Raleigh Green Gables: Spruce up your guest room for the holidays

The countdown to Thanksgiving and Christmas is on.

That means, guests are coming to stay. I love having a house full of people. Don't you?

But how is your guest bedroom looking? Is it the place you shove everything just before people arrive for a party? Are you using it to store all your fat or skinny clothes that you will fit into "one day?" As extra storage? Do your kids make a it a fort city?

It's time to rethink the guest bedroom. I try to encourage clients to have a pristine place for guests. It should be inviting and relaxing. If you think of very nice hotels, there is very little in the room except a bed and side tables. It's very clean.

Yours does not have to be perfect. Mine still has wall-paper remnants and needs to be painted. But there is nothing in the closet or under the bed. There's a chair, a bed-side table and and a bed with lots of blankets to make it cozy.

Sometimes, I open the door just to look in and breath because it's the cleanest room in the house. I pretend it's off limits for storage or for throwing things I don't want to deal with.

To get there, you need to purge. Get rid of the clothes hanging in there. (I always encourage people to only have clothes that fit them in their closets.) Give away things that are being stored in there that you never use.

You still have a few weeks. You can get it cleaned out!

Here's my favorite guest bedroom transformation. My client was trying to use it for too many things -- school supply storage, business storage.