Last week Beth asked whether you look in other people's medicine cabinets when you're at a party. We're among the "yes" contingency. Knowing where we stand, we clean out this space before the festivities begin (we're thinking of appropriating the marbles idea). But we also have some other odd habits, as a friend reminded us this weekend. Once, before a very large party we threw at our house to which a very famous singer had RSVP'd, we found ourselves on our hands and knees cleaning...
the oven. In our embarrassment, we'd forgotten about this but yes, we spent two hours pre-party cleaning our O'Keefe and Merritt stove (in our defense, half the party ended up in the kitchen that night).
In an informal poll, bathrooms (especially toilet bowls) and bedrooms seemed high on the list of things to attend to. One friend optimistically changes the sheets before a party hoping to "get lucky," another fills her fridge with breakfast food (though whether she's hoping for a single person sleepover or that the party lasts all night we're still not sure) and still another straightens all of his top drawers (clearly he's worried that his friends' nosiness extends beyond looking in the medicine chest).
Where does this come from? We started thinking about it and came to the conclusion that it's kind of like cleaning before a trip. Part of the motivating force behind it is the worry about how other people judge us by the kind of home we keep -- clean, messy, organized, trendy, cozy; the other's the worry about how the party (or the trip) will turn out. With the holiday party season fast approaching, what's the craziest pre-party thing you've ever done?
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I love living in a neat-as-a-pin house, but I get so lazy when all the cleaning is just for little old me. I need the terror of incoming guests to properly motivate myself into cleaning and organizing anything and everything. A friend coming over to watch TV is an excellent excuse for me to, say, organize my sock drawer. Sad but true.
I will answer your question with a question... just who was this very famous singer? :)
akay - that is hilarious, because it's true! Sometimes I'll invite people over BECAUSE I need a deadline for getting something done around the house, i.e. cleaning out the coat closet or raking the yard. My current deadline is getting the dining room painted before Thanksgiving.
The bathroon is a definite must.. The most crazy pre-party thing was prob me anxiously trying to hang all the art work or frames I had sitting on the floor and have an embarassingly bare wall decorated or filled.. Having ppl over is an excuse to get things done sometimes.. so so true.. lol
I always purge and clean my refrigerator. No matter what lovely things I offer on my buffet, I know that some hungry/thirsty/picky/nosy person is always going to be poking around in there imagining that I'm "hiding the good stuff."
Also, I'm with you, akay: I invite people over just so I have the motivation to clean. I am soon moving to Berkeley, CA where I know NOBODY... and I am terrified that my apartment will be a hell-hole due to the lack of social calls.
I also invite people over when the apartment starts to get out of hand! Nothing like the fear of peer judgement to get me to dust.
I have arranged the cotton swabs to stand up straight in the clear glass jar in my bathroom. I usually don't agonize over such details. As I was straightening the swabs, I thought to myself, "this is a bit crazy." Did it look lovely? Yes. Did my guests notice? I doubt it.
Craziest thing I ever did was scramble to make sure the entire house smelled good. A burnt pie 5 minutes before guests arrived, smoke filling the kitchen, and a HUGE fire engine outside (damn ADT), plus me yelling "Where's the air freshener?! Where's the GOD**** air freshener?!" might have made them not notice the lavender field mist candles I hurriedly lit to calm down the smell.
And the 3 shots of Cuervo from my partner made it a greeeeat night.
ADizzle - kudos to you for having the best conversation starter ever by carefully placing a fire engine outside your house just as your guests were starting to arrive. Bravo for your foresight! Even the shy had something to talk about that night...
I have a roof deck that faces a river that can get busy with cruise ships on weekends. I try to time my parties around the time these ships are leaving port and tooting their whistles. It really impresses the guests. I just wave at the ships like they're old friends.
@shockthebourgeois I live in Alameda, we should do a Bay Area AT meetup when you move out here.
Craziest thing I've ever done... I hide my personal items in the sticky drawer of my dresser. Since you have to practically pull the dresser over to get it open, I would always know if anyone got nosey in the bedroom. I do NOT appreciate nosey guests, however, and will chase them out of the bedroom if I catch them in there. Closed doors (or curtains in this case, since the door doesn't close) are there for a reason.
Looking in other people's medicine cabinets is just about the most pathetic thing ever. I stay out of other people's stuff, and I'd banish anyone I caught snooping through mine.
The only exception is my MIL, who I've already been warned is a snooper. Obviously I can't banish her. But I refuse to go through much effort to hide anything, and I figure if she finds something embarassing, it's her problem. And if I CATCH her, I've warned my husband that I will plant items for her to find that will horrify her. I have no idea what they would be, but I'll come up with something to snap her out of her snoopiness.
We also won't let her have a key - which my parents do have. They're not snoopers though. They wouldn't even open up a Netflix envelope to watch a movie when they were cat-sitting because they were afraid it might be something salacious. And I told them - good call, because you never know!
