Home maintenance is the last thing on your mind once the Christmas season hustle sets in. However, it turns out that maintaining the halls for the holidays is just as crucial as decorating them. Once your first visitors begin to arrive, you’ll find that Yeobuild HomeRepair’s holiday home maintenance checklist can greatly simplify your life. Although there are already dozens of to-do lists, we assure you that you’ll thank yourself for it later. In this blog, Yeobuild HomeRepair gives you 7 pre-party home maintenance tips to help you become the best party host!
1. Make Sure Your Kitchen is Clean and Ready for A Long Night
It’s all about the guests and giving them the impression that they never want to leave if you want to be a good party host. However, doing that for a larger party requires considerable organization, plenty of preparations, and cleaning. You’ll have a lot to throw in your kitchen sink by the end of the night, so make sure it’s empty and give everything a good cleaning! To encourage your visitors to contribute to your party’s eco-friendliness, take the trash out and place empty trash cans for waste and recycling. Prepare the table the night before to reduce stress.
Consequently, parties would also mean ensuring that your cleaning areas are prepared to take on tableware for the night. Try and check whether your kitchen has any plumbing issues that will need immediate repairs and/or maintenance before your get-together. Give your dishwasher a run to see if it’s functioning well. Trust us! You will gain your peace of mind knowing that all is in order when you’re bussing out dishes for the whole duration of your party.
2. Factor in Your Time and Kitchen Equipment for Food Preparation
Nothing is more aggravating when you’re entertaining or have a lot of guests than having to wait for specific food to finish cooking or baking before you can accomplish other tasks. Making what you are confident will work out and taste well is the golden rule during home parties, especially if you’re hiring a cook to do the food or whipping up the menu for the evening yourself. Include recipes that take into account any dietary limitations your guests may have. Additionally, pick food that can be prepared in advance and cook a lot so that you never run out. You’ll feel less worried and be able to spend more time mingling, and your guests will rave about the food, possibly earning you the title of “excellent host” in the process!
You can prepare many meals and/or baked items at once if your oven and cooktop are in good working order. You won’t have to wait as long to finish your creations anymore. This saves you time in the kitchen, which is important with the hectic pace of hosting a party at home. Take time to ensure that your holiday home maintenance measures include your microwave, oven and cooker hob so that they are prepared for an evening when several servings are in demand. It can be a frustrating experience when you find your oven not working just before a big bash. So, before something even goes wrong with your oven, you need to know when to fix it and when to call the pros.
3. Ensure That Your Refrigerator is Prepared for the Rush of Food
The year-end holidays are probably one of the most hectic times of the year for you, busy schedules, going out for reunions, or maybe even having guests over a lot for parties at home. Now, you probably don’t know this but during parties, the positioning of food is a party hosting skill that is frequently ignored. People are naturally drawn to food.
Even if a person is not hungry, they will still want to interact with the crowds of others who are. Place your food where you want the main event to occur while keeping that in mind. You can put food close to your talking points or in the cleanest room in the house. Whatever your motivations, it’s just prudent to keep in mind that the majority of people will follow the food, so choose its location carefully.
This means that your refrigerator is also one of the most used appliances this time, considering the amount of food you need to stock up. This is why you have to enforce proper maintenance measures in order for your refrigerator to be ready for the holiday season. Generally speaking, proper care and maintenance of your freezer will not only improve efficiency and performance but will save energy and help your food contents to last longer.
But before every party, add defrosting and cleaning your refrigerator freezer to your home maintenance to-do list. Ice build-up will lower its efficiency, and you also have to make sure that you keep the temperature constant to keep all your holiday party food from spoiling. If you ever encounter issues, call repair and maintenance experts right away.
4. See to It That Your Party Wines are Chilled Properly
You should brush up on your sommelier abilities if you want to be the ideal host. Read up on the wine you are serving to your guests. When wine is cooled, you may notice that it tastes significantly better. However, based on each one’s chemical components, they call for a different temperature. White wine, for instance, has more acidity than red wine. Tannins are a component in red wine. The amounts of residual sugars in dessert wines vary. The foundation of sparkling wine is carbon dioxide. Additionally, each one’s alcohol content varies. As a result, temperature plays a crucial role in harmonizing the flavor of your favorite wine.
