The Essential Items For Your Guest Bedroom

I’ve lived in Northeast Ohio for over 8 years now, and in that time I’ve had friends and family come stay with me several times, at least once a year. More people have come to visit me since I moved to Cleveland than when I lived in Tucson, which is an actual vacation destination. When I lived in Pennsylvania, I had exactly zero visitors – zero and I lived there for 3 years. 

That said, Cleveland has been my most popular city of residence and I’m loving it. My most frequent visitors are my sister and brother-in-law. They’ve stayed with me a few times in the two years I’ve lived at Redwood and at least once before that. Prior to moving into this apartment, I didn’t think of hosting guests as anything to make a fuss over. The visitors aren’t strangers. They’re people who you know and usually very well, so why make a big deal (give them some clean sheets and a towel and move on with it). 

Well, maybe it’s the fact of having a second bedroom and bathroom (actual accommodations for guests), or the fact that I’ve matured a bit in the past few years (read: I watch a ton of YouTube décor videos). Either way, I now see the value in making actual preparations for guests and in doing so, I’ve discovered a few essential items for when company is coming.

The Essentials

When hosting overnight guests, try to imagine the entire experience they will have from a perspective of 3 of your 5 senses – what will they taste, touch and smell in your guest bedroom.

I use my second bedroom as an office, so when guests visit me, I turn my bedroom (the master bedroom) into a guest suite. This is the easiest way for me to provide my guests with a comfortable experience, without having to rearrange furniture. The fortunate thing about using my room as the guest room is that whatever experience I provide for my guests, I also get to experience.

Tastes: This might seem like an odd sense to consider for a guest bedroom, but I always like to provide my guests with something to snack on in their room. If you’d like, you can make a snack basket of local treats, things they can only find in your city. You can also do the reverse and provide them with a taste of their own home town. If you want to get extra fancy, you could turn a dresser top into a snack bar with a Keurig – allowing them to make whatever beverage fits their fancy. The sense of taste is where you get to add the extra touch of luxury that makes your guest feel like they’re staying at a Bed & Breakfast, not just at their sister’s place. 

 

Touches: The most tactile experience in a bedroom will be the bed itself. If you can, it’s a good idea to provide your guests with a couple of pillow & blanket options. Some people like hard pillows and light blankets, others like soft pillows and heavy comforters. I like to dress the bed in removable (and coordinating) layers, so that my guests can cover or uncover to their personal comfort. 

Scents: Smell can be a tricky thing. When you stay in a luxury hotel, one thing you’ll notice is that the rooms always smell quite neutral – not overly fragrant. This is actually a good rule to stick with in a guest room, but I like to augment the neutral smell experience by providing my guests with candles and scented air fresheners they can use at their leisure. It allows them to set their own ambiance, not be forced into one I’ve selected for them.

If you’ve read any of my other posts, you’ll know that I’m not a fan of going nuts on décor purchases and entertaining. I am always a little concerned that people are using money as a way to attempt to impress people, but that it rarely adds to anyone’s enjoyment of the experience. But, in the case of hosting overnight guests, if the money is being spent in the pursuit of comfort and enjoyment for your guests – go all out! It’s like buying a gift, it’s an experience they’ll get to enjoy and remember. It’s also a gift that is reusable – if you trick out your guest room once, all of those amenities are available for future guests.

*Written by Lindsay S., holiday host and Redwood resident.

Holiday Decorating Habits That Make Your Life Harder And More Expensive

It's the week before that holiday that delays my Christmas decorating.

It's OK if you're team wait-til-the-turkey-is-carved, and I respect your beliefs. However, I have spent the last 5 or so years slowly building my own stash of winter decorations, and what better time to share with you the time (and money)-saving tips I have also collected along the way? So without further ado, I have learned:

1. Garlands and wreaths are not necessarily finished products.

Fresh-out-of-the-store garland is like barbecue sauce; it's just the base, and we need to supply a few more ingredients. I like to think of my garland as more of an extension of my Christmas tree-I fill it out with inserts, lights, and ornaments. In addition, having a bare wreath with removable adornments frees you up to switch out your color scheme with just a new cheap ornament or two should you want to freshen things up a bit the following year.

2. You don't have to buy your ornaments at the store.

Do you know what an ornament is? It's an object with a hook. Literally anything could be called an

ornament provided it is light enough so as not to knock the tree over. Cast a careful eye over the adornments you see on Christmas trees popping up in craft stores, department stores, and the like. I noticed everything from stuffed animals to life-size boots finding a place among the branches.

My husband and I began collecting objects from our travels to use as Christmas ornaments a couple years ago. We've found that key chains work particularly well, and are ubiquitous enough to be found at most any travel destination, should you be interested in starting a collection.

3. Don't wait to put your tree-topper on last.

Trying to climb an object that is a foot taller than you without knocking off any of the breakable baubles dangling from it is an annual exercise in futility for many American families. By plunking that sucker on first, you're free to twist and adjust your tree to get the perfect arrangement for it's star.