We use a party as a deadline too... we don't ever go away, we have a heap of kids, but a party is as good as a trip when it comes to closure on all sorts of projects... spontaneous parties are one thing but a big anticipated bash means that the entire house must be neat as a pin in the closets, in the drawers - everywhere - everywhere!!!
Am I the only one who thinks the "tour of your house" thing is weird? I gave a tour at our house-warming party, but having guests who are new to my residence doesn't automatically mean they get a house tour. Close friends and family with whom I'm intimate and are visiting from out of state get a tour, along with a set of keys. But I think it's weird to show casual friends around as if my home is on show for their critique -- or worse, my personal parade.
And I feel just as uncomfortable being taken on a tour.
I hung a print that had been languishing propped up on its intended wall for over six months for, get this, the maintenance man. Yes, it took a man in a jumpsuit who only wanted to change our air filter for me to pound a nail.
finehowaboutyou.blogspot.com
I straighten my cupboards and pantry, because even if we have tons of food out and available (and cookie sheets/pizza pans, etc. on the ready), I KNOW there'll be something I need to go diving into a closed cupboard for... and I really don't want everything falling out onto me when I do it!
kimg924-I agree, also someone showing their home is subtly someone's way of bragging, you feel obliged to compliment whether or not you even like their decor. And like you said, unless it's a housewarming party, there's no need for a tour. Although I do decorate and clean to please my guests, I don't find it necessary to show them my not so organized craft/treadmill room.
I don't mind the house tours--I'm kind of nosy. Not in the go through your medicine cabinet kind of way, though. I'm an interior designer so I guess people do it to get my approval or something.
When I was in college, my friends and I had a lot of big parties. Which meant, of course, a lot of people getting the munchies at, say, midnight. Which further meant, lots of people sneaking through our cupboards to get at food, or to drink out of glass glasses. These were parties with, say, 50 people, so there were reasons we went with disposable cups and why we didn't want anyone messing with our ice cream!
We started buying these teeny firecrackers at the novelty shop, the 'party poppers' that emit an explosive pop when you pull on both ends of the string, and we'd fasten them so that anyone opening the fridge or the kitchen cupboards would make a really loud explosive charge when they tried to sneak some food.
We also left 'exploding cigarettes' in nearly empty cigarette packs -- anyone trying to sneak a cigarette that wasn't theirs got a surprise. Though this seems a little more dangerous to me now - are those legal???
Ah, those were the days.
BB
Am I the only AT reader who is a complete slob? I also use guests coming over as an excuse to clean, finish decorating projects, etc....but sadly, I always wait until the last minute and inevitably end up just tossing all my clutter into my bedroom closet.
my dad uses parties as deadlines too - but for major tasks, like tiling the living room or installing light fixtures. When I lived with my parents, our house was (and still is) half done, and you could always find my dad up to an hour before scrambling to get crap done.
I realized i'm like that too. Had a halloween party and the day of I was framing art I had been meaning to put up and cleaning out my desk.
One thing we'll do from now on is remember to log out of our facebook and any other e-mails! We play music off of our computer and welcome our friends to play DJ and pick out a few songs to add to the playlist. So we didn't notice until the next day that one friend got back at my husband by sending raunchy notes to his friends and co-workers! (In his defense my hubby had just made a joke about his girlfriend that may have went a *wee bit* far!) Immature? Yes. Will it happen again? Probably not, but we're not taking any chances.
I'm a little opposite...
I've usually cleaned my place to showroom quality before guests come over, and then right before, I deliberately muss the pillows or leave a glass in the sink. My thinking is that if the house isn't perfect, I won't worry when a guest moves something or puts the pillow on the floor to have more room to sit.
I keep checking back on these responses because they're just cracking me up. Each grudging admittance has the feeling of a 12 step meeting introduction.
My name is Amanda, and I log out of Facebook, straighten the cotton swabs in my bathroom, and -- after deliberately putting everything away -- find a couple of things to leave "out of place" so that it doesn't look scarily clean. I've also had gatherings whose secret purpose was to spur me into finishing furniture restoration projects. Ah, neuroses! At least I'm not alone.
For those who think of home tours as subtle bragging, I really don't agree. For one, if your guests want you to show them around, you're just being an obliging host and satisfying their curiosity. I'm genuinely excited for my guests to make themselves at home, and part of that is familiarizing them with your digs. I'm sure there are those for whom a home tour is about bragging, but aren't they also the same people for who a party is about showing off (rather than enjoying the company)? Who wants to go to their party anyway?
LauraBellK: I completely agree -- if your computer is going to be made available, or in any place where someone might mess with it, I definitely agree with the reminder to log out of anything important or password protected.
If possible, I put my laptop in my bedroom, where iTunes is available via iPhone to stream to speakers in the living room (we have a wireless media network set up), but the computer itself is safely out of the way.