Wine chillers will soon replace other wine accessories as your go-to choice for holiday house gatherings. Wine chillers may be fashionable, useful, and pretty much necessary. They can do everything from make a tablescape more elegant and let the host enjoy their dinner party with fewer trips to the bar for refills to impress the most discerning wine connoisseurs with a properly chilled bottle. Depending on how much of a wine enthusiast your guests are, there is a high chance that your wine chiller will be one of the most flocked spots during your party. Check its functions and if it’s working perfectly to make sure that your wines are well-chilled throughout your party!
5. Decorate Responsibly and Engage Electrical Repairs if Necessary
A home that is overly ornamented may actually feel uninviting. Decorate your place sparingly to encourage your visitors to settle in. How do you do that? Use a few straightforward statement ornaments. Banners should be shown prominently. And is there a better way to feel festive than with Christmas lights? Christmas lights make the season joyful and bright, from the tree to the front porch and gate. At the dessert table or bar, you can even thoughtfully place a spectacular huge floral or branch arrangement. To provide soft light and sparkle, use votive candles and light strings. Use a constant or complementary hue for the décor, including table linens, to bring a theme or color scheme together throughout the rooms.
However, there are risks associated with these attractive decorations. There is a very real risk of falling, electrocution, and possibly fire. You may prevent such risky circumstances such as grounding issues, lighting problems, and electrical shocks with your holiday decorations by taking the appropriate precautions and following safety procedures. You may even call repair and maintenance experts to make sure that you don’t experience any of these issues! Just a few safety measures must be taken both inside and outside your home.
6. Encourage Conversation and Ensure the Comfort of Guests
Determine the ideal way to arrange your furniture so that visitors can sit, unless you want everyone to stand. They will feel more at ease as a result, which will increase their propensity to converse with other guests. It can entail moving furniture around to create more room or setting up some folding chairs. Moreover, you could want to remove furniture from a space so that you can use it as chairs, tables, or even a dessert or beverage bar.
It takes planning to be both a laid-back and responsible host. Once your guests start conversing with one another, what atmosphere do you want to set? Choose a fantastic playlist before the party date, whether you want to keep it relaxed, funky, or vintage. Before your guests come, turn on the music and lighting to create a relaxing atmosphere. The loudness must be appropriate for the situation. If it’s too loud, nobody will be able to speak, and if it’s too quiet, nobody will ever get up and dance. You must be aware of the many phases of your party and know when to switch the music’s type or volume.
7. Provide Security Measures for Kids and Pets as Well
If your party is intended for adults, but you anticipate that a kid or two may attend, include food and entertainment that will be appealing to them. There’s no need to go overboard, but you’ll get credit for your efforts. Additionally, you’ll earn points if you keep your pets outside the house or safe within a gate. If you’re worried about the security of kids and, possibly pets, while the adults are socializing, then consider proofing-up your home while you’re doing your decors! If there are kids present, there is a high chance that they won’t be staying in one place for too long. They may even be going all over the house. So, it’s important to check your gate or AutoGate to ensure that all your guests, adults, kids, and pets alike, are safe within the boundaries of your home during the party.
Ready to Throw Your Next Party?
They say a dinner party is really just a simple and timeless combination of food, drink, friends, and good conversation, made special by the atmosphere that hosts and attendees create. But the most successful and most memorable events often take a lot of careful planning and preparation in order to pull off. Time is considered irreplaceable, and we believe this to be true. With so much to do, why not hire a professional repair and home maintenance service for the holidays? Therefore, Yeobuild HomeRepair hopes that these 7 practical pre-party home maintenance tips will keep your gathering enjoyable and stress-free for everyone whether you’re going to host a party or any other type of casual get-together for the holidays.