budget.
Tackle Any Improvement Projects
Now that you have a little more room to think, you can write a to-do list of all of the home improvement projects you need to tackle before guests start to arrive. Many homeowners like to invest in new windows just before the festive season, as it can improve the energy efficiency of a property, thus keeping it warmer for less. This is a particularly useful idea during the colder months, especially when you have guests in your home that you also need to keep warm.
Conduct A Deep Clean
Once you have all of the messy improvement tasks out-of-the-way, you can go ahead and deep clean your home. While many like to leave this chore until the spring, conducting it just before Christmas means you’ll be able to cut down on daily maintenance. This allows you to focus on festive fun, rather than cleaning. Pay special care to your kitchen, as this is where you’ll be preparing the food for all of your guests.
Make Sure You’re Safe
Even if you don’t normally have young children staying in your home, the Christmas season means there’s usually one or two running around. To keep them safe, you should go through your house and child-proof any rooms they may go into. Any you don’t want them to, you should close and lock the door before they arrive or add a child safety gate to the door. Make sure to move any expensive or breakable belongings up high or to another room, just in case.
Stock Up On Essentials
Having guests, even for a short while, means that the essentials in your home, such as soap, milk, and toilet roll, are sure to get used up a lot quicker. To avoid an awkward run to the store, you should ensure that you stock up on these items and have plenty to hand. It’s also crucial that you have enough plates, chairs, and cutlery to go around. If you don’t, you can either ask guests to bring their own or buy spares cheaply at a local thrift or dollar store.
Assess Big-Ticket Items
We all want our homes to look their best when we have guests over, which is why Christmas is the time many people replace big-ticket items, like dining sets and couches. With that in mind, you should take this opportunity to assess such things and consider whether or not you could do with new ones. If you decide that you do, then ensure you shop the sales and use online comparison tools to find the best deals. You should also make sure they will arrive on time.
Rethink The Furniture Arrangements
Once your new furniture arrives, you should think twice before you decide where to put it. Christmas is all about spending quality time with your family and friends, so you may find that you’d like to arrange your living room around conversation, rather than the television. You’ll also need to make sure that there is plenty of room for your Christmas tree. If you need additional seating in your living space, you can incorporate folding chairs, ottomans, and cushions.
Christmas can be stressful for us all, but it doesn’t have to be. As long as you start your home preparations early, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t enjoy spending time with your family there. Hopefully, with the advice above, you know where you should start.
