The holidays are fast approaching and it’s house guest season! Whether you’re entertaining for an evening, a weekend, or the whole season, a cleaned out space is essential for maintaining a guest-ready and guest-welcome home. To help you get started on making room for your guests, we’ve put together 3 spaces to clean out before the holidays.
1. Clean Out Your Guest Room Closet
The simplest, and maybe most necessary (and obvious?) space to clean out before the holidays is to start with the guest room, and specifically, the guest room closet. Most of us tend to use our guest room closet as stash houses for junk, craft supplies, seasonal clothing, and I’ll say it again, JUNK! Your guests are going to be looking at that mess and will appreciate a place to stow their things while staying in your guest room.
If you’re hosting folks for longer than a night, you’ll want to make sure that there is space in the closet for your guests’ clothes, both to hang and to likely stow a bag or suitcase. Ensure that there are hangers, and room to hang on the closet rod. Bulky items like coats and chunky sweaters (common this time of year!) will take more room than you think, and should have a stronger hanger available for them. Consider at least three to five hangers per guest, more if the stay is longer than a few days. This luggage valet is a great option for in the closet, as it can fold up for easy storage, and has a shelf below, plus it has 1800 5-star reviews!
2. Clean Out Your Entry Coat Closet, or Mudroom
Along the same line as cleaning out your guest room, is cleaning out your coat closet or mudroom before the holidays. Having a holiday cocktail or dinner party? Guests will arrive with a coat and need a place to hang it! Are you a no-shoes home? Make sure there is a nice, welcoming, and well-organized space available for your guests to remove and place their shoes while they are at your party. Have a bench, an entry chair or stool near the area shoes are placed. Place a coat rack by the door! Ensure wall hangers, or empty hangers in a coat closet are available for guests.
Is your coat closet is full of your coats? If there is no available space or hangers, your guests will have nowhere to hang their coat. That can put them in an awkward position. Make it easy for them by doing a clean out before the holidays!
Donate A Coat
This is also a great time to donate any coats, jackets, or heavy sweaters that you’re not wearing anymore, or your kids have outgrown, as lots of organizations are collecting for homeless or folks in need. (Check out OneWarmCoat, OperationWarm, or this article!)
3. Clean Out the Playroom
Clean out the playroom or toybox before the holidays! Similar to coats, there are many folks looking for new or used toys this time of year! Find a thrift store that benefits a great cause or an organization that supplies gently used toys and make a donation to their play section! Cleaning out your playroom can help others. It makes room for any new toys your children might be coming into in the coming months. Cleaning out will help keep the kid-clutter at bay.
Cleaning out the playroom or toybox is a great activity to do with your children. Teach them about sharing, giving, and contentment! Practicing the “One in One Out” method can set your kids up for decision-making success. It will als0 teach them the valuable skills of how to live without, and live with less. Check out this great article with tips from Good Housekeeping to get your kids in on the clean out before the holidays.
If you’re looking ahead at the next three months and seeing a home full of friends and family, hooray! We hope that makes your home and heart warm and full of joy! We’d love to help you make space for your guests and clean out before the holidays. You can start the new year with a little less mess.
The heavy lifting, donation drop-off, can be done by us. We haul away the junk. We’re happy to help! Use our easy online booking tool, or call us directly at (510) 421-1730.