That cute guy or girl you’ve been dating is coming over! The excitement of another positive step in the right direction is usually quickly met with the fear of whether or not your house or apartment is ready to have someone over. In this guide, we’re going to help you get your house prepped for a date the right way to ensure the best experience for you and your date.
If you’ve got a guy or girl coming over soon, read on, and we’ll make sure we cover everything that you need to have ready to go.
Why Prepping Your House for a Date is Important
Up until this point, all they know about you is what you’ve told them and what they’ve experienced with you. But now, they finally get to start validating the things you’ve told them. There’s a sense of trust and validity that enters a relationship once you’ve been to each other’s houses. You may not have thought that having your house prepped the right way for a date was what important, but it is.
You don’t have to have the biggest house or nicest apartment to make a good impression on a new love interest. But, if you don’t do a few simple things to get ready for your date’s arrival, then it doesn’t matter how nice your apartment it; it’s going to be a bad experience.
A bad experience means that you’re not going to achieve your goal, whatever it might be, You might be looking to get another date, you might be looking for things to get a little steamy, or you might just be stopping through on your way out for a date. Whatever your dating goal is, you have to prep your apartment or house properly for the date.
Below, you’ll find an awesome list of everything that you need to get taken care of before he or she comes over.
How to Prepare Your House for a Date (5 Steps)
1. Clean…Deep Clean
This should be obvious, but we’ve been on enough dates to know that it’s not. You have got to clean your house from top to bottom if you are going to have a date over. The best thing you can do is keep your house or apartment pretty clean all the time so that if someone comes over last minute, you are still prepared.
Now, we don’t just mean tossing the pillows on the couch and picking up the takeout containers off the floor. You need to go a little deeper than that. Your date is going to be judging you based on what they see, and that starts with cleanliness. Here are a few things that you need to do to get your place clean for a date.
- Take out the trash, so it doesn’t smell like a garbage collection site.
- Take anything rotten out of your fridge.
- Clean the streak marks out of your toilet bowl. We know that everyone poops, but you don’t have to prove it to us.
- Your bathroom needs to look as spotless as possible. That green stuff growing? Get rid of the science experiment.
- The vacuum is your friend. If you have carpet, vacuum track lines are proven to turn a girl on.
- Get rid of clutter. If you have stacks of junk, hide it in your closet or somewhere out of sight.
- Take a damp rag and wipe dust off of all the surfaces you can see and preferably not right before they come over or the dust will be flying and could mess with their allergies if they have them.
- Buy some Febreeze or something that smells good. It’s a few bucks well invested.
The cleaner you keep your house or apartment normally, the less you will have to do when a date opportunity presents itself.
Order the Essentials Now
(Links to order open in a new tab, so you won’t miss the rest of the guide.)
S&T INC. Microfiber Cleaning Cloth
Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day Multi-Surface Everyday Cleaner
Chesapeake Bay Candle Scented Candle, Balance + Harmony (Water Lily Pear)
2. Remove Anything From Past Relationships
You really shouldn’t have much from your past relationships anyways, but we understand if you have some cool gifts or something like that you just didn’t want to get rid of. Before a date comes over, you might want to look at moving all of this stuff out of site especially if it’s stuff like old notes or other things you should have torched a long time ago.
Why? We all know that everyone has dated people before us, but we don’t want to see pictures or evidence of that. There’s not that screams turnoff like seeing a picture of someone’s ex or something that is clearly from another love interest. You really should get rid of that stuff regardless, but at the very least get it way out of site for your date. This could be the most important step to prepping your house for a date for some of you.
3. Have Beverages, Snacks, and a Respectable Fridge
If you’re old enough to remember the MTV show Cribs, you remember that they always made a stop at the famous person’s refrigerator. If you want your apartment or house be as prepared as possible for a date, you need to have your fridge look respectable. If it is 100% empty, it just gives off a weird serial killer type vibe.
We’re not saying that you need to go out and buy a ton of groceries before your date, but your fridge should look like someone has lived in your house within the past few months.
Also, make sure you have some snacks and beverages for your date to partake in if they are thirsty or hungry. The number one thing you’re going to want is bottled water. On top of that, if you two like to drink you can have some beer, wine or liquor, or a mixture if possible.
Snack wise, you don’t have to go overboard, but at least have something that you two can nibble on if you get hungry. If you’d like to get real classy, you can always get some fancy cheese and crackers and stuff like that. It’s really up to you based on what your budget is, what your date likes, and what your plans for the evening are.
If you’re just stopping through for a quick second before you go out, you really don’t need that much in the snack department. But, if you’re spending the night in watching movies or playing board games, you’ll want to have a nice selection.
4. Account For Your Roommates
Something that is often overlooked when prepping an apartment for a date (or a house) is accounting for roommates. We live in a time where more people than ever live with someone else. It helps to cut down on bills, and it’s nice to have someone fun around to talk to when you get home from work or a terrible or awesome date.
But, you need to figure out how things are going to work with your roommate when your date comes over. You obviously can’t just tell them to leave every time you want to have someone over, but you need to at least talk and figure out what the plan is. One, it’s respectful to tell your roommate that you’re having someone over. And two, it can help you to make sure that the mood you’re looking for will be right.
If you’re planning on sitting on the couch in the living room and watching movies, you might be able to ask your roommate for a little privacy. Or, if that’s not an option, then you might want to figure out what else you can do so it’s not a weird third-wheel situation. There is nothing that can ruin a date to watch movies like a roommate playing video games for hours on the TV you want to use or something like that.
We don’t know what your situation is like with your roommate, but at least come up with some sort of plan and communicate with them to make things comfortable for them and give your date the best chance for success. You might have to butter up your roommate or offer to do something for them, but it might help you with your date. Prepping your house for a date includes figuring out the plan for all the people that will be in the house during your date.
5. Have Supplies if It’s Potentially Going to Be a “Sleepover”
There’s a decent chance that some of you reading this guide are planning on or hoping that your significant other is going to “sleep over.” Now, we’re going to keep this guide PG and let you go ahead and use your imagination about what we’re referring too. If that’s the case (or even a possibility), you need to make sure that you have some things there that your date can use.
This includes things like clean towels for a shower, a throwaway toothbrush, toothpaste, and an extra travel-sized deodorant. There are other “supplies” that you may want to also have on hand if it’s going to be an adult sleepover. Insert winking face here.
Colgate Max Fresh Wisp Disposable Mini Toothbrush, Peppermint
(Links to order open in a new tab, so you won’t miss the rest of the guide.)
Degree Dry Protection Antiperspirant Deodorant, Shower Clean 0.5 oz
This type is good for men and women and comes as a 10 pack (super affordable).
6. Make Your Bed
We know we’re probably running the risk of sounding like your mom here, but it’s worth it. You need to make your bed. Whether you do it regularly or not, you need to make your bed. Whether you plan on using your bed on the date or not, you need to make it.
Prepping your house for a date involves making it look as presentable as possible. The number one thing you can do to make your bedroom look cleaner and more organized is make your bed. It’s also going to make you look more responsible and like you have it together.
7. Expect Your Date to Snoop
Whether it’s just with their eyes or they’re actually going to dig around, you should expect your date to snoop a little bit on your first date at your house. Even if they don’t end up snooping, it’s a much safer plan to expect them