Surprise visit? How to clean your home in 5 minutes

SHILPI CHAKRAVARTY SHILPI CHAKRAVARTY
Home Staging Como Vender una Vivienda Eficazmente, Markham Stagers Markham Stagers Salas / recibidores
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Every one of us has had the unpleasant experience of receiving unexpected guests at home – either arriving without prior notice or dropping in earlier than expected. And the most dreadful thing is to have them when we are in the midst of our household chores with the house looking like a chaotic mess – be it the dirty dishes awaiting their time in the dishwasher or the clothes strewn about the overflowing laundry basket, disorganized furniture or simply a messy bed in want of tidying up.

Naturally we all love a tidy & organized house, especially when welcoming guests. The idea is to extend a comfortable and pleasant visit and above all, not to let others believe that we are living in the midst of a disorganized jumble. But when caught unaware with a sudden arrival of unannounced guests, we often scramble to making the home presentable in a few minutes. Though a thorough clean up is impossible, but we can definitely look around for elements having the most visual weight in space and take care of them.

You can make a start by picking up a trash bag/ bucket and emptying the social areas & bathroom spaces of all needless stuff. The same applies for a laundry basket. You can put the used towels & other such things in the basket for the time being and go back to separating colored & white washables later. Closing all the drawers & cabinet doors,  straightening the blankets & sofa cushions, aligning the controls for PC & television, stashing away the magazines and pushing the chairs under the table are some other quick tidying measures.

To avoid the stench of the leftover food, rinse the dishes with water & put them in dishwasher. Hurried measures like this are good to hold the fort while those unexpected guests are around.

Looks like a good start? There is more in this homify article. Read on… …

Do away with the dust.

Post entry, the space where you receive the guests is the living room, and that is why interior decorators are specifically directed to deck up the living room interiors whereby a good first impression is facilitated. You may like to lounge around the coffee table with the visitors or their kids may like to watch Television. 

Something simple & effortless is to run a soft cloth on the TV screen and the coffee table to remove dust that accumulates on them. Convenient clean up, no?

Surface sparkle counts.

First and foremost, do a quick identification of the most conspicuous elements in common areas like the kitchen counter, the dining room, the lounge space and the TV area, that generally constitute the focal points of an open plan living room like the one in the image. A wise thing to do is to clean the surfaces of the tables & counters first.  Vacuuming/ sweeping the floor also works. A really practical solution is to ditch the fancy cleaners & wipe with the damp cloth for instant cleaning.

Lavatory neatness – an absolute winner.

Clean bathroom always wins brownie points for a positive first impression. Keeping it neat and tidy saves us from worry in the hour of emergency. However, maintaining bathroom spick & span is not always easy, particularly in a house with a large family and/ or small children. A smart trick to impress visitors in such a scenario is to swiftly change the washcloth and quickly wipe the mirror. Very importantly, remember to check for toilet paper and hand soap. 

What do you think about this sparkling minimalist bathroom replete with woody warmth?

Stash away those dirty dishes.

Cuisine | Intégration façon loft | IDF, LUSIARTE LUSIARTE Cocinas de estilo moderno

Many of us use the kitchen space everyday- washing dishes & cleaning up regularly, even daily. However, those who tidy up at the end of the day, keep accumulating dishes such as the breakfast plates, tea mugs, etc.  By the end of the day we could readily have a considerable pile of dishes to wash, at times even before dinner. 

With guests waiting to be entertained, it is far better to hide the dirty dishes in the dishwasher or inside the oven rather than hurrying up to get the dishes on-  just put them out of sight!

Get rid of shed hair from furry friends.

It is wonderful to have pets, though quite laborious as well. Homes with pets are easily identifiable by the copious amount of pet hair/ fur that is inevitable wherever they go. It is advisable to always keep the house dusted of shed fur/ pet hair and prevent your pets from climbing on the sofa without you covering it with a protective cloth. When receiving guests, simply remove the cover and fold it until needed again. 

Also, as carpets & rugs attract hair easily, it is better to refrain from using them particularly when guests arrive. A quick vacuum or a damp cloth is also very useful.

Let there be light!

A dash of originality can make light our best ally, when it comes to creating a neat & orderly image of our snug pad. If your guests arrive during the day, the smart & convenient way is to raise the blinds & open the windows to let air from outside freshen up & natural light brighten the home. 

If using artificial lighting, employ secondary lamps whose light does not reach every nook- this way it can disguise, to some extent, a somewhat chaotic image.

Small details, BIG difference.

In your home, every element has a proper place & it is important to visually arrange each element to give an illusion of neat spaces. For example, in this living room, ensuring that the sofa cushions are tidy, frames are aligned,  magazines, etc., are not in chaotic piles and the controls are in place, has a significant contribution for maintaining an organized stance. Small things like this take no more than a couple of minutes yet make all the difference. Give it a thought!

Mind the smell.

Odor is an important aspect that measures the level of cleanliness & hygiene of a home. If a disagreeable smell emanates from your home spaces, consider it a red flag. For your home to always have a pleasant smell, fragrant candles are a great option especially in social areas to create a truly intimate ambiance. Air fresheners, the more widely used alternatives, last for months. 

In case you can find neither in your repository, open the windows to let the fresh air in.

Pssst… .be caught in the act!

Lastly, you can grab the mop & the vacuum cleaner and open the door to your guests pretending to be caught in the middle of a perfect cleaning spree. It will then be automatically justified that the house is a mess awaiting a thorough tidying up. Ain’t it a great idea?

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