“Hey, it’s me . . . Debbie/Sheila/Rebecca/Whomever! We’re on our way to Colorado/California/Massachusetts/Wherever and I just realized we’re passing through your town. We’d love to stop by!”
“Uhhh, ummmm, that’s WONderful! Why don’t we just meet you somewhere, y’know, so it’s easier for you . . . ”
“Oh, but we want to sit and talk, and let the kids play, and maybe let the dogs run around in your backyard. We don’t mind at all just hanging out at your house!”
“What time do you think you’ll come through?”
“We should be there in about 15 minutes!”
“Great, see you then.”
Click.
Scream!
I’ve written before about getting my messy house ready for guests that I know are coming . . . like, in a month. But the reality is that you don’t always have that much time to plan. Or even any time to plan.
Pre-blog, moments like these made me feel sick to my stomach. I would go on living my little closed-door life, thinking it wasn’t hurting anything all that much. Then, in the time it took for the phone to ring, I despised my home and my slob-problem because it kept me from being the spontaneous, fun-loving, welcoming friend that I otherwise think I am.
These moments still make my heart speed up, but I no longer confuse my physical reaction with food-poisoning. While the reality is that I still have random-items-randomly-left-on-random-surfaces strewn throughout the house at any given time, the decluttering I’ve done and the habits I’ve developed have paid off and there are fewer items than there used to be.
Here’s my abbreviated plan for little-to-no-warning/delightfully-unexpected guests, the basic principles of which can be adjusted for a house in any state, and expanded or contracted according to the time available between the phone brrrrringing, and the doorbell ringing.
1. Self-talk. Take a deep breath and remind yourself that this is an unexpected guest and that unexpected guests need to expect a certain level of every-dayness going on in the house where they’re popping in. If they’re the kind of friends who feel free to pop in, they should also be the kind of friends who can handle seeing that your house isn’t party ready on a random Tuesday.
(It doesn’t always work, but I give myself this talk anyway.)
2. Trash. Grab a trash bag and start stuffing it with anything that’s trash. Then fling the bag into the garage or the backyard or the master bedroom closet. No, it’s not ideal, but desperate times call for . . . you know the rest.
3. Clutter. Find an empty laundry basket. Maybe it’s just me . . . but the main things I don’t want people seeing are the things that reveal embarrassing family habits. Like getting undressed in the living room. Grab those undies out of the corner, the shoes off the coffee table, the toys-with-teeny-tiny-parts off the floor, and throw them all in the basket. Toss the basket in the master bedroom and slam the door.
(Depending on how bad things are, steps 2 and 3 can be combined. Not ideal for the person who tends to leave the basket full of trash/random-non-trash-items sitting in a corner of the master bedroom for . . . ummm . . . a while, but sometimes you have to do what you have to . . . again, you know the rest.)
4. Bathroom. Get the dirty laundry off the floor and into the hamper. Straighten the counter and wipe it down. Wipe off the toilet (and the walls, and the sides, and the floor . . . if you have boys).
5. Kitchen. Hopefully, you picked up the trash in step one, but if not . . . do it now. Shove the dishes in the dishwasher (even if it’s half full of clean dishes you never finished emptying) or into the sink. Start the dishwasher.
Mmmm-hmmmm. That’s right.
The sound of a dishwasher running gives the impression that you were in the middle of cleaning the kitchen. Dishes in the sink look you have the goal of cleaning the kitchen more than dishes spread across the counter. Let the cleared surfaces be deceiving. It’s ok.
WIpe down the counters, or at least wet a washcloth and put it on the counter so it looks like that was what you were doing.
6. Papers. Walk (or run) through the house and straighten paper clutter into piles. Again, we’re going for “Wow, she has so many projects going on,” instead of “Wow, there was paper everywhere.” (You could include the paper in the laundry-basket clutter collecting, but mixing important papers in with clutter is a recipe for long-term disaster for me.)
7. Scent. Light a candle, or spray something, or plug something in. Whatever you have that will make your house smell good . . . do it. Yes, the goal is to cover up any smell you may have grown used to, but it’s more than that.
