Top Tips for Organizing Your Home Before the Holidays Begin | Countryside Self Storage
Nobody wants to start thinking about the winter holidays and Thanksgiving right now. You haven’t even had a chance to eat your way through that first bag of Halloween candy that you promised yourself you would save for the kids’ trick-or-treating. But let’s face it: October is the gateway to the holiday season and, like it or not, the winter holidays will be here before you know it.
If you do any research at all about preparing for the holidays, you’ll find no shortage of articles online from “experts” who recommend getting all of your holiday preparations underway during the month of October. Sure, this means buying all those gifts in advance, but it also applies to stuff like decluttering the house, getting guest bathrooms ready, and more. Plus, with staffing shortages and supply chain issues affecting just about every market and industry this year, there’s bound to be delays and shortages of some of the top items on your shopping list, so it’s a good idea to start shopping extra early. If you want to keep all of those gifts away from prying eyes, you can always stash them in climate-controlled storage units near you
We’ll get back to that in a moment, though. For now, here are our top tips for organizing your home before the holidays begin:
- Start by assessing and determining priority areas. Know which high traffic areas are most important, and which areas of the house are going to require the most time and energy. · Clean out the garage and put some of that stuff into storage for the winter. As a bonus, you’ll free up parking space for guests.
- Declutter guest bedrooms and make sure guest baths are stocked with supplies and ready for people to stay over.
- The entryway is the first thing visitors see, so don’t just clean it—detail it.
- Donate old toys. If the kids don’t play with them anymore, they’re just taking up space, and someone else could get good use out of them.
- Empty the hall closet. Maybe you don’t use it the rest of the year, but guests will need it as a place to hang coats and more. You can put whatever’s in there now into self storage.
- Break out the seasonal clothes, the festive hand towels, the winter bedding and linens, you name it!
- Inventory your medicine cabinet. With colder weather and holiday visitors, it’s only a matter of time before someone gets sick. Throw out anything that’s expired, and stock up on anything you’re low on.
- Ditto your tableware. Those mismatched plates, bowls, forks, and spoons may be fine when it’s just you and the kids, but you want something nicer when company comes over.
- You’ll be spending a lot of time in the kitchen over the next couple of months, so make sure it’s ready to go!
- Set a holiday cleaning schedule ahead of each guest’s arrival. Give everyone in the family jobs to do.
- Stock up on wrapping supplies and anything else you’ll need for the holidays.
- Finally, store what you don’t need or what you don’t use very often. The last thing you want is a bunch of clutter getting in the way during the holidays, so put it all into climate-controlled storage units.
Fortunately, there’s no need to Google “storage units near me” when you can just contact Countryside Self Storage at any of our Pittsburg, Joplin, or Frontenac locations. We’re happy to help you get ready for the holidays, whether you start now or wait until the last minute!