I know I’m not alone when I say the prospect of hosting the holidays is a little anxiety-producing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no Scrooge and I love having friends and family over if only to remind me how lucky we are, and that I should count my blessings. But every year, and it is precisely this time of year, I start feeling anxious. Besides the usual concerns, like do we actually have enough toilet paper, I always question the readiness of the house. Will it function the way it’s supposed to when it’s not “just us”? Do I have a comfortable bed for anyone who might (surprise!) sleepover? Can multiple cooks and servers navigate the kitchen without crashing into each other? As time passes and my family evolves, there are older people whose needs must be considered and younger people, too. I’m not a grandparent (well, not yet, anyway) but if I did have grandchildren, I’d have to baby-proof the house.
Thanksgiving and Christmas are what I call “soul” holidays, meaning they’re occasions for family to honor, acknowledge, and memorialize our connection. As a form of amusement, we spend a fair amount of time every year reminiscing about Thanksgiving and Christmases in the past.
Invariably the best stories are the ones about the times the house has let us down and something’s backed up, clogged, or malfunctioned. These stories are funny in hindsight but at the time they were happening, it was pretty awful.
An ounce of prevention, I’ve learned, is worth a pound of cure. Which is why I’ve compiled the following list of things you might want to call a HomeSquare professional to take care of. Don’t worry. There’s still time.
Prioritize! It’s key!
Sure, you’d love to tear up your tired carpet and replace it with hardwood, and maybe your hall bathroom is crying for a remodel, but you have to get real. Unless your job is already booked, there’s probably not enough time to take on big new projects. In a worst-case scenario, you could unwittingly find yourself in a situation like what happened one Thanksgiving at the home of a relative. It was my cousin’s house and their bathroom renovation was nearly finished when they learned the special order fixtures they wanted were delayed. There were 22 guests coming for dinner and one functioning bathroom. They wound up renting a Port-a-Potty to handle the crowd. That said, there are some great things you can do to make your house feel fresh and festive even with a short timeline.
Paint is the simplest, most expedient solution to many problems including covering up stains and dirt. It’s also the shortest route to garnering that “OMG, the house looks great!” wow factor that you want. It’s not necessary to paint the whole house, although I bet you’d like to. Why not turn the focus on a dramatic new entryway? Paint your foyer in festive holiday jewel tones and decorate with a vintage coat rack and a sturdy bench for guests to sit down and remove their wet boots.
If that still sounds like a lot of work, just paint the front door. Trending colors for front doors this fall are jet black (like this beauty HomeSquare painted in Stamford, CT), lime green, sage green, and classic red. Personally, I don’t think you can go wrong with red regardless of the color of your home’s exterior. Red is upbeat and is a bold color choice that makes a statement. A bright red door is also the prettiest backdrop for your favorite fall wreaths.
Kitchen up!
While a total kitchen rehab is probably out of the question, this is one room that’s easily tweaked to make it more effective. I can’t believe the radical change in my kitchen just by switching out the faucet. Paint, again, is an easy upgrade. Bored with your kitchen cabinets even if they are high functioning? Paint’s the answer. Choose a fresh hue and change out the hardware to distract from dated door styles.
Right now I’m loving the “veddy British” dark blues and also their deep woodland greens. Both colors pair well with a white subway tile backsplash and dark counters. Installing a new backsplash if you crave one, by the way, is not a huge undertaking. And what about new light fixtures? They can make a dramatic change without too much effort. Get the scoop on top kitchen lighting trends.
Another idea to refresh your cabinets is to give them legs and feet. This is a carpentry project that lends a traditional handmade quality to your builder-grade. You can buy prefabricated legs and have them installed beneath your cabinets in the toe kick space. Paint the feet to match the cabinetry to customize the look.
On the subject of carpentry, have you exhausted your storage space? A clever hack borrowed from yacht kitchen design where every inch counts are to add toe kick drawers. You do this by ditching your baseboards and asking your carpenter to install shallow drawers in that space to store flat objects, like all your holiday platters and cutting boards.
Sleeping arrangements
I remember a friend saying one can never have too many bedrooms. A clever approach to sneaking in more sleep accommodations is to install a Murphy bed. Sometimes called “wall beds,” these beds can easily be incorporated into any den or study. The beauty is they are invisible by day but completely functional at night. A Murphy bed can save an average of 100 square feet to any room. These beds can be constructed to fold out from a chest, a cabinet, or basically any storage unit. There are a variety of off-the-shelf models (which might still benefit from professional installation), or you can go completely custom.
Get help with decorations
I had a friend who wasquite the Christmasmaven. She decorated the whole house in high style from top to bottom. The pièce de résistance was her Christmas tree, a 9 foot Fraser Fir she bedecked and bedazzled with hundreds of ornaments collected over a lifetime. She threw a huge open house every year the second week of December, complete with a guy playing bagpipes who stood outside the front door greeting party arrivals. Her very long driveway was spectacularly lit with sparkly lights. One year she went a little bonkers and had Santa and all his reindeer up on the roof. Did she do all this herself or plead with her husband to help her? Heck no. She called her home care professional who not only came over a few days before the party to do all the work but returned right after New Year’s to take it all down. To my mind, this was the way to go and a helluva way to actually enjoy one’s own party.
Pass the hors d’oeuvres
Serious hors d’oeuvres rule at my house during the holidays. It’s a family joke we eat from sunup to sundown. It’s a moveable feast as the food moves from room to room. To cut down on creating mountains of plates and silverware, I lean towards finger food. Some favorites at our house are cinnamon French toast fingers and puff pastry pizza twists. Everyone loves Asian meatballs except for the vegan members of my tribe who are offered avocado toast bruschetta with a balsamic reduction. But you need a platform to lay out all this food. If you don’t already have a nice, big, kitchen island or dining table as a serving base, consider a groovy serving cart that travels from room to room. Just make sure it’s got wheels. All thumbs at assembling furniture? Ask for help. HomeSquare’s team of licensed, insured, experienced and highly-rated home maintenance professionals are ready to help you get your home company ready. Contact us today for a free phone consultation and to make an appointment for a free estimate!
Eve Marx
Eve Marx is a national journalist and book author. Follow her reflections on home design and interior style on Instagram at the hashtag #funkybeachhouseseasideror.