Magazine Moments — One Simple Rule When Cleaning for Guests
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Spoiler: The Baseboards Can Wait
With the holiday guest season kicking into gear, Julie and Janis pull out a Southern Living piece on the one thing stress-free hosts do before company arrives -
- and no, it's not a deep clean of the attic.
The core idea: surface-level cleaning beats perfection every single time, and most guests are far less observant than we think they are.
Julie happily claims her "shove it in the closet" host title, while Janis admits she's graduated to occasional baseboard cleaning (progress!).
The real takeaway from the article is to treat your home like a flat surface scramble which simply means to clear the counters, tables, and entryway of visible clutter, deal with what you pull off rather than stashing it in a basket destined for the garage, and focus your actual effort on the bathroom and kitchen, the two spots that matter for health and comfort.
The conversation takes a fun turn into guest personalities and family quirks ... the relative who re-washes dishes her own way, the sister who inspects the top shelf of the fridge, and the universal experience of suddenly noticing dust on top of the doorframe the moment a very tall guest is expected.
Julie and Janis also swap entryway shoe-storage solutions (baskets, collapsible crates, even a repurposed black pot), proving that a contained landing zone can save a household from total shoe-related chaos.
The bigger philosophy here: how your home feels ... cozy, welcoming, lived-in ... matters more than how spotless it is.
A candle, a bowl of candy, and a clear entryway go a lot further than a bleached refrigerator shelf.
✅ This Week's Challenge
Pick one guest hotspot: the entry, the guest room, or the guest bathroom ... and give it a #DeclutteringDozen: 12 minutes on the clock, small doable doses, before the doorbell rings.
Share your go-to guest-prep trick in the ABC Declutter Facebook Community!
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Keep it Simple, Keep it Intentional, and - as always - Keep Decluttering!!