Hosting Hacks

As someone who has tackled a fair amount of hospitality over the past seven years we've been married, I'm going to share a few shameless 'hacks' I've added to my hospitality arsenal so I'm always prepared, making it easy to open our home. It's not always Pinterest-Pretty-Perfection (sometimes it is!) but if it makes people comfortable to come into our home and treat it like their own (Josh is always offended when someone rings the doorbell, JUST COME RIGHT IN), I've done my job.

We've tried to share this little house and it's contents with as many people as possible...friends, acquaintances...when our friend Dan came to live with us for a month we barely knew him! But hospitality also means that nearly every flat surface or our house has been slept on; countless dishes have been broken; screen doors have been smashed; food has been spilled (on the previously carpeted kitchen ;); motorcycles have been crashed; and glorious memories have been made in the process. Once we went to bed with college kids in our living room just starting to pull out their guitar at 2am and we were like SERIOUSLY?! But those are some of the best and silliest stories we tell to this day.

We're in a slightly different place now than we were back then...we still pull the occasional 2am hot tub sesh, but I've taken a different, more intentional approach to what we involve ourselves in when it comes to hospitality. Typically March through September are the months we hunker down as a family to get through Josh's hardest months but this week we ended up having some friends over for supper...totally not our 'norm' on a Monday night. We chatted at our dining room table until almost 10:00! Josh hadn't even gotten his shower yet and when they left we looked at each other and were like, 'THAT WAS SO FUN.'

I've said it before and I'll say it again...time spent with friends and family around our dining room table is so good for my soul. Playdates and coffee shops and 'mom-time' have their place, but I loooooooove it when people come to our house and we forget about our phones or what time it is and reminisce about college-life until it's past all of our weeknight bedtimes. I've started finding ways to insert this into our life a little bit more on a regular basis, even though it's not always the easy thing to do.

I'll stop rambling and get on with it...warning, the way I host might look really different than most. I know people who enjoy getting together to cook new recipes and spend time in the kitchen creating amazing meals...but I love that when people come to our house all they expect is a vast array of chips, frozen pizza, and freeze pops. I keep it dangerously simple. But maybe that's why if someone were to walk in my house right now I could throw on a fresh pot of coffee and toss them an Oatmeal Cream Pie and get down to chatting.

Here are a few of my secret weapons...

A freezer full of frozen pizza
I cannot tell you how many times this has come in handy. The way to a man's heart is through his stomach...and a good frozen pizza will do the job. I buy Jack's whenever it's on sale at Fareway and I've recently decided it might be a good idea to buy 10 just to keep in the basement deep freeze for whenever we've run out upstairs. Throwing in a pizza for a quick appetizer, at 10:00 when everyone is starting to get hungry for a mid-movie snack, or as a quick and easy 'dinner' option...they're my best, foolproof, hospitality weapon.

See? How cute are these little cream and sugar jars? ;)

Coffee pot
Without needing anything but coffee, mugs, and a few cream/sweetener options on hand...this is a great way to invite people over 'for coffee' as the 'main event' and not require any planning or prep. I recently picked up a matching cream and sugar set since I was starting to do this a little more and wanted to make it super easy to keep everything in one spot and accessible. It's worked really well, and bonus, it's cute.

It took me YEARS to figure out how to make this room work for everything we needed to use it for.

Extra pillows, sheets, towels
I love that sometimes it's hard for us to get people to leave our house they enjoy being here so much. It's such an excellent problem to have. And judging by how much time Jamie and her boyfriend, Jacob have been spending at our house each week and on weekends, I'd say we've succeeded at this. We just make it a party every. night. This makes a LOT of extra work for me each day, but 3/4 of us get up and GO to work at a fairly intense job and I get to stay home to clean up and play with Mav all day...so I've taken it on with a new attitude. I've gotten better at meal planning AND keeping up with washing all the beds in the house...and in return Jamie and Jacob bring the sides I'm missing for our meals, the meat when we grill homemade burgers, and watch Mav when we go to CG on Sunday nights. It's a perfect arrangement...and I love that there is no 'keeping track' of who brought/bought what or who did or didn't make the bed. There are times when it's like, "Ok someone needs to start a load of laundry if anyone expects to have a towel to dry off with when they're done hot tubbing," but everyone is always helpful to pitch in if I ask. AND Jacob randomly takes out my kitchen garbage so he wins All The Boyfriend Points.

All that to say...I keep four pillows on the guest bed, a basket full of extra blankets in the living and guest room, and two sets of towels sitting out in the guest bedroom as well. I *attempt* to keep everything picked up and put away in there so when someone happens to be staying in the guest room there is room for their luggage, etc. It's not a big room and it does a LOT for us (laundry, crafts, sewing, games, off-season clothing, cleaning supply storage, vacuum, paper-file storage), and with the amount of time it's been in use over the past year I can't promise it's always been free of clutter...but I always make it my goal. We also have a twin bed in the Man Cave so if worse comes to worse, we haul that in for another sleeping-surface.

I think it's important to say here that the guest bedroom shouldn't necessarily be a place for mismatched bedding and leftover-rando-decorations...I'd encourage you to be purposeful with what you purchase and the way you decorate that space, as your home and budget allow. I want guests to feel at home, like they can stop to stay anytime with little to no notice and we will always have a place for them. I don't want to just use the odds and ends from our house in the guest bedroom...I want to use my best, prettiest, most comfortable stuff! 

I generally live the phrase, 'Life is short, use the pretty dishes,' and that is almost always true.
Except when plastic and paper will make your life easier.

Plastic cups and paper plates
Ahhh my saving grace. I love a good Sunday brunch with all my antique dishes scattered around, but do not forget the power of disposable-wares and the after-effect it will have on your clean-up duties. Everyone just throws their dishes away...and it's aaaaamazing. I usually whip this stuff out for bigger parties/gatherings...when it's six people or less using real dishes isn't a big deal. But as that number climbs, the more sense it makes to just throw paper plates at everyone. I am going to start buying this stuff in bulk and keeping it all stored in the basement so I never run out and am always ready at a moment's notice (thanks for the motivation, Angie Carson ;).

Those are pre-made, pre-packaged mini cupcakes...and they're adorable and delicious, so I have no shame in admitting that.

Grab-and-go breakfast/snacks
There are times I get up and put in an egg bake or make steak and eggs with the previous night's' delicious steak-leftovers. But most of the time it's fend-for-yourself-style and I keep the cupboard stocked with cereal, granola bars, and some apples in a bowl on the island. I've tried to train our more consistent guests in a few basic areas...snacks/candy is in the island...breakfast stuff is all in one place in the pantry cupboard...shoes come off on the rug at the door...and towels should be hung up not left in piles all over the floor. This makes cleaning easier on me and my responsibilities to 'tend' to guests significantly less. I want our guests to be comfortable enough in our home that they can waltz over to the kitchen cupboard to grab a glass for their water without needing me to help. Does that make sense?

Ultimately, if we have anything here that is too precious to be broken, spilled on, worn, used, or borrowed and not returned...we probably shouldn't have it in the first place.

Happy hosting. ;)

MmB