Home For Christmas: How To Nail A Speedy Clean

Christmas is coming so get your house ready for guests and seasonal celebrations with these brilliant ways to clean, tidy and decorate faster than you can say ‘Santa has a belly like a bowl full of jelly.’

With cards to write, gifts to buy and mince pies to bake, a deep clean is beyond most of us right now. Zero in on the bits guests will actually see – hallway, living rooms, bathroom – and leave the rest till after the holidays.

It’s fine not to do the whole house, just close the doors to rooms you haven’t managed to get to or are using to store clutter for the time being. Visitors will be none the wiser.

Just 15 minutes is all you need to give a room a good once over. Not bad, ‘eh? Grab cleaning essentials and a box to stash unwanted clutter, set the timer and get cracking.

If you have even less time on your hands, squeeze these super speedy cleaning jobs into 30 second bursts. Doing a little every day will help you spread the load and keep on top of it.

We’ve mentioned the benefits of bicarb before – what can we say, we’re big fans. As well as cleaning all sorts in the kitchen, use it as a fast way to freshen up rugs, carpets and pet beds by sprinkling, leaving and then vacuuming.

Vinegar’s useful too. It’ll effortlessly transform a food spattered microwave, banish hard water stains and beautifully clean up a hardwood floor.

Breeze through the clean with the power of steam! Fabulous on festive outfits, garment steamers are also a quick and effective way to freshen up and sanitise curtains, cushions, sofas and more.

Use steam to make short work of the laundry pile too. If you have extra bedding, clothes and linens to tend to this season, steam generator irons are the way to go. Fast work and flawless results.

Not found time to decorate yet? Try these simple but stylish ideas to get your house looking festive. Pare back tree décor, keep wreaths minimal, use a few fairy lights – it’s chic, not sparce!

When it comes to the Christmas table, have a few time-saving ideas ready to roll. A DIY drinks bar, jazzing up shop-bought side dishes and heating the Christmas pud in the slow cooker are all game-changers on the big day.

Welcoming overnight visitors? Learn how to speed clean the bathroom and store bed sheet sets in their matching pillowcase so you can lay your hands on bedding in an instant.

Get a head start on the menu by batch cooking and freezing meals to have on standby and lining up some easy feasting to impress your guests.

Our final tips to get you through the cleaning? Blast some Christmas tune (‘All I want for Christmas is… a tidy house!’), rope in unsuspecting family and reward yourself when it’s all done. Mulled wine and a mince pie should do nicely…