Just last week, I got a warm fuzzy feeling walking past a house that we looked at with our realtor when we first moved to this town. It’s a cute house, but nothing special. It would NOT have worked for us. For one thing (and this one thing might as well be the only thing), the only bathroom accessible to guests was also the master bathroom . . . connected to the master bedroom.
Yeah.
Unless this is your first time on my blog . . . you know that wouldn’t work for us.
I don’t remember the house’s decor, or the kitchen or anything else . . . but I remember the scent of the candle that was burning. It smelled so good in there that I wanted to buy the house. Nowhere-to-hide-master-bedroom-disaster-waiting-to-happen and everything.
Ever since we looked at that house, I’ve used the scent trick. I have no idea how it works psychologically, but if you walk into a place and say (or even just think), “Mmmm, it smells good in here,” you automatically also think . . . “I like it here.” For a slob, even a recovering one, it may not be possible to make a good impression visually, so I have no problem with going for the nose.
8. Perspective. In any last remaining moments, stand at the front door, looking into your home the way your guest will first it. See what they see, and do what you can to make that first impression the best it can be. For me, it’s my dining room. Somehow, it’s the room that seems to collect the most clutter, but it’s ALSO the room that guests see as soon as they walk through the door. Any extra moments I have before the doorbell rings are spent on this room. Even if I have to move a major project into another, less first-moment-obvious room, it’s worth it. A cleared table in there makes a huge difference in the first impression for someone entering our home.
And that’s what this is really all of these things are about. The first impression. The sound of the running dishwasher, the pleasant scent, the sight of a clear table . . . all are for the purpose of giving off the vibe that this is an in-the-midst-of-living happy home. Once that feeling is established, the less likely it is that a forgotten pile of clutter or an undusted/fingerprinted television will be the thing they most remember about your home.
Hopefully . . . it will be the time spent with you that they remember.
I have used several of these before! For us it was the spare bedroom that most things got dumped in and closed off. But it’s the same idea. “Quick, Honey, will you take all that stuff and put it in there. I’ll get the kitchen. Ready… Go!” With really little kids I would plunk them down in the middle of the slightly smaller toy mess and pretend they had just made it. People are forgiving of a small pile of toys when the kid is there. I’m much better than I used to be too! I’ve really been loving your blog. It’s helping me too.
I am on my iPhone, and I can see the NEW blog! Wow, dramatic makeover. Love the CLEAN white.
We often have drop-in guests. It can be nerve wracking, but as long as LR and guest bath are ok, I don’t stress too much.
are we sharing worst stories….lol..i might win…
first off..stay at home mom here…who is a slob..sigh…
my sister is 14 yrs older than me and can out clean anyone…she will scrub paint clean off the walls…seriously..it’s happened and she had to repaint..
she is 99lbs of muscle (yeah not a typo..i swear we’re blood sisters..she got the leanest, and cleaning gene, i got the pudgy diabetes skin cancer thing…yippeeee) she keeps threatening to come over and show me how to clean..and clean for me…I WOULD DIE OF EMBARASSEMENT
we now live 4-5 hrs apart..and i’ve not answered the phone at times where i knew she was heading this way….(hangs head in total shame..knowing our blessed mother in heaven is not pleased with me..)
a co worker of dh’s was coming to pick up the on call cell phone..and i ran to meet him in the driveway as to not embarass dh..well the fact i was in my jammies in a northern winter…barefoot in the driveway…not embarassing..but a messy entry/lrroom and so on…embarasing…good grief)
our master bedroom is also the dumping ground…and the basement is..but our basement is dungeon like…so things are rarely seen from again..(yet if it was so important why would it stay down there for a year and we be able to live without it..)
i’m struggling so hard with the new baby to get back (who am i kidding i was never there..lol) to GET a sense of normalcy and baby proofing…nothing like seeing the 9m old with a “tuff: of the cat’s fur…we’re working on it…sadly not faster than he’s learnging to walk and crawl..yep in that order apparently..
wow..sorry for the highjack..but that felt great to let it all out….LOVE YOUR BLOG NONY..enjoy your holidays..
