SUMMER is often the time hordes of friends and relatives decide to descend on us for a visit, which is great but can be hard work for the hosts, especially if they don’t happen to live in a huge villa with a fleet of cleaning staff!
If anyone knows how to prepare small spaces for large visitor numbers and keep them de-cluttered and ready for use, its cruise ship staff. Here are a few tips from ship housekeepers which we can all learn from:
- Prepare a kit for each room with towels, bedlinen and anything else you want to leave ready for your guests in advance. This will save time running around the day before they arrive and means you have everything on hand when you go to prepare their room(s).
- Have a special storage area for linen and separate or label it by size or room. Once washed and ironed, or returned from the laundry, organise your bedlinen in one place and keep double and single sets apart so you can quickly and easily grab what you need without hunting through piles of sheets, wrinkling everything else in the process.
- Storage boxes are a great way to make the most of available space, but make sure you stack them right to keep things simple.
- Opt for multi-task cleaning products to cut down on the number of bottles you need, and keep them all in one place. While hotel and cruise cleaners have a trolley, you can convert this idea for the home but keeping everything in a bucket or box.
- Keep to a cleaning routine. If you always do everything in the same order, you’ll be able to perfect an efficient routine and save time.
