Most people don’t mind living in their own mess for some time, and weirdly, it gives you a sense of freedom. Well, until it graduates to frustration and we all get it! The struggle is real. It is funny that no one will turn up when the house is all cleaned up and everything in its place, rather, when it has reached a chaos crisis level. Maintaining an organized clean home may not come naturally to everyone, especially with so many other critical responsibilities lying around. You don’t have to stress anymore, there are several ways you can use to at least pretend that yours is a life of perfection to anyone walking into your home. Here is how:
The Entryway
This is the first place your guests see and you would want to start off on the right foot. Be sure to clear any clutter. Quickly organize the place by placing items in their respective positions. Then swiftly sweep through the hallway. A tip to remember: when you open the door for your guests, don’t apologize for how your house looks; it will only make them more conscious of their surroundings.
Get Rid of Clutter
Clutter instantly makes your home look so messy and uncared for. Pick a bag or baskets then place every clutter from all your rooms. Since you don’t have the time to place the items at their respective places, just bung them in and keep the boxes out of sight (maybe in the garage). As you are at it, consider placing paperwork in the drawers instead of boxes, for an easier time when they need to be retrieved.
The Living Room
This is the place that your guests will sit almost throughout their time at your home. Therefore, you need to spend more time here, since your guest’s eyes will tend to look around as they pass time. Since the clutter is taken care of, now ensure your floor is clean. This can be done by simply swiping through the room, but if you don’t have the time, you can just pick up the visible dirt. Then clean up the surfaces like the coffee table and screens with a cotton cloth. And don’t forget to align, straighten and fluff up your throw pillows. Additionally, flip over the cushions to reveal the as-good-as-new fabric that will instantly make your sofas look desirable.
Fix The Kitchen
The kitchen is a social place and chances are, your guest may offer to help you carry the dishes back to the kitchen. You don’t want it to get awkward, trying to give them reasons why not. You don’t need that kind of pressure. Therefore, if your sink is piled up with dirty dishes, load them up in the dishwasher. Or in one of the cabinets and lock it up, hoping you have visitors’ dishes put aside. Then you’d want to clear anything on top of the counter because they give you a worse look than a few crumbs. Swiftly wipe all visible surface with a clean damp cloth.
Fragrance Control
Hardly, can your house smell of lavender if you have dirty socks, jeans, and dishes lying around. You can easily solve that in various ways. If you want the classic homey scent, you can throw in the frozen cookie dough in the oven. But if air freshener and scented candles are the reality for you, they also work perfectly. Well, if you have neither for whichever reason, you can do it the natural way. Push back the curtains and drapes, then open the windows to get the stale air moving. You can as well turn up the fan. Lovely fragrance is the best tool for fooling anyone that you have a clean house.
The Bathroom
Like some unwritten rule, it’s guaranteed that your guest is going to request to use your bathroom. And there’s nothing that gets you cringing harder than a dirty bathroom. So cut your guests some drama by cleaning the place up. The best way of cleaning your toilet is by giving it a good squirt of the bleach of your choice then let it soak. As you wait, wipe the surfaces and most especially the mirror. Your guest will definitely use it. Change the hand towel and ensure there are toilet paper and hand soap in place. Finally, give your toilet a prompt brush then flush.
Fix Your Home Office
There might be a possibility of using your office depending on who the visitor is. As you swiftly clean this room, you may consider being keen on where you stash your stuff. Clear out the desk of clutter then using a damn clean rug, wipe the surface. Rearrange crooked books so that they are aligned in a pleasant manner.
Hide The Stains
Somehow stains find a way to be very stubborn when emergency guests are about to come, that it’s not funny. Yet, you can out-smart the stains by simply concealing them. If it’s on your sofa, you can use a throw pillow or blanket to cover it up. If it’s your wall, you can have emergency wall curtains. Whatever you come up with, ensure you don’t make it stand out too much or look out of place.
Your Kid’s Room
Your guests may have kids who will want to play around with your kid’s toys as you talk. And since clutter and kids go hand in hand, clear the floor and bed. Place the toys in a common place where they can be accessed easily. Finally, spray the room in case of odor, kids are full of surprises.
Add a Personal Touch
Personalizing your home is mostly done to give character to your home plus authenticity. But at this point, the personalized décor will act as a distraction by attracting your visitor’s attention. It can be done by simply taking your masterpiece vase and placing in fresh flowers. You can also take your kid’s drawings and hang them along the entryway wall. Consider investing in a centerpiece for your living room, because they come in handy at these times.
