Teacher appreciation was a few weeks ago. Being a teacher once, I remember some of the things I have received from my students. It meant a lot to get notes and gifts from them. I actually have a file still out in my garage of notes that I have received from my students that really had an impact on me. This year offered a reverse of this activity–my son has two incredible preschool teachers, and we wanted to say thank you to them! We made these wonderful flower pots as a thank you.
Flower pot with words, “Thank you for helping me grow!”
I went to Pinterest to look for some ideas. I found several places that had flower pots with the writing, “Thank you for helping me grow!” One of my favorites was this one from Kelly Leigh. I didn’t have time to put the tape measure design around the top, but I think the teachers name at the top looks nice.
I’ve briefly mentioned before about living in a hotel when I was an engineering contractor. Between those stays, which might last up to months, and stays for personal travel, I’ve seen a lot of hotel rooms.
There are lots of nice things about hotels–someone cleans up after you, there’s usually a pool and exercise room, and the “social hour” snacks are alright too. One of the things I liked best, though, was all the little items in your own room that just made it, well, comfortable. When you leave to go home, you’d expect to feel even more comfortable. Home is your own place, after all. But there’s something that never feels quite so open, quite so “getting away” as when you’re in a hotel room. Is there a way you can bring some of that feeling, that hotel living, home? Well, you don’t have to wait–just keep reading to find out how to make the answer yes! 😀
A Focus on Two Rooms
There are two major areas of focus: The bathroom and the bedroom. Why? Those are the two spaces that all hotel rooms are made up of. If you get a nicer hotel room, or a larger one, then sure you’ll have other spaces and items to consider. Let’s keep this simple, though.
You’ll want to focus mostly on the bathroom and bedroom that you use the most in your home. If you’re fortunate enough to have a master bathroom attached to your bedroom, that’s what you’ll want to look at. If there are multiple bathrooms in your home, choose the one that has the best facilities (e.g., a bath instead of a shower, dual sinks, or wherever the kids are least likely to intrude).
Let’s Start with the Bathroom
What do you see when you first walk into the bathroom at a hotel? Apart from the toilet. You see a clean, organized space; the little things on the sink are neatly laid out, the trash can is tucked away, and the towels are all folded up.
Shower time
The shower is likely the epitome of all that cleanliness: There are few things, if any, on the shower’s shelves. If you want to bring hotel living home, start there by getting rid of all the things you don’t need in your shower. Those things that are crucial? Sure, keep them. The bulk size bottle of shampoo and the multiple soap bars? Move the shampoo to a smaller bottle and just have one bar of soap. Give yourself some space to enjoy moving around in the shower!
And, to truly enjoy that space, make sure you invest in a good showerhead. Most hotels have multi-setting showerheads so you can do anything from blast yourself to just have a little mist. You don’t have to spend a lot to get one of these, although you can get some very fancy ones if you truly want to make the investment.
Beyond the shower
To keep the area around the shower clean, get a towel that’s different from all the others to serve as your bath mat. This is one thing that hotels do that has a lot of wisdom: They just use one nice, unique towel for you to step on without slipping. They (and you) could use a fabric bath mat, but those are really difficult to keep clean and a pain to run through the laundry.
Finally, apart from keeping your floors and toilet clean (and your trash from overflowing), the other thing to do is have minimal clutter around your sink. Put all the often-viewed-seldom-used things away, find a drawer for your toothbrush and toothpaste, and minimize the decorations. In alignment with my wife’s post on hospitality, keep an extra basket or stand with some small, extra bottles of shampoo and soap on hand in case you or your guests need them.
Did your hotel ever have a sink this messy?
Much better, eh? You could just walk up and use this.
That’s it for the bathroom. Streamlined, improved, and ready to move on to the bedroom.
The Bigger Space: The Bedroom
Do you really want to know why it feels so good to walk into a hotel room? Yes, sometimes it’s that you finally completed the end of a long, dreary drive. Yup, you can watch TV channels that you might not get at home. But with both of those, and other reasons, there’s one big point: The bedroom has enough space to drop your things, and is clean so that you can go anywhere and sit anywhere without dealing with “stuff”.
The biggest, best thing you can do for your bedroom, then, is similar to what you did in your bathroom: Remove all the clutter. Dirty laundry: into the clothes basket. Coats: They go in the closet. Kids’ toys: Back to the kids’ rooms. Anything on the dresser: Find a place for it. That feeling of openness, of peace you just got there? Already so worth it. Now for the more fun stuff.
Start with the bed
The big focus point in your bedroom is, of course, the bed. In a hotel, the staff makes the bed up for you. Get off your butt and do it yourself every morning to have that experience. Again, it keeps things looking clean and brings hotel living home. While you’re dealing with the bed, get a set of nice sheets and a decent comforter to put on there. Hotels are good at putting nice bedding (though not expensive) on. They’ve also become very good at providing pillows of different firmness and size to help everyone sleep better. If you have a hard time sleeping (like I do), indulge here so that you can find the option that fits you best every night.
Finish with the nightstand
In both the hotel and in most peoples’ homes, there’s a nightstand. Keep it simple: Limit what’s on there to a light, a book, and an alarm clock, just like a hotel room. And turn your darned phone off or to Do Not Disturb, because there’s very little you’re going to be needed for or can solve overnight anyways.
Very much not hotel-level cleanliness there.
No clutter or anything else to stress about here. The little pink monster my oldest gave me is quite happy.
Hopefully, with this, you’ve got a bedroom with very little clutter and a very big sense of space. Since it’s the current fad, you can call this following Marie Kondo’s methods. If you’re like me, you call it minimalism (which came way before Ms. Kondo, by the way). Either way, it’s a step towards having the hotel experience in your own bedroom.
You Can Do This, and More
There you have it: If you want to bring hotel living home to your bathroom and bedroom spaces, it’s primarily about minimizing what’s out on the multitude of surfaces, and keeping organized those few items that are out. With that, and a very few purchases, you can experience hotel comfort in your personal spaces.
There are many other things you can do to try and achieve the hotel living experience. You can prepare snacks for you and your family for your own “social hour” in the afternoon. Putting away the rest of the clutter in your house is great, too (and helps prevent bare feet from meeting hard LEGOs). Even some small purchase like a new entry mat for your front door can be a step in the right direction.
We can’t duplicate the entirety of the hotel experience in our homes. I hope that this post has given you some insight into what you can do, though, to make your bathroom, bedroom, and the rest of your home feel like a great place to be.
