Cleaning Up After A Party

If you are considering a large family get-together, it is wise to first consider which room or rooms are going to suit your requirements. The size of your home and the amount of guests will play a large part in the rooms you use for the get-together. If you are expecting a large amount of people it is worth considering utilising the garden for extra room. Obviously this will depend on the weather unless you have the means to cover your garden, possibly with a marquee or tent. The main rooms used in a get-together usually are the living room and kitchen. Open concept kitchens are great places for people to mill around chatting with each other. Kitchens with an island have a greater advantage too.

People always seem to enjoy staying close to the food and drink areas. Some guests may wander around the room carrying on conversations with various others. Some may even travel further, for example out to decks or lawns, if the weather is nice enough to mill around outdoors.

People will often sit in a corner or on a sofa or settee with one or two others if they find they have a common interest and proceed into conversation about it. Usually, when that particular conversation is over, the group will break up and individuals may wander back into the kitchen area for more food or drink.

When kitchens have an island, it is easy to spread food trays around its circumference. Cheese and crackers, cold cuts, salads, entrees and desserts can be spread out in a buffet fashion. People will find it easier to munch and chat with others as they sample tidbits from the selection.

This set up works for both casual and semi-formal affairs. If food needs to be kept warm, it can be set in warming trays with tea-light candles underneath. Refills can be warming in the oven or on the stove. In this kind of setting, the oven and stove areas are considered the work areas. Guests will naturally steer clear of these places.

Islands are easy for hosts and hostesses to monitor so food trays will never appear meager or empty. When guests are gathered in the kitchen, because they are milling around the island, the host and hostesses should never feel as if they are left working behind the scenes.

Hosts and hostesses can be just as much a part of the gathering as any guest. When guests gather around the island, they can easily chat with the host or hostess. They are never out of site of each other, which makes the get-together a very pleasant affair.

Plates, serving utensils and napkins can be placed nearby the food, or strategically placed in other areas with the intent of moving guests toward the periphery of the room. A separate bar can be set up where guests can gather for drinks. Coffee and tea stations can also be set up there.

When appetizers, entrees and desserts are placed around the periphery of the island, it is easy to clean up. Guests will rarely leave used glasses, plates or silverware where the food is. Often kitchen islands have a built in oven or sink.

If there is a sink built into the island, those sinks and taps are often decorative as well as functional. Sometimes newer homes even have large taps built in behind stove-tops to facilitate filling large stewing pots.