Guests are coming, but your house is a mess! What to do? Do you plan to keep them contained to the “clean” part of the house? Do you scramble to clean the guest bathroom just in case? Do you set the entire family into overdrive and send them into different directions of the house with cleaning supplies and stopwatches to make sure they move from task to task as if they’re participating in the first annual Housecleaning Olympics?

When guests are expected, most of us want to ensure that our house is presentable. Model-home spic and span clean would be great, but let’s get real. Who lives like that all day every day?

Does the relationship of the guest determine just how clean your house needs to be before their arrival? There’s sister clean, best friend clean, dinner party clean, or even worse, “mother-in-law is coming” clean.

What is it about the alarms that sound in our heads when we expect a visit from guests? I think it’s because we don’t want people to talk about us behind our backs. They’ll think we’re slobs and we don’t want to give them that impression – even if we really are slobs. Then again, maybe they’ll understand, because their home is inhabited by people who live in each room, move things around, and don’t always notice the dust bunnies on the unused coffee table.

I’d love to have my home look like a picture out of Home and Garden magazine, but the fact of the matter is that we’re a busy family of six. Although we have daily chores, the house never seems to get an all-over deep clean. Sure, we may get one room presentable enough for a photoshoot, but having two rooms in such condition at the same time almost never happens. We live in our home, which means things get moved around from room to room and don’t always make it back to their proper place in a timely manner. But anyone who walks into our home on any given day will quickly be able to determine one thing: this home is lived in and loved. So what we missed the cobwebs on the ceiling? Maybe we’ll get around to removing them tomorrow, but odds are that we won’t, because there are dance and music lessons, scout meetings, errands, work, school, church activities, and whatever else makes it onto the calendar.

Unless your house is on the market for sale, relax and enjoy it. Most of us don’t have hired help to pick up after us, so even though the furniture may be different, the size and style of the house may not be the same, and the fact that different people inhabit each house, we’re all human and we’ve all seen dust and misplaced cups.

If your guests don’t like the appearance of your house, invite them over for a housecleaning party then kick back, watch, and relax.

Let’s chat!

Love to all!

CC