Martha is this awesome mix of down-to-earth rational, helpful and creative thinking that borders into plain ole' wacko a good 60% of the time.

I love your recommendation about drying the towels! We have one full bath, which means our guests' towels end up on the backs of chairs, over stair railings...on the ground. You name it. Just drying them would make me feel so much better about the state of the house!

I love the tip about writing down the internet code and password. I don't know if I'll ever be the type of hostess that will dry emy guest's bath towels, but I DID install extra hooks in my second bedroom for guests to hang towels on while staying at our house.

I have a spare set of keys and a spare garage clicker so I don't have to babysit their comings and goings. I also have a stack of single-use transit passes available and I give them the URL for the transit system website for schedules. Usually the first night they visit, I give my guests a walking tour of the downtown area near my home pointing out the dry cleaners, Radio Shack (for any "tech emergencies), grocery shopping, clothing shopping, Starbucks, clothing shopping, etc so they can be self-sufficient when I'm away at work.

Bedside light. Clock.

Oh! a glass in the bathroom. No one ever has a glass in the bathroom.

I would feel totally uncomfortable if I stayed at someone's house and they went this crazy making me feel "comfortable". I don't want my friends to have to work like a hotel maid. I want them to like having me around and have fun with me.

Bedside light, as realcalm mentions, close enough to turn off while IN bed.

Also - a wastebasket IN the guest room or area. I can't tell you how many times I stay some place and end up with a kleenex or whatever, and I don't want to trek back to the bathroom!

@Amygoog: My friend and I had PLENTY of fun, thanks, and I'm pretty sure she didn't think me putting a towel in the dryer was "crazy," nor did I feel like a hotel maid.

Not a fan of the little hotel shampoos. I keep the full size for guests and love it when I visit people who do too. I always lose those microscopic shampoo bottle caps in the shower - and can't find them before my contacts are in.

I love having people stay over, and I make sure there is clean bedding and towels, and that the bathroom is sparkling. A home-cooked meal is a nice welcome, too. However, trying to emulate hotel service is just wierd, and would make me feel uncomfortable as a guest!

I have a basket of essentials for my guests and I make sure to tell them what I have before they arrive. That way they don't have to haul a hair dryer, shampoo, etc. in their suitcase.

I put together a little welcome basket of fun things unique to our town - locally brewed beers, city-famous chocolate, hand made soap. I also include a handy map of our town with our house marked and our favorite restaurants circled. Other than that, I make sure to put out fresh towels and anything I would want when staying somewhere unfamiliar. I like most of Martha's suggestions.

@Jonifer: I LOVE your locally made welcome basket idea. I'm going to do that next time I have a visitor!

I put a fresh bar of soap in the shower along new bottles of shampoo and conditioner. I make sure the pump bottle of soap is full. If I have multiple guests at the same time, I put out plastic cups with their names on them by the bathroom sink. I also like to put a small dish of wrapped hard candies in the guest room, but it has to be something I'm not too fond of, or else I'll eat all of them!

I think the notecard with internet password info is kind of weird. Isn't that the sort of thing you would tell your guest about, or help them with personally? Hotels do it because they don't want to have a conversation with every guest, but presumably you ARE talking to yours :)

I like most of the other ideas. Another one I like to do is to give them a spare housekey, or have one in their room, in case they want to go for an early morning walk.

The problem is I do some of these things for my guests and they think I'm going over board and feel uncomfortable.
The one thing that is always appreciated is giving guests a lovely bar of soap, nice sheets & plush towels.

Wow, who are these houseguests who get so weirded out at considerate gestures? Seriously, nobody has ever taken offense at a written username/password (which I do because it's a long one, and it's easier to type when looking at it) or a dry towel. None of these actions took longer than a couple of minutes and my guests have always been most appreciative. Perhaps because I never give the impression that I'm going above and beyond. These are things I do for my own family and feel totally OK doing it for guests.

I do the spare house key plus towels and linens always out before they arrive. When I lived in a rainier climate, I used to keep a stack of umbrellas by the door and make it very clear to visitors that I would not be upset if they were left on public transportation, etc.

Uccellini I would love to stay at your house, esp. if I got a nice fluffy warm towel out of the dryer! What a great idea!

I think a good tip for any guest room is the house occupants should occasionally sleep in there to be sure the bed is comfortable, the curtains really block the light, the lamp & clock are conveniently located, there are adequate blankets, etc. My darling brother used to put m in a bed in his guestroom under the eaves. Charming to look at but when I sat up too quickly, my head always got bonked on the eaves! Clearly none of them had ever slept in there (since he is my bro, I told him, and they moved the bed).

