THE HOUSE DOCTOR MAKING EVERYONE FEEL COMFORTABLE AND AT HOME

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Any season is a good time to consider the needs of overnight and weekend guests.

Khalil Gibran once said; “If it were not for guests all houses would be graves.”  That is a pretty frightening way of reminding us we need to consider how to entertain guests in our home. 

One important thing to keep in mind as you are letting your house evolve into a work of art that totally expresses your own thoughts, dreams and missions in life; would be the consideration of who your overnight and long-stay guests might turn out to be.

People are the most important part of life, so we need to be prepared to make them feel loved and welcomed.   Of course until YOU are comfortable in your home; no one will be comfortable, but once you have done the basics for making your home a haven and refuge for yourself and your family, why not consider what you have to work with that would make your long-term guests feel happy, relaxed and welcomed during their stays?  This will make your life richer too.  Anything that you ever do to show hospitality to someone else, increases the joy in your day.

Please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here!  The first thought that most people have is this could turn into an expensive decorating project! Absolutely not!  If your friends don’t love you enough to come to see you in what you can afford to offer, they are not really your friends.  

Don’t go out and buy furniture and paint and decorative items to put into a room that looks like it should be a show case for Interior Design Magazine.  Work with what you have and what you can afford. 

Maybe you live in a one bedroom apartment and this whole concept seems far-fetched to you.  Not at all!  Any amount of space will do just fine.   You would simply have to scale your desires for decorating for guest down to a smaller, more practical, more workable scale. 

If you are still uncomfortable with dealing with overnight company after you read these suggestions, you can keep most of your guest invitations down to just day visits by utilizing your television, dining and patio spaces.  These are areas that you could tailor to your special guests’ taste.  Just change it all around when you have different guest coming for different reasons.  With a little thought, any space works here!  If you are paranoid about how well overnight would work for you - start with day visit and when you see how that turns out work up to overnight guests.  

Do you have a friend who loves classic movies?  Keep a stash just for him/her in a little basket next to your other movies.  Put a ribbon or special tie around that particular stack that speaks of their personality, or make the basket have some sentimental value that relates to some place you two have shared in the past.  See if they don’t pick up on this.  You will probably be surprised at how delighted just one little thing like this can make a guest feel.  If they have given you decorative gifts - make sure they are prominently displayed in a pretty and appropriate way.   Do you have photos of things you and your guest have done together in the past?  Share the memories in a frame here and there for their visit.

Maybe you have a friend who loves gourmet cooking.  Why not prepare a special meal for them on your own dining room table in some dishes or with some place mats that only that person would relate to?  Or better yet, offer to buy the groceries for them to cook their special dish in your home.  Keep the spices they like to use stocked on your shelves.  Candlelight at the table and a good bottle of wine goes a long way with these folks.

Do you have a friend who loves the outdoors?  Make your apartment patio into an oasis that will make them feel like they are in a tropical jungle or an African rain forest.  Scatter twinkling lights among the plants and have a special beverage handy for serving while you sit on the deck at night and watch the stars.  Do you have a telescope?  Bring it out for the occasion.  

Do you have friends who are into literary things who love to read and write?  Dedicate a section of your bookcases to their favorite authors (buy them at second hand book stores, the older the better) and use interesting coffee mugs and different styled old spectacles around the room as if old Hemingway himself had just had coffee in your overstuffed recliner.   Leave one book open to some favorite passage you have shared with them on your coffee table. 

These are all things that are simple yet “do-able” on a budget, a little at a time.  Most of the stuff I'm speaking of can be found cheap in junk stores or at your local supermarket.  Just come up with some thoughtful little themes and ideas according to the people you are entertaining.  Also plan activities for going out according to their personal styles.  

Take the outdoors personality to your favorite local park, plan hikes and trips to local scenery.  Take an artsy person to a local art event.  If your friend loves music, plan for them to come during a time when one of your favorite musicians is in town.  Take your gourmet personality to one of the local upscale restaurants or an interesting and unusual little community grocery store.

If you find yourself limited on sleeping space, wall beds are great whenever you feel you can afford one.  They can line a wall and look just like book shelves and storage. Use one wall to hide a wall bed and put a sleeper sofa in front of it and you now have TWO double beds in one room if you have several people sleeping over.   Your living room could instantly become a guest room in a matter of minutes simply by rearranging a few pieces of furniture.  If you feel your guest needs more privacy, give them your room and YOU take the sofa or the wall bed.  You want to rise earlier than them the in the morning anyway, so you can prepare a nice leisurely breakfast to start the visit off on a pleasant note.  Just give them the luxury of sleeping late and you get up a little early and clean up and clear the living room before they wake up.  So you see; not having a guest room should not interfere with your ability to ask people to sleep over or stay for a weekend!

For children, keep an extra sleeping bag around and make them a small tent on the floor.  They will feel like they are on a camping trip and consider it a great adventure!  Toys are cheap at the dollar store.  You would be surprised how far some crayons and a coloring book will go.  Puzzles are good for older kids.  