Cindy, you really need to visit my blog. I have the same issues too! LOL. I’m working so hard on decluttering right now in order to just make it simple enough to keep up on it. I’m tired of having to ignore calls or pretend I’m not there. It totally stinks. So, we have been putting boxes in each room. AS we see stuff we don’t need, we’re throwing it in there. For some reason I just can’t do it at once. I have to do it slowly day by day.
Even as someone who isn’t really a “slob,” this is exactly how I prepare for guests! I try to pick up clutter several times a day, but I have a 2-year-old (and often leave stuff lying around myself), so there’s always at least some picking up to do. I try to pay special attention to the bathroom, the kitchen, the cat litter (including lighting a candle in that room!), and the glass door that greets guests when they arrive. Those tend to be the messiest places/things I’d be most embarrassed about.
I’ve used several of those techniques before, I’ve even sent my husband out to show off the livestock as a way to stall incoming guests
First off, the site looks fantastic!
I can totally relate to this. Thank you so much!
LOVE IT!!! Oh my gosh that is what I do. Wow that is me to a T.
Now I know why undies in the living room are such a feature of your blog, I change in the bathroom a lot so that where my embarrassing, oops I left the undies on the floor stories take place.
Ha, I loved this post it’s all too true in my own life! Just shared it on my blog
I’d like to add “open all the windows for ten minutes, even in the middle of winter” to the preparing-for-guests plan. If they’re coming in from outside, your house still feels warm to them even if you only just closed the windows again, and the fresh air smell tends to make people think your house is cleaner than it is.
Yes! I totally do the “oh you just caught me cleaning” play. My favorite is quickly making the bed, dumping the clean laundry on top, then very neatly folding 2 or 3 items so it looks like laundry in progress instead of laundry that may or may not have been on the floor for two days.
My scent tricks are giving the kids a bottle of Method glass cleaner (smells like mint) and a rag–they spray a lot so the scent gets around, and occasionally manage to wipe some dirt away. Also, putting Bath and Body Works lotion on my hands right before someone comes over has inexplicably caused people to say on 3 separate occasions that my house smells great — ? No idea why or how this works but now I do it every time.
I love the idea of opening your windows for a few minutes to let in fresh air, especially in the winter when things tend to be closed up for to long. I also remember as a kid my parents having a real estate agent that stocked his fridge with cookie dough. Anytime he was having an open house he would bake a batch of cookies. He said the smell of baking cookies makes a house feel like a home.
I’ve heard that real estate trick too! I like the candles that smell like cookies. I’d probably be entertaining for a while and then the guests would ask, “Is there something burning?”
LOL, I loved this one. Got some nice tips.
For us, it is my father-in-law that likes to pop in unexpectedly. It is SO frustrating, because he knows when he is going to be in town, but doesn’t bother to let us know until he’s here (he works in our town every now and then). I’ve actually had DH tell him before that if we only get 10 minutes warning, he isn’t coming in the house. So we generally end up eating out when he comes to town.
My dad once called me and said he was parked in my driveway. Uh, heart attack much? Thankfully, he only wanted to drop something off on his way to visit my grandmother.
I spray Pure Citrus orange air freshener into the return air vents (turn house fan on, first!). It *could* be a cleaning smell, but really, the scent of oranges is happy and fresh!
Okay…I’ve been catching up on your website all weekend and marking your progress proudly…until I read this post!! I laughed until my sides hurt, then realized you still have a long way to go. A LONG way to go. This is truth spoken in love. But I know your readers (including me) would miss Nony the slob if you were to suddenly stop, say, having undies in the living room???!!! Putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher with the clean ones???? Oh well, at least you are a germaphobe and wouldn’t put dirty dishes in the cabinet with the clean ones! And because I’m terrified of my rather tidy home smelling like dog…I totally have a candle burning when anyone comes over.