If You Only Have Time to Clean One Room Before Guests Arrive, Make It a Bathroom
If you have guests and only have time to clean one room, make it a bathroom.
It happens. Maybe your meeting at work was late, or the chicken cacchiator recipe that was supposed to take 20 minutes ended up taking 80 minutes.
Forget the bedroom – just close and lock the cavern of doom and hope your best friend’s new girlfriend doesn’t ask for a tour. Ignore the kitchen sink – very soon it will be littered with even more dirty dishes.
The so often forgotten guest bathroom is the space you should direct your attention to. Rico Galliano, co-host of The Dinner Party Download and co-author of the new book Brunch Is Hell: How to Save the World by Hosting a Dinner Party , shared this advice on the WBUR Hear & Now podcast, explaining that if you do it by “showing by at least most of the due diligence. ” He’s right.
Away from distracting chatter and snacks, this is the only place in the house where your guests will remain silent, noticed, and judged in silence. Yes, they will see that cobweb under the toilet, one you have stepped around in the past seven months. Yes, they will look at pieces of mold around the sink plug. They will know that your wrinkled hand towel has not been changed in a long time. They always know.
But this can be fixed. A guest bathroom is usually a small space that can be freshened up quickly. If you have 10 minutes, you can use the mirror glass cleaner, wipe the faucet, replace the nearly empty toilet paper roll with a new, puffy one, vacuum the hair on the tiles, and replace the hand towel with a clean one. If you have 30 minutes, heck you have time to turn your bathroom into a luxury oasis. Do you have a scented candle somewhere called Cozy by the Fire or Winter Wonderland? Let this bad guy out. How about a small tray where you can put paper napkins so your guests don’t have to touch their dinner party mates’ dogs? Bring it on. Oh yeah, more seashells. It is a known fact: a person who has a bathroom with shells is a person who lives together.
This is your chance to prove yourself. Don’t waste it straightening your shoes in the hallway.