This is the second in our two part series of tips for getting your home ready for holiday guests. Our first article included tips about preparing your bathroom for the needs of guests who are at different stages of life. Those suggestions included some beautiful and functional teak bathroom accessories. Don’t miss out on the tips from the first article. Read it too.

Keep Everything In Sight

Don’t make your guests search for things they’ll need. Whether they are looking for tea in the kitchen or towels in the bathroom, just make it as simple as possible. They may not want to ask because they don’t want to bother you which means they’ll either go without what they want, or rummage around your cabinets and cupboards until they find what they’re looking for. We doubt you want either of those things to happen. You want your guests to feel comfortable and welcome. And, if you’ve got a gossipy old aunt, you don’t want to fuel her fire by not putting everything at her fingertips.

For beverages, you can set up a cart or use the buffet in the living room to display an assortment of teas and other beverages. Put a cooler of sodas out on the back porch for the kids, and make sure everyone knows where the coffee and filters are so no one is waiting on you to make a new pot.

Beautiful teak towel stands, shelving units, or amenities baskets can go a long way toward helping you display necessities in your guest bedrooms and bathrooms.

Make Sure Everyone Knows How to Use Stuff

What do we mean by stuff? Well, it is a pretty broad category and includes the coffee maker, television, wireless connection, DVR, and anything else that might work differently in your home than it does in someone else’s. If you’ve got a particularly complicated entertainment system, it might be worthwhile printing out instructions. And be sure to have the guest Wi-Fi password posted in everyone’s rooms and visible somewhere in a common space. Take the time to do these things and you’ll all be grateful. If you’ve got a really full house, you’ll get awfully sick of showing people how things work and repeating that darn wifi password. If you’ve got family members who will need a little extra help, like grandma who needs to be shown repeatedly how to download new books to her mobile device, put one of the kids in charge of providing tech support.

Make Everything Easy

There are small steps that you can take in advance to make things easier on guests of all ages.

Plug nightlights into sockets along hallways, in bathrooms, and to illuminate any dark corners. That’ll help everyone find their way around at night without waking up the whole house.

Make some keys. Give your visitors their own sets of house keys so they can come and go as they please, and there’s no chance that someone will return to a tightly locked-up house and be left shivering in the snow until you return.

Provide plenty of entertainment for all ages with books, games, puzzles, video games and anything else you can think of. You’ve probably got a bunch of those things tucked away in a closet somewhere from your last family visit.

Declutter so that there is plenty of room for everyone to spread out. If you’ve got a lot of artwork, photos, and other things on guest room nightstands and dressers, put them away while your guests are there. In addition to being grateful for the space, they’ll appreciate not having to worry about breaking something.

Keep Holiday Decorating Simple

A lot of us here at AquaTeak love the holidays. And, we have to admit, we can get a little carried away. But, honestly, you don’t have to spend weeks decorating for the holidays. Your home will look just a beautiful with simple to setup and easy to take down decorations.

• Seasonal fruits and veggies in silver bowls make beautiful centerpieces for a family meal.
• A simple wreath on the front door makes the house look festive and your guests feel welcome.
• Christmas cards displayed on a mantle or whimsically arranged on a cork board are a festive addition.
• A pretty platter filled with a few, great smelling evergreen branches and big shiny ornaments looks great just about anywhere.
• Use the wine glasses, vases, and other containers you already have and fill them with pinecones, ornaments, sprigs of holly and other festive additions.

We know, you love us for our teak bathroom accessories, but we can’t help branching out a bit and offering some tips that go above and beyond just bathroom decor, especially during the holidays. We’re pretty sure this won’t be our last holiday-themed article for the year so we hope you enjoyed it. We love this stuff.