How to Get Your House Ready for the Holidays
Audra Lowe: The upcoming holidays mean a lot of people visiting but sometimes there’s a little bit of drama with those last minute guests. You know what I'm talking about. Well Jennifer Adams one of the nations most sought after designer shows us what we all need to be prepared for.
Jennifer Adams: With settled adage, failing to plan is like planning to fail? Well for me having overnight guest creates a little bit of stress in my world no matter who it is. So I always like to have these two boxes ready to go. I fill these boxes with all the things that I can think off that the guest would want and might even be embarrassed to have to ask for. Because you shouldn’t assume that they're going to remember to bring anything.
And it also makes it so easy for me because I find out that I'm going to guest at the last minute or if I'm running late before I have a guest I know that I'm ready to go. So just whip these boxes out. So I have for instance in this first box, I’ve got a blow drier because almost everyone uses that. I even have a backup roll toilet paper because that would be a little embarrassing for them to have to come from the bathroom to asked for that.
I used all my old shampoos and conditioners and body lotions from travel and I put them inside this box. I even have razors, disposable body soaps and face cleaner because it just takes me two seconds to put it in here but if somebody is missing it, if they're in the middle of the shower, they're going to really regret that. I also have extra toothbrushes, toothpaste, dental floss, hair spray I even put in a little box of chocolates in case they get hungry at night.
And the box that really helps me out is this bottle box. This is the one that saves me all the time resting around to do laundry because as soon the guest leaves I pack it up again. But I have a robe that way they have something to walk into the bathroom with. I have a wash cloth, hand towel and towel. The most important thing is I have a clean set of sheet that I use only for my guest and their wrinkle resistant. So they don’t get really wrinkly while their in the box. Because there's nothing worst than running around at the last minute finding a mismatched flat sheet and finish sheet and they're not even comfortable sheets than scrambling to put them on to the bed.
By really good and they have advance warning I’ll put the sheet from the bed before the guest gets there. If you have a luxury of knowing that your guests are coming in advance, you could set the table the day before your kids can even get involved in helping you with that. because I don’t know about you but there’s nothing more stressful than trying to cook their meal and realizing you forgot to set the table and having guest go through your dirty pantry and all your drawers to pull out all the dishes.
If its holiday time makes sure that you’ve stored all those holiday items separately so you can pull out the linens. And the appropriate dishes quickly just incase you don’t have time to set the table the day before. If you have time to worry about their dirty hand towels in the powder bath, I'm all for being eco friendly but this is one thing I've got and get rid off. And I've gone to instead disposable hand towels because it’s one last thing I have to think about when guest come over and now to get your guest to leave.
Audra Lowe: Well she just shows them the door straight up. Thanks a lot Jen. I'm not coming to visit any time soon.
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