4. Don't go too heavy on holiday-specific decor right away.

There's no such thing as too much Christmas decor, but there is such a thing as the post-holiday blues, which is worsened by having to destroy my home (and inner child) by dismantling all those decorations at once.

The good news is that often the difference between a Christmas adornment and a piece of winter decor is a few red berries or a green ribbon. By starting with a simple pine-cone-festooned winter wreath and adding a couple sprigs of holly, you need only remove the holiday-themed addition to extend the seasonal life of the wreath from those precious 4 weeks between Thanksgiving and December 25th all the way to the end of winter (approximately May 15th for us Northern folks). Choose snowmen over Santas and keep your seasonal cheer all winter. Bonus: It's a lot easier packing everything back into the garage when temperatures aren't at their annual lowest.

Happy decorating!

*Written by Sharae Richmond

My Absolute Favorite Thanksgiving Dish

There are few things that I enjoy more than cooking. I grew up going to a ton of family gatherings where the food was the main focus. Buzzing around in the kitchen while the women made turkeys & hams, collard greens & green beans, mashed potatoes & candied yams, and buttered biscuits & sweet rolls, it was all so much fun. As I got older, I started out snapping green beans and cleaning collard greens. I was promoted to dough mixer (a patently difficult job, that we gratefully have machines for now).  All that dough practice led me to baking, and I became the resident holiday cookie maker. I honestly feel like I was raised in the kitchen and those holiday meals where my culinary pre-school.

As I grew up, instead of watching cartoons on Saturday mornings, I watched cooking shows on PBS. I drove my mother nuts! There were many failed dishes, but my family was supportive and we ate them all. Fortunately for everyone, I perfected my cookie game, and by the time I was in high school, I could make cookies from almost any set of ingredients in the kitchen. All those mornings watching Julia Childs and Jacque Pepin leveled up my cooking substantially, and by the time I was introduced to the Food Network in college I was already a dorm room chef. Now, of course, all this bragging about my cooking abilities doesn’t help you one bit, but I do want to impart one of my favorite holiday dishes. It was the absolute first holiday dish that I learned to cook to perfection, and have received rave reviews for ever since.

What’s this magical dish, you ask? It’s Fresh Cranberry Sauce! Of all those holiday get togethers I remember from my childhood, the cranberry sauce always came out of a can – usually bought from the nearest Walgreens. I’m sure it was the influence of one of the hundreds of cooking shows I’d watched, but I just knew I could do better. So, one Thanksgiving, I offered to bring the cranberry sauce. Most people thought I was going to do like everyone else – just get the can, maybe two, if I was feeling generous. I totally shocked their pants off with a Fresh, Homemade Cranberry Sauce! It was a hit and I’ve since been commissioned to make it every year. 

No worries, I won’t be stingy. I’ve included the recipe below:

12 oz. Fresh Cranberries

½ cup Honey

½ cup Water

¼ cup Orange Juice

½ tsp Grated Cinnamon

1 tbls Unsalted Butter

½ tsp Vanilla Extract

¼ tsp Kosher Salt

Empty a 12-ounce bag of fresh cranberries into a saucepan with the ½ cup of water. Bring the cranberries to a simmer and added honey, orange juice, and cinnamon. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until the cranberries are soft, about 10 minutes. Increase the heat to medium and cook until the cranberries burst, about 12 minutes. Remove from heat and add the unsalted butter, vanilla extract and salt, to taste. Let the dish cool to room temperature before serving.


*Written by Lindsay S., a proud writer, cranberry sauce aficionado, and Redwood resident.

Election 2016: Finding Unity in the Community

If you’re like me, you spend your free time doing anything other than checking social media these days – which is why I can typically be found in the attached garage to my apartment working on recording some music (thankfully it’s a private garage so no one has to deal with my loud voice). 

It’s funny – I walk around my apartment complex every night (at least until that beautiful Ohio winter starts showing it’s ugly face) and if you didn’t know any better, you wouldn’t even realize there was something so tense and controversial going on. I’ll frequently stop and talk to my neighbors out walking their dogs, relaxing on their personal patios or otherwise enjoying the beautiful fall scenery around the neighborhood (and yes – I call it a neighborhood – it’s the friendliest apartment community I’ve ever been a part of), and whether it’s thanks to societal norms or plain and simple good manners, there’s no negativity in our conversations. There’s no mention of who’s voting for person X or Y, no exclamations about the latest scandal or newest tidbit released about the election. It’s just a couple of human beings, enjoying the simpler things in life, together… and at the end of the day, isn’t that what we all want: to enjoy life?

This election has done a great job telling us how our candidates are different from each other, but they don’t tell us the similarities. At the end of the day, no matter who you’re voting for, I think it’s safe to say we all want to be happy, safe and free. When we work together, no matter who the president becomes, we can achieve that. We’ve proved it time and again as a nation, and we’ll prove it again today. So go, exercise your freedom as an American and vote, but remember – we’re all in this together, regardless of whose name we check at the ballot box.

-Written by Justin H., musician and Redwood resident.