Im with Amygoog on this one.
Maybe it's because my friends and I are still cash strapped students but our expectations don't go higher than having a mattress on the floor to sleep on and some sort of blanket (or, it they don't have a spare, we will just need to be told and take our own sleeping bag).
If we want to nibble stuff, we can pretty much help ourselves. We just bring our own soap and shampoo or borrow the hosts.
I suppose all the little attentions listed above can be nice, but I am grateful enough to be invited and have a great time with my friends. And a service that feels too much like a hotel would make me uncomfortable.

My boyfriend's mum does the basket thing and I love it. She leaves it out so I don't feel ilke she's a hotel maid, but it's nice to have some floss or a paracetemol without having to bother her.

Thinks I like: fresh towel (duh), making sure they know they are welcome to my shampoo, soap, hair dryer and food in the fridge, internet password, and I usually give my guests the spare key that my boyfriend usually uses. If I'm leaving them at the apartment and going to work, I'll leave my car keys.

If you do one or more of these things, you might be over the top: fresh cut flowers on a chair in their bedroom, washing the sheets every day, leaving out chocolates (although that is kind of cute), hotel sized shampoos and shower caps.

What I was trying to convey with the original post is that you don't have to go all out to make your guests comfortable. Sometimes these "ideas" start to sound like requirements (who doesn't have some Martha guilt??) and take all the fun out of having my dear friends come spend time with me in my home. Honestly, my fav. thing to do when I'm visiting friends is cook dinner with them using things that I can't get where I live (halibut in seattle, grits in the south).

This is almost too obvious - but make sure there's a decent reading light within reach of the bed! I can't tell you how many times I've stayed in someone's "guest room" and had to read by the overhead light, or get out of bed and cross the room to switch off the light before going to sleep!!

I guess it depends on the person. My friends know i love the finishing touches, so they wouldn't think I was being weird or over-the-top. And I wouldn't do such things for ALL my guests. My fiance's guy friends probably wouldn't be comfy with flowers or a basket of goodies, but I always make sure there's good beer. Also, I do plan lots of fun activities when I have people in town. It's not like I give them a chocolate and dry towel and ignore them for the rest of the visit!

You know, if people want to do nice things for me, I say thank you and appreciate both the thought and the gesture and at some point in the future try to do the same. And I do nice things because I like to, not to get props or whatever. I figure it is all karma and we should all try to be nice to each other, in whatever way works for us. The idea that people would take offense or get wierded out because someone did something nice...that's just sad. It is way too easy to be angry and offended at the world all the time and frankly, life is too short.

@Uccellini
It also depends how often you have guests, and how many at a time. We have had 20 staying in our house (1 bath towel and a pool towel each = 40 towels to tumble dry!). Most Summers it is not unusual for us to have 10 people for weeks on end - just the shopping and cooking is enormous. Unlike Martha, we don't have staff, so unless everyone mucks in, I agree with amygoog, in that I would feel like a maid if I did most of the things on the list.

I bought two inexpensive robes at IKEA and have them hanging from hooks in the guest bedroom. I also bought some slippers and have them in a basket in the room. It's nice to have a robe to slip into when you get up. I also have hooks hanging in both the bedroom and the bathroom, and extra towels and a comforter in the dresser. And I agree that it's nice to provide an alarm clock for your guests.

Don't forget to warn guests about quirky or makeshift things around the house that you may be so used to you don't think about them anymore. Stuff like don't use the toaster and M/W at the same time (if applicable) or a warning about the loose handle on whatever, or how the crazy coffee maker works. I have a little guest manual that details all that, as well as some basic neighbourhood info. Once you start you might be amazed at how many oddball things you need to do to make your stuff work. Or you could be lucky enough not to have things like that in your world. My friend's kids put together a list of the night time noises you don't need to worry about, with pictures of the things they used to think those noises were.

@Kariwk: Amen to that!

@Pearmelon: My goodness! If I had that many people at my house, they'd have to sleep side by side on the floor like an emergency shelter!

@WhereForArt: Fantastic idea about the robes. I actually thought about that but dismissed the idea because of price. Ikea! Perfect!

@Maynelander: I love the list of the night time noises with pictures. That is so charming and fun. I would enjoy reading that so much if I were your guest.

I think the trick is whether these are things you do for yourself.

If YOU have a nice carafe of water by the bedside when you go to bed, then it feels natural if your guest does to.

If YOU keep your towels folded attractively and changed regularly, it will feel natural to do it for your guest.

As a guest, I would feel awkward (though never offended) if my host did things much more formalyl for me than they did themselves. Alternatively, I would feel vaguely neglected (though never offended!) if the host of a formally appointed house told me to just scrounge out what I needed.

It's all a matter of context.