The Weekenders: Visitors – Human and Otherwise

  |  August 10, 2012

Update:  New York Times Home & Garden section features a column on horrible house guests (luckily none of which we’ve experienced yet).  Be sure to read the comments – lots of readers chime in with their horror stories as well.

This weekend will be the first weekend in more than a month that we won’t have people staying at the house. When we get home this coming Friday night, dinner won’t be waiting for us and I can no longer look forward to long games of Mexican Train. It’s either going to be really nice to be able to walk around the house without pants on, or the house will seem sad and lonely and resound with the lost echo of fun and laughter. But really, I think it will be nice to have the place to ourselves for a few weekends to clean up and focus on finishing some projects.

When we used to stay with friends when we were looking for a place, there were definitely a few things our friends did that made for exceptional visits. Now that we have our own place, I feel like we’ve learned a few things about what seems to make for happy house visitors.

First, for repeat visitors, customize where you can: We installed an electrical hookup for an RV in our barn. My dad and stepmother are both retired and they are avid (though not full time) RVers. Even though we have four functioning bedrooms in the house, they prefer to stay in their RV with their familiar, comfortable bed and their satellite TV and AC. In order to accommodate them, we had a 50 amp RV plug installed in the barn so they can plug in and have all of their creature comforts when they visit.

For the friends and family who stay IN the house, having a comfortable bed is key. I’ve managed to collect several sets of nice sheets, pillows, duvets and other bedding, as well as decent bath towels. Unfortunately, nice linens aren’t cheap, but a few great sources I’ve found include Home Goods (who often have Ralph Lauren bedding on sale), the curated shopping site One Kings Lane  (you have to be a member, and most sales are final) and the old stand-by, Ikea who have great duvets and duvet covers and decent pillows at good prices.

Even when we have visitors, we still try to get some project work done around the house. We don’t like to FORCE our guests to help out, but if they are willing and able, we like to have some easy projects for them to do. Painting is a popular one, as is stacking wood in the fall/winter and gardening/weeding and clearing/burning brush in the spring and summer. The next time they come to your house for a visit, they can point to something as say “I did that!” We like to make sure that the work is outdoors – nobody wants to spend the weekend in the country painting in the cellar.

But obviously since people are presumably visiting you for fun and relaxation, it’s important that we aren’t slave drivers, so we always try to stop work and clean up in time for cocktail hour at 6:00 (5:00 in the winter) for sitting and chatting by the creek, on the deck, or, if it’s raining, in the barn, looking out at the mountain from the open barn door. I like to cook, so even when we don’t have guests I try to make sit-down dinners every night we’re at the house. When guests are around, having a real dinner that guests who like to cook can contribute to is part of what we think makes for a fun visit. Obviously in the summer, BBQs are a must., as is a fire pit for sitting around once it gets dark and the cool mountain air moves in.

Whatever we find for our visitors to do, we hope that they will find ways to relax and take advantage of the beauty of the surrounding area. Since we used to be regular hikers, we have area hiking maps, daypacks other hiking accoutrement that our guests can borrow while visiting. For more intrepid guests, we can even provide tents and other camping equipment if they want to spend the night in the woods. Friends with kids can camp beside the creek and still be near the house.

I love playing games – board games, card games, yard games – but unfortunately Mr. Sticks doesn’t. Having visitors around is a chance for me to bring out the cards or the dominoes or whatever. This summer we bought a badminton set to add to the bocce set and the croquet set. The hard part is generally getting them set up and getting started, but once their up, who can say ‘no’ to a casual badminton game? Especially in the evening when we get out the glow-in-the-dark birdies that the bats seem to love as much as we do.

Other things we have that we hope guests will enjoy: bicycles for riding up and down the road, a telescope for watching the stars, fishing nets and mason jars for kids to catch minnows, frogs and fireflies, and BB guns for shooting tin cans before they go to the dump.

One thing about invites: set specific dates. It isn’t always enough (at least with our friends) to just say “come up sometime – let us know when.” Giving people specific invitations on specific dates makes them feel more welcome – like you’re ready for them.

Then, of course there are the unwelcome guests: mice, insects, bats (two flew into our kitchen the other night on the full moon when someone left the screen door open – luckily we were able to shoo them out), bears, groundhogs, rabbits, deer. For mice, we set traps. We don’t have that many, but from everything we’ve heard, it’s almost impossible not to have them in the country, especially in an older house, so we are vigilant in trapping them.  There have been lots of reports of nuisance bears this year, keep your garbage locked up in a secure place, and don’t put out birdseed. Deer are nice except when they eat your garden – same with rabbits and groundhogs. Unfortunately, being in the country, you’re going to have to learn to either live with wild animals, discourage them from being around.

Read On, Reader...