Maybe you have a house with one, two or three extra bedrooms.  All of the above applies just the same.  Consider the guest that come and go most often and think of them as you prepare these extra rooms.  Choose neutral colors in your bedclothes so that you can decorate with splashes of color in throws and pillows and accessories in different ways according to who is coming when.  Stock up on good sheets and comfortable pillows and blankets.  

Just remember to let your house grow and change and expand and breathe as you do.  Live where you are in the moment and take your home there too.  Invite your guests to know who you are, not some stranger who is putting on a show.  This will involve constantly changing with life and evolving with the size and interests of your family.  Lean on the side of simple and uncomplicated whenever possible. Try to keep up-to-date with where you are in life and share where you are with your company.  Don't stay stuck in yesterday forever, but don't let your best memories ever be wasted.  It is lots of fun to pull out scrapbooks and look at old home movies where you all were together.  Not every visit, mind you, but at least every other year.  Add to these as you go and keep them fresh, yet don't cull the best oldies.

If I let it remodeling would be a problem for me with our guests.  We live in an older home that we have been remodeling for years as we have had the time.  This has evolved into a hobby and the remodeling simply never ends, especially now, after raising four kids.  Sometimes it gives us interesting puzzles to figure out when we have house guests.  We just take a deep breath and live through it being as creative as we can and hoping our guest know that we want to care for them from where we are and not let anything interfere with our friendships.     

We were not through with all of our on-going other remodeling projects when our children suddenly all grew wings of their own and left us for their own homes!  Turning the empty rooms into guest rooms could have been a whole different story full of major complications, but when we actually took the time to stop and think it through and put our thoughts in order, they were actually pretty easy.   

At first we simply deep cleaned and reorganized, then we used our imaginations and made the furniture on hand work for the rooms.  That isn't to say that I don’t dream of a completely new more-modern bathroom and new carpets and paint and furniture in these bedrooms – it is just to say that I’ve done the very best with what I have to offer my guests in the place of life that I am living from right now.   I also keep in mind that half the world lives in a space as small as my living room alone, and that keeps a balance in what I do. I’ll let you in on another secret; our guests don’t even notice that we don’t have all of those shinny new  things.  They love staying in these rooms and are very comfortable there.  After all, we are saving them a bundle on hotel costs and providing a very comfortable change of scenery for their little mini-vacation stay at our castle!    

If you can afford to go overboard, go ahead and have your fun!  If you are a normal person on a budget like me, take every update one step at a time.  Think it all through and work carefully and slowly with what you REALLY need and not some picture that a magazine put into  your head that will not be at all practical for you or your guests and most likely will not look the same in your spaces.

Any moment now that door bell will ring.  Who will be your house guest?  .

 Make a list of your “regular” guests that will probably come often and think of the things that would help them relax in your house.  A blend of tea, a type of soap, a particular song in the background, a certain wine, a favorite flower, a special dish, a candle scent; whatever that person likes and relates to.  

Make two list, one for day guests and one for those who will come in from out of town and stay awhile, days, weeks, hopefully not months!  Don’t make them THAT comfortable, just add in some flair that will tell them you are thinking about them, respect their taste and want them around. Keep it simple and comfortable.  Imagine them staying in your rooms and roaming the local community.  What would you enjoy if you were them?

It was Robert Brault that made that profound observation “We labor to make a house a home, then every time we’re expecting visitors, we rush to turn it back into a house!”  Be careful to keep a balance and not make this mistake by being too extreme.  Then, don’t be surprised if you find your house full of happy people all the time!

Once you make your list of possible guests and imagine each of them spending a night in your home; I suggest you think about who your most “regular” guests are and begin to incorporate certain elements into your space that will make them smile and feel welcomed, comfortable and relaxed.  This is especially true if you find yourself in any type of transition in your family or career.  Change your home to fit your current situation in life and share that with your guests.  Have a box labeled just for each of your favorite guests and keep them stored away until needed.  You can pull out and scatter in a mater of minutes and already have a plan in order when they call on Friday night to tell you they are dropping in on Saturday morning.  Keep clean sheets ON your beds so you don't have to pull out for unexpected guest.  Keep your guest rooms clean and vacuumed.  Keep toiletries stocked and have extras on hand for use at any moment.

Other than that......don't go crazy with major changes.

For instance, we suddenly found ourselves empty nesters.  We had this big house full of empty bedrooms.   We had spent our whole lives concentrating on putting a roof over the heads of four active kids, then they suddenly developed into wonderful young adults with homes and ideas of their own and left!  If this happens at your house just be sure to realize this is progress!  Don’t be sad, the successful mission has been accomplished!

Set the basic themes that will be constant in your guest rooms around the personalities of  your most frequent guests.  At our house, that would be our two grandchildren.  

When we first became empty nesters  and decided to turn our children's old rooms into guest rooms, I did not have the heart to tear out the original artwork that our twins had so carefully chosen for their bedrooms; so I just decorated around them.   One of our twin daughters had painted a whole wall to be Vincent Van Gough's Starry Starry Night, and the other twin daughter had used New York at Night on a wall.   It was decided, at least for awhile, that our guests would either stay in The Van Gough Room, or The New York Room.  The kids all laughed at my sentimental attitude, but they loved it too! (They actually were often our most frequent house guests.)   I played up both themes in both rooms and even had one of the twins to use her art skills to paint signs for me to set on the night stands in each room that said “New York Room” and “Van Gough Room.”

Sweet, comfortable little reading nook I set up for our guests with only things I had on hand.

Van Gough Room as a simple guest room - before grandchildren came along.  Simple, clean, first attempt to make a child's room into a workable living space for our guests.  We did zero remodeling - just cleaned and furnished with what we had on hand,

New York Room converted to a clean, comfortable space for guests to sleep.  Again, I used what i had and added nothing - just cleaned and tried to make as comfortable as possible.

Our daughter in her New York Room a few months before she left home to live on her own.  It stayed basically the same for our house guests, until our grandson came along and we made "little boy" changes for his stays.

New York Room - We DID add the ceiling fan - but other than that - just cleaned and arranged what we had.

Our guests thought all this crazy decorating was cute and they related these "themed rooms" to such as many international hotels are famous for.  I was so glad I did not go with my first inclination to prime and paint over their original and creative artwork.  A piece of each of their lives can still reside in our home, and yet our guest think they have stumbled upon some original decorating idea done just for them!

 Then grandchildren came along and needed to stay overnight often.........  

  The Van Gough Room lent itself naturally to the little girl things for our granddaughter.  
We added her doll house and her books and some feminine artwork above the bed.  We scattered some photos of her Mommie and Daddy.

It became a perfect room for a little girl visiting her grandparents; plus she had the history of sleeping in the room where her own Mommy grew up and  Mommy's artwork was still on the walls!

  She loves it!

 

When our oldest daughter got married and we added a five year old grandson to the

family.  

 He loved staying in the New York Room on his first few visits with his parents; so we just incorporated this room into more themes that a little boy would enjoy.  

Now there is a toy box full of his toys.  An old Christmas cookie jar that he is partial to keeping around, a desk that is old, worn and kid proof where he can do his own artwork (which he LOVES to do), a collection of photos of him with our daughter and our son-in-law over the desk, and elements of the beach are scattered here and there (shells and starfish and beach photos) because he loves the beach. 

I’m also thinking of adding a live turtle one day – haven’t done that yet.  That would be a fun surprise for him.  I'll let him name the little turtle.  

I've considered painting some of the furniture an aqua color to give it an even more beachy/cottage type of look, but haven't done that yet either.  Since he lives in another state but visits often, I always try to have some little surprise on his desk when he comes and something decorative for the season we are in that a young boy would relate to.  He has his own little tree at Christmas.  He has a basket full of goodies at Passover/Easter, and he finds lots of other little seasonal surprises on his visits.    

This all sounds and IS a bit eclectic; but he loves it, and so do the other people who stay in that room from time to time when he isn’t with us.
  

The two guest rooms are not so childish that an adult would not feel comfortable in them, so they have duel purposes.  There is a bathroom between these two Jack and Jill bedrooms that I am hoping to update one day, but for now I have just made it as shiny clean and comfortable as possible for any guests who come and go.  I try to have clean pretty towels and a fresh shower curtain hanging.  I like to use guest soaps that relate to the season we are in, and I keep the bath area and the sink area well stocked with good soaps, shampoos, cream rinse paper goods and lotions. 

Cost for remodeling guest rooms and bath - (except for one fan fixture) -  zero!

I have taken an old wardrobe and put it into the Van Gough room.  It is the one you see in the photos with the doll house on top.   I use it for nothing but fresh sheets and extra pillows and blankets.  I’m a sucker for a beautiful quilt.  I have a few that my grandmother pieced together by hand!   I reserve these for our guest  and store them in this wardrobe that now holds the doll house my parents gave my granddaughter and a statue of Ruth gleaning wheat that belonged to my grandmother.  Don’t worry; the statue is high enough that she can’t grab it and break it.  Somehow I think my grandmother and my granddaughter would have loved knowing each other, so this is my way of making them connect.  One day I will tell my granddaughter all I know of the grandmother that died not long after my birth.   I've been told I'm a lot like her in many ways.

I'll bet this plain old ordinary stuff isn't what you were expecting, but you know what - it all works so well!  It is the little things that make a guest feel loved, not the big things.  You will never regret the thought you put into making your company feel loved and at home.  

Any moment now that door bell will ring.  Who will be your next house guest?  .

Remember that there is a chance you might be entertaining angels unaware.....put your heart into it and all will be well!