When you are done doing the above and your guests haven’t arrived yet, be sure to take some time and relax. You can also use the time to freshen up.
Often times we find ourselves with a lot of foodstuffs after grocery shopping with nowhere to place them after the fridge seems full. It might not be necessarily full. Maybe it’s just how you arrange stuff in your fridge. Here are some very easy hacks to keep your fridge organized.
Use containers to keep food in place.
Placing food anyhow is one of the greatest mistakes that you can do as it will consume a lot of space in your fridge. It may also be a bit unhygienic and some food wrappers may cause the food to go bad after a short period of time. Try putting common items in one container and place them at a common place as a great way of keeping your fridge organized.
Label the containers.
To avoid confusion or instances where you have to uncover the container every time you want to prepare something just to make sure it’s the right thing you want, ensure you label your food. This is usually due to the frost in the fridge that makes the container look a bit blur making it difficult to see through it. You can also arrange them in order of what you frequently eat.
Cover your fridge shelves.
If you are always in a hurry and find it time-consuming cleaning your fridge, you can always cover the shelves with a wrapping paper so that when something spills, you just peel off the wrap and you are good to go. Make sure to wrap it again after removing the dirty one.
Get an arranging system.
As funny as it may sound, it makes perfect sense to put the meat stuff on the bottom shelve of the fridge while the veggies are on the top shelf. This will avoid the fluid dripping from the meat to spill on the rest of the food making you go through double the trouble of cleaning it.
Come up with a menu.
Getting to know what food you are cooking first will also help in arranging the fridge. You can arrange the food according to your meal plan so as to avoid going through the well placed and organized stuff again then having to start from scratch as you re-organize.
Avoid placing liquids in the fridge door.
For the sake of kid’s safety, store things in the fridge the right way. Avoid placing milk jars and beer bottles on the door side as this may cause breakage when the kids are opening the fridge vigorously. Try and get a bottle stopper and just place them on the normal fridge shelf with the stopper in place. This will also keep all fridge items safe and protect your kids or pets from harm as well.
Keep a stock of whatever is in the fridge.
Once you organize your fridge, it is really important that you get to know what you placed there and when you placed it so that you can avoid other foods from overstaying. When you go for grocery shopping, you can place the old stock in front and the new at the back so that nothing goes bad.
Ensure air circulation.
Do not stuff food in the fridge or rather do not overstock the fridge. Space the food well inside the fridge so that the air may flow through them to keep them cool. This will avoid food from going bad when inside the fridge from lack of being chilled. You can also slice fresh lemon pieces and place them in every corner of the fridge. This keeps bad odor away and the fridge will always remain fresh.
Store food whole.
If you are not consuming food at that minute, it is best that you do not slice it as it has a higher chance of going bad faster than whole food. For vegetables that are already sliced, you can chop them up and store them in mason jars inside the fridge. This will avoid wastage of food.
Take out anything you do not need.
At times you find empty milk bottles and meat wrappers that just stay in the fridge for no apparent reason. This makes the fridge appear so messy and disorganized. Have time to remove all those unwanted things in the fridge. If you no longer have any stock, the best thing to do is clean your fridge thoroughly and let it stay fresh ready for new stock.
Classify your food.
Please note that some foods when placed together may cause harm to your body. Putting meat and vegetables together, for instance, is a bad idea. They can release toxic substances that will make them go bad and can be very dangerous when consumed.
Containers work in the freezer too.
The freezer has a lower temperature than the fridge. This is to make sure that food stays frozen in there. You can imagine placing meat in their wrappers on top of each other. The wrappers will attach to each other making it very difficult to get one wrapped meat. The best way to store food in the freezer is just the same as the fridge and that is keeping them in containers.
Know what should and shouldn’t be in the fridge.
There are some foodstuffs that if placed in the fridge would go bad. They have a longer lifespan outside the fridge than inside. Things like potatoes, onions, and bananas are better off kept elsewhere other than in the fridge. If you need to store eggs in the fridge, get a good egg tray that will fit and place your eggs on the tray inside the fridge. Although eggs don’t need to be in the fridge to survive.
Position your fridge well.
Your fridge should not be very close to the wall or touching the wall. What happens is that when you place it touching the wall, the gas cylinder at the back of the fridge tends to lose gas fast. When that happens, your fridge will not be able to cool or freeze food.
With the above tips, keeping your fridge organized shouldnt be difficult and you wouldn’t have to rummage through for hours when you are looking for something.
