Get your home ready for visitors
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The Christmas holidays are perfect for spending time with friends and loved ones - and entertaining is so much more fun if you know your home’s ready for visitors. So whether you’re planning a blowout Christmas dinner (with all the trimmings) or just having friends over for a Christmas movie night, here are some suggestions that you and your guests are sure to appreciate…
Fresh paint
There’s nothing that gives a room a new lease of life like a fresh coat of paint. It’s amazing how much you can change the mood and feeling of a room with a new colour or shade, whether it’s a dark green or red to create a sense of drama, or gentle pastels to make a space calmer and airier.
Painting is a job you can tackle yourself, but it’s also one that rewards details and dedication, whether it’s sanding down and finishing the skirting boards or guaranteeing perfect edges around windows and door frames.
Professional painters and decorators can ensure a finish you’re happy with - and one which guests are sure to be impressed by.
Killer kitchens
Whenever there’s a party, people tend to gravitate towards the kitchen. Perhaps it’s just because that’s where the food and drink are, but whatever the reason, if you’re having guests round, you’re sure to end up hovering somewhere around the fridge and the sink. With that in mind, make sure your kitchen is the kind of space where you’d be happy to hang out, guests or not.
Whether it’s just upgrading your worktops to something more stylish, or a wholesale change of your units, a kitchen fitter can help you transform the heart of your home.
Better bathrooms
Let’s face it, we all love being able to take a sneak peek around someone else’s bathroom. For such a private place, a bathroom says a lot about a person, whether the kind of person who keeps everything calm and minimal, or the kind who has a fluffy cover on their toilet seat and a whole shelf of reading material.
If you’re concerned about the message that your bathroom might be sending out into the world, then a bathroom fitter can help renovate your space and give it a public facelift, so it’s ready for even the nosiest guests.
Perfect paving
Impressing guests doesn’t start when they walk through the door - it begins when they roll up to your home in the first place. As the old saying goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression.
There are lots of things you can do to spruce the outside of your home to make sure it’s all shipshape ahead of visitors, whether it’s fixing up a fence, painting your front door, or tidying up your front garden.
One thing that’s often overlooked but sure to have an impact is fixing up your driveway. Cracked, patchy or weed-choked drives make a home look unkempt and uncared for, whereas a fresh, well-maintained driveway is a sure sign of a put-together home. With infinite options, from brick, to slab, to poured concrete, to modern resin driveways all available, speak to a driveway specialist to see what will work for your home.
Great gardens
We know, we know… you’re unlikely to be getting the BBQ and sunchairs out for Christmas dinner. But plenty of parties see people gathering outside for a breath of fresh air. Of course, any work you do to your garden now will pay dividends when spring rolls around. Plus, landscapers tend to be quieter at this time of year - so don’t rule out a Christmas garden makeover.
Think about your garden as another room of your house, consider how you want to use it and the things that will make it more useful and give it more versatility - whether it’s decking or a patio, a dedicated barbecue or fire pit, or just simple planting to help create a more welcoming environment.