Easy Home Improvement Tasks to Tackle Before Hosting Holiday Guests

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If you’re hosting holiday guests, it’s a good idea to take a walk through your home with fresh eyes. You’ll likely spot a few projects that need attention, like a squeaky door hinge, scuffed baseboards, or a guest bathroom that could use some sprucing up. Getting your house in proper order before visitors arrive can make them feel more comfortable and give you a sense of pride in your home. A little preparation goes a long way toward ensuring your guests feel welcome and your house shows well during the holiday season. Luckily, we’ve rounded up a list of quick household DIY tasks you can tackle before your guests arrive.

1. Touch Up Chipped Paint

Is your home looking a little dingy, but you can’t put your finger on why? Touching up chipped or scratched paint on doors, baseboards, and other common areas of the home can refresh the whole zone. Use a narrow paint brush and leftover paint to cover blemishes, and your surfaces will look good as new.

2. Replace HVAC Filters

When you are expecting a holiday houseful, you want to make sure your furnace is operating at peak efficiency. Swap in a top-quality furnace filter for cleaner air—and lower energy bills.

3. Pressure Wash Your Entry

It’s been eight years since your cousin has been to your house, and a mildewy sidewalk isn’t the way to welcome her back. Tidy up the path to your front door (and your siding, if it needs it) with a quality pressure washer and a good, all-purpose pressure washer soap.

4. Illuminate Pathways

Once paths and patios are clean, make sure they’re easy to navigate in the dark. Install solar path lights to lead guests from the driveway to the front walk, and brighten steps and other tricky spots to prevent falls.

5. Hang Hooks for Holiday Decor

Not everyone wants to leave permanent hooks or holes in their staircase handrails and fireplace mantels after holiday decor is removed for the season. Now you don’t have to: Stick sturdy Command utility hooks over the fireplace to hold stockings and Santa’s bounty; Command clear toggle hooks can guide garland up a staircase.

6. Add Night Lights and Task Lighting

Whether you need more work lighting at your kitchen countertops, or nighttime illumination in the hallway for your guests, these USB-C rechargeable lights fit the bill perfectly. Set them to always-on or motion-sensing; if the latter, they’ll pick up movement from a distance of 10 feet.

7. Make It Easy to Find Your House

The first goal of hosting a party: Make sure guests find your home. Install a solar-powered house number that is nice and bright after dark, and requires no upkeep on your part.

8. Fix Squeaky Door Hinges

Quiet squeaky hinges without spray lubricant going all over the place: The WD-40 precision pen fits in tight spots, and deposits lubricant only where it’s needed.

9. Test and Replace Your Detectors and Batteries

When both your fireplace and your oven are in near-constant use, there’s a higher-than-usual chance that your smoke or carbon monoxide detector will sound. Be ready for that possibility by testing your detector (or detectors) to make sure they’re in good working order, and replacing the unit or its batteries if needed.

10. Assemble an Extra Dining Table

Whether you call a studio apartment or a 4-bedroom Colonial home, there’s never enough dining space come holiday time. Once assembled, IDEALHOUSE’s drop-leaf dining table accommodates six when fully extended; when dinner’s over, it folds into a sleek console table. Use a power drill instead of the in-box tools to make assembly go quicker.

11. Install Better Bathroom Fixtures

If you’ve been contemplating new towel bars and hooks in the bathroom anyway, now’s the time to make a thoughtful upgrade. We like the Alise Double Towel Rack With Towel Shelf, which comes in three finishes and accommodates extra towels for guests, both pre- and post-shower. Optish over the door hooks give guests somewhere to hang their clothes as they’re bathing, and don’t require installation.

12. Hang Exterior Holiday Lights

After completing all of these other tasks, who has the time or energy to get up on a ladder to clip string lights to your rain gutters? Throw these low-voltage, waterproof Lomotech LED Christmas Net Lights over your front shrubs and call it a day.

 

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