Cleaning Your Home Before and After the Holidays
During the holidays, family and friends gather to celebrate the festive season. People host get-togethers at their homes, inviting loved ones to spend time with them to share meals and exchange gifts. One of the ways hosts prepare for holiday guests is to clean their homes. However, house cleaning is just one task that needs to be completed in preparation for the holidays.
There are many things that need to be done during the holidays, from cooking to shopping, so you may not have time to do a whole house deep cleaning. Once the holiday celebration is over, you’ll also have to clean up after your guests. Cleaning, however, is crucial; you don’t want to invite people over to a messy home and give off a bad impression. You also want your guests to be comfortable.
That said, it’s essential that you make time to clean before hosting this holiday season. For some tips on how you can clean your home before and after the holidays, continue reading.
Kitchen Cleaning
You will likely still be cooking while your guests are over. It’s not expected that your kitchen is spotless, but you don’t want it to look messy, either, with piles of dishes in the sink, or food and scraps throughout the room. Clean and put away what you can as you are cooking.
Whether by hand or with the dishwasher, wash and dry whatever dishes you can. Unload clean dishes for a cleaner, tidier kitchen. Leave open whatever counter top space you can and wipe them and any kitchen appliances down using an all-purpose cleaner and a microfiber cloth or wet wipes.
Pay attention to your floor as well. Sweep up crumbs and other dirt. If you have the time for it, consider mopping the floor to remove stains and sticky spots, and leave a nice finish.
Bathroom Cleaning
No one wants to use a dirty bathroom, so make sure you spend enough time and energy on your bathroom so that your guests have a clean bathroom to use.
Start by using bathroom cleaner on your sink, toilet bowl, and tub. Allow the cleaner to sit and work on these surfaces. As you wait to scrub and rinse these down, clean the mirror with an appropriate glass cleaner. Afterwards, use wet wipes to clean other surfaces, including sink counter tops and the rest of the toilet. Make sure you use a different wipe for each object.
Once the sink, toilet bowl, and tub have been scrubbed and rinsed clean, turn your attention to the floor, mopping it and vacuuming up any dirt and debris.
Bedroom Cleaning
Cleaning the bedrooms is likely to be less time-consuming than cleaning other parts of the home, but you still want to do a good job with this part of the house cleaning.
The biggest thing with cleaning bedrooms is putting everything in their intended place, particularly clothes. If you have any dirty clothes out, put them in the laundry basket. You don’t want guests to enter bedrooms only to find dirty clothes piled up or laying around. Put clean clothes in their respective drawers and closets and put away any other objects that might be sitting out, such as books and games.
Once everything is put away in their respective spots, wipe down televisions, dressers, nightstands, mirrors, picture frames, and other objects that are out. It’s likely that dust has accumulated on these items, so you’ll want to get rid of that buildup. Finish by vacuuming the floor.
General Cleaning
Generally speaking, there are several residential cleaning tasks you want to do for each section of your home: deodorizing, dusting, floor cleaning, and putting items away.
Depending on where you live and what the weather is like, it may or may not be plausible to open windows to air out the home and let in fresh air. If that’s not a plausible option, then use air fresheners throughout the home, but don’t go overboard. Too much air freshener will be irritating and can make breathing difficult.
If you have decorative items in your entryway, hallways, and/or hanging up on walls, dust these objects as well. Whatever items are out in your home that are unnecessary should be put away. For coffee tables and other decorative tables, wipe them down with an appropriate cleaning spray to leave a clean finish on the tabletop.
Based on whatever type of flooring is in each area of the home, you’ll either want to clean the carpet or floor.
Post-Holiday Cleaning
The storage spaces in your home may be labyrinths of hidden treasures, cherished memories, and future aspirations.
After your guests have left and finished celebrating with you, you’ll need to do another round of house cleaning. For the most part, you’ll want to do the same residential cleaning you did to prepare; you just might not need to do as thorough a job cleaning.
You’ll especially want to clean the bathrooms and kitchen. Other than that, clean linens, like tablecloths and cloth napkins, and treat any stains that may have been left by guests.
If you don’t want decorations to remain up long after the holiday, take them down and store them properly. Clean the decorations and spaces they occupied as you remove them. When you put them away, try keeping decorations for the same area together: entryway, dining room, living room, etc.
Whole House Deep Cleaning
Although the holiday season is a fun time of the year, it can also be a stressful one. With so much to do to prepare for the holidays, you may not have the time or energy for house cleaning. But you also know how important it is to have a clean home for you and your guests.
A professional house cleaning company can help you tackle the most time-consuming and laborious cleaning jobs (or just do it all for you) with their whole house deep cleaning services. Many will first send an estimator to your home for an assessment and to form a cleaning plan. Then, return to your home, ready to work, equipped with whatever cleaning products and equipment are necessary. All you need to do is call the experts, and you’ll be able to enjoy a neat and tidy home all the year round.
About Vince Sandri
Vince Sandri is a content writer and blogger with more than 12 years of experience. His expertise is in creating content related to disaster restoration, including information about preventing and reacting to natural disasters like flooding, water damage, fire and smoke damage, mold growth, storm damage and more.
Vince has been the main contributor to RestorationMasterFinder.com since 2014. Over that time, he has written numerous service pages and blogs for disaster restoration providers featured on RestorationMasterFinder.com. Vince has done extensive research and covered a wide range of topics relating to disaster restoration to help homeowners, business owners, and property managers better protect their property. He understands the problems that disasters like flooding, fire, smoke, and mold can cause as well as the best ways to respond to these issues to limit the damage.
Vince completed his Bachelor of Arts degree at Aurora University and his master’s degree at DePaul University. He has been writing SEO website pages, blogs, and press releases since 2012. Vince is also a musician and can be seen playing in the Chicago, IL area.