Highsociety - you aren't alone. ;)
Ok, but who was the very famous singer?
@highsociety and Sanayhs: I'm with ya!
We had a Halloween party mostly so I could yell at my husband to do things he's been putting off for a month without feeling guilty. Did it work? Yes! Did I wind up shoving things in the coat closet at the last minute? Of course! Was I in the kitchen baking hors d'ouvres in my sweaty cleaning clothes when the first guests arrived? Unfortunately! But does the house look amazing and at least two decorating projects are completed due to the stress? Yes, and I feel like a genius!
emmabemma, outonalimb_09,
madonna
cheers,
abby
What kind of friends do you people have? Why the "terror" at having them over? Why the frenzy to suggest to them that you're not who you really are?
In our house, people come over -- often unannounced -- all the time. If the house is clean, great. If not, it's not the end of the world. We presume our friends like us for ourselves.
Of course, we don't have any medicine cabinets...
I used to live with most of my friends, but that doesn't change the cleaning frenzy when they're coming to visit.
I threw a halloween party, and my house is SO CLEAN. It's so nice! It'll last, this time! I swear!
I, too, straighten the cotton swabs in my bathroom, and frantically clean out the medicine cabinet. My weird thing, though? I have to remember to put out a litter box so my guests don't have to share our only bathroom with our cats.
No matter how much I plan and scheme and try really really really really hard, I always scramble to clean off the darn kitchen table. It's in the centre of my apt and it becomes the number one place for everything.
I invite people over for the same reason: gets my arse in gear to clean up the table.
I also like to clean so much and then leave a water glass and maybe a piece of recycling that "hasn't made it to the recycling bin yet". I don't want to scare anyone - I want my guests to be comfortable and feel like they're in a cozy, albeit clean, place.
@Tiamat_the_Red: Brilliant idea- it's a deal. I love that I am shamelessly using AT for my social networking :)
These comments are great. I imagine all of us in panicked cleaning mode until the doorbell rings, then saying very nonchalantly to our admiring guests, "I'm sorry the place is such a wreck..."
Really? You want to do the marble thing to your snoopy guests even though you're no different? Why? Btw, what is the attraction to medicine cabinets anyway? Do you really think you're going to find something scandalous in there? If you did, would you run gossip about it or feel ashamed for finding out?
Ugh...so much I don't get about bad guest or host behavior...just be a hermit if you can't be decent.
I also don't get the house tour thing. While I'm fascinated by seeing other houses, I can get my fix online. Putting my friends on the spot by demanding to peek at their private spaces isn't something I'm comfortable with. And of course, I think it's beyond rude when someone demands the same of me. Especially when they weren't invited over to begin with and stopped by spontaneously (yes, this has happened). That said, I do try to keep the whole place in shape in case anyone does want to see.
Ending morning rant.
kimg924 - Beyond the first time family visited and of course got the tour (the place was a score for the money), I don't do tours. I do tend to let everyone know where things are...like for example the bathroom is in between the den and bedroom. I will close the bedroom door (figuring I'll hear it open) but I leave the door to the den open since it's technically another seating area.
I do have to go with the fact some people do ask to see a tour of the place - and then of course, anyone would oblige. And some like to give tours - like my in-laws every single time they move. The only house tour I didn't mind was when I first my now father-in-law and got a tour of the whole house - one it's huge and beautiful and two I was going to be spending the weekend there, so it was a big help to know exactly where the guest bathroom is, the other bedrooms and who they belong to, etc.
I usually do a big clean, of course. I always make sure there is at least 1 extra toilet paper roll out in the open, to avoid peekers into the bathroom cabinets.
My weird quirk, I guess, would be lining up my shoes. It's really weird, but I feel self-conscious when my shoes aren't organized in their pairs, even though they're in my closet. Oh, and getting the coffee maker all set to go, because usually after hosting a party, I don't want to deal with grinding beans and getting the coffee stuff ready.
When I really want to tear through and clean my place, I pretend that my mother is coming for a visit, which is really goulish since she's been dead for a long time.
Some shrink would probably like to get their hands on that kind of insanity!
All this talk of home tours cracks me up a bit. Everyone who comes to our place gets a tour: stand in the "hallway", turn around in place to see the living room, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom, all about two feet away from you.
My only pre-party ritual is praying that people show up late (and cussing when they're early).
Eprewitt, my "house tour" is the same! It basically involves walking ten feet from the door to the middle of the living room, from where you can see the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom.
I only *wish* I had a place big enough to warrant an actual tour. I'm proud of my home, it makes me happy that my friends want to see it!
When friends are coming, I frantically clean all surfaces, especially the bathroom. I take all my bottles of product off the sink countertop and shove them in the cabinet beneath. Then I take out my "nice" handsoap and put that out on the counter, lol!