Home for the Holidays: Preparing Your Home for Holiday Guests

Preparing Your Home for Holiday Guests: Guest Room

Preparing your home for holiday guests can be quite stressful, especially if they are spending the night. Here are our essentials for your guest room this holiday season. Between the grocery shopping, food prepping, cleaning, chopping, and more cleaning, there just seems to be no time to prepare the guest bedroom for a proper welcome and a comfortable overnight stay. For most of us, our guest bedroom also functions as a storage room. We end up throwing things in there when we decide to have a last minute dinner party and have 30 minutes to straighten up the house. The guest bedroom becomes the dump for random objects such as toys, books, old albums, decorations, and whatever else seems to be in the way at the time. Until the day you go in there to change the linens before your holiday guests arrive and you realize the Great Wall of China is standing between you and the bed. Don’t fret, we will help you prepare your house guest checklist!

Always Prepare. We know it’s hard and who has time to plan ahead anymore, no one, but it’s just something we must do! Especially if we want your guests to be extremely impressed with your hospitality, style and of course your preparedness…”oh this, yeah I just quickly threw this all together right before you guys arrived!” …mhmm.

We are going to make it easy for you; here are our guest room essentials:

Clean Linens. This one is a no brainer! If I stay over a friend or family member’s house for the night and I’m finally getting into bed after a long night of fun and tasty, but dangerous, drinks, if the linens smell like Uncle Hank slept in the bed the night before, I’m definitely calling a cab. Or, depending on how many tasty drinks I had, I may even prefer to sleep on the floor.

Fresh Flowers. Because who doesn’t love fresh flowers, they’re beautiful and they smell good. If you need help putting together a fresh arrangement our Fabulous Florals Pinterest board is here to help!

WiFi Password. How often do guests come over and ask you for your WiFi password? Wouldn’t it be a nice gesture to leave it out on their dresser so they don’t even need to ask? We all love to check Facebook before we go to sleep because how could we possibly sleep without knowing that a friend from high school, who we haven’t talked to in 15 years, is going to the pumpkin patch tomorrow.

Extra Blankets. Some people are freezing all of the time, like me. My version of cold may be different from yours. If you’re one of those people that refuse to turn the heat on until you physically see icicles hanging off the side of your house, then you best provide your guests with extra blankets. Otherwise, I might steal your dog as a cuddle buddy.

Wastebasket. No one wants to have to walk to the bathroom to throw away their tissue. Check out these super chic wastebaskets from House Beautiful’s “50 Wastebaskets We Love.”

Scented Candle. A soothing scented candle along with matches will help your guests relax and make them feel more at home.

Drinking Water. Most people like to have a glass of water next to the bed in case they wake up in the middle of the night feeling like the Mohave dessert has taken over their esophagus.

Bathrobe. If you’re like me, you cannot wait to take off those jeans that you bought last summer that were supposed to fit you by now but are still way too tight. Provide your guests with an XL bathrobe so they can comfortably unwind while preparing for bed.

Luggage Rack. No one wants to constantly be bending down to the floor to unpack their suitcase, especially if they’re wearing those super tight jeans from last summer. A luggage rack will make it much easier for guests to pack and unpack.

Tissues. We all have those nights where we wake up with a runny nose and wish we had some tissues at arm’s length so we don’t have to do the zombie waddle all the way to the bathroom. This is when the wastebasket comes in handy.

Alarm Clock. I know, I know, you’re probably thinking, “who even uses alarm clocks these days since we all have smart phones.” Well, for that time that your phone dies and you forgot your charger, or when your smart phone freezes and stops being smart, you’re going to want to have an alarm clock. Especially to ensure that you wake up and head home before you see Aunt Betsy in the kitchen enjoying breakfast in her nightgown.

Snacks & Toiletries. Snacks are always good, especially if your guests are too shy to help themselves in your kitchen, and for when they forget their toothbrush or conditioner, you’ve got it covered.

Pen & Paper. We all know that right before we go to bed, or in the middle of the night, we have those “I just figured out how to stop global warming,” kind of ideas, and what would happen to the world if I don’t write this down right now!

Reading Material. Some of us have trouble falling asleep and like to do some reading before bed. Provide your guests with a couple of books or magazines that may interest them. Make sure you put some in the guest bathroom too.

Bedside Lamp. How can they read without light, duh. Plus if they need to get up in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar room they can turn on the bedside lamp instead of stubbing their toe on the corner of the bed while trying to find the light switch.

We know it’s a lot of extra steps, but if you do it you won’t regret it! Your guests will sing your praises and will want to extend their stay for another week, good luck!