You know how theres some people, you could literally just drop by their house and it’s always just clean? For a lot of people, their parents, grandparents, and their aunts and uncles come to mind (which makes sense) due to generational expectations.
For some people, it is pretty easy to keep a clean home, especially for those luxury homes since there’s plenty of storage space (and the materials tend to be durable), but what about outside, though? Well, for even the fanciest of homes, it can be hard.
No, really, just think about it, when it's spring or summer, there’s pollen everywhere, and that gets on the outdoor furniture, the outdoor rug, it’s all over the pergola roof, same for falling leaves too.
When it rains, things outside turn grimy, including the concrete or wood if everything is on a deck. Plus, you have sad-looking plants, maybe a lack of greenery, and the list could go on and on here. You can control the environment in your home, outside, well, not so much.
But if you’re the type of person who loves people randomly coming over on a warm and sunny day, or you’re the type of spontaneous person who wants to just invite some guests over at the last minute to your backyard for a fun little BBQ, how can you keep your backyard and the outdoor living space set up in such a way that it’s always ready when guests arrive without frantically cleaning it up? Well, there are a few things you can do!
Start with the Stuff Guests Actually Notice First
But what exactly would that even be, though? People notice where they’re supposed to sit before they notice almost anything else.
They may not care about every weed along the fence or the fact that one flower pot is having a rough week, but they’ll absolutely notice if the chair they’re about to sit on looks dusty, damp, sticky, or suspicious. Basically, they don’t want to sit on anything gross, it’ll get on their clothes, it’s uncomfortable, you’d be too.
That’s why the seating area needs to be easy to freshen up. It might always need a freshen up if you plan to have people over pretty often, like ideally here, a quick wipe every couple of days during summer can save so much scrambling later.
It doesn’t need to be a full scrub-down with buckets and determination, sure, that’s nice, but that takes too much time. Just a rag and a spray bottle should be enough, as long as every couple of days you’re cleaning the furniture.
But something else to keep in mind here are the cushions, honestly, they’re the bigger issue, because outdoor cushions basically are collecting every bit of weather, pollen, and bird droppings possible. If there’s a storage box, use it. As in, every time you’re going back inside for the day, you put the cushions back in there.
Give the Table a Fighting Chance
The chairs they need to sit on are the first thing they notice, but the second thing they notice is the table. And as you probably already know (depending on your lifestyle, of course), outdoor tables have a real talent for becoming drop zones.
It’s usually things like gardening gloves, sunscreen, half-empty bubble wands, pool goggles, a random screwdriver, an old candle, someone’s snack wrapper, maybe a plant pot that was supposed to be moved three weeks ago. It happens. But just like the chairs, you just need to keep a routine for the table too (and it includes not having junk on it all the time).
Don’t Let the Yard Get to the Point Where it Feels Like a Project
Well, at this point, the theme here is the same; you just need to have a routine in cleaning up. That’s basically the secret to having your entire home, both inside and outside, guest-ready: you just need to have a routine in place and every couple of days, just clean up. Plus, in the summer months, when it comes to plants, that can change really fast, like all it takes is one hot day to burn some plants, one rainy day to drown some plants, and one nice day for weeds to just sprout, well, the same goes for grass too (any plant really).
Since this can be a tad unpredictable, you just need to try and get into the habit of checking your plants, maybe on a day-to-day basis, and pull weeds every couple of days to try and keep it under control (and keep an eye on slugs and snails too). But you need a routine, or else it's only going to get harder to keep this all under control.
Don’t Forget About the Pool
If there’s a pool, that’s probably where people are going to drift first, especially kids. Even adults who claim they’re “just going to sit outside” somehow end up with their feet in the water five minutes later.
It’s just how it happens. But do you plan on DIYing how you clean your pool, or do you plan to use a pool cleaning service? The reason this is brought up is that guests (or you or your family) are going to want to use the pool, but it needs to be well taken care of. A professional can easily get the job done.
Just Make Bugs Less Interested
Sounds good, but how? Well, as you know already, bugs are part of summer, obviously. There’s no need to pretend an outdoor space can be completely bug-free unless it’s sealed in glass, which would defeat the point of being outside anyway. But there’s a big difference between a few mosquitoes and guests spending the whole night smacking their ankles while trying to act polite, and even though you can’t control Mother Nature, like in this really weird way, this sort of makes you seem like a bad host.
Standing water is usually the first thing to handle. So this includes buckets, plant saucers, kid toys, birdbaths, clogged drains, and forgotten outdoor containers, which can all turn into mosquito magnets. So you should just take a look at where the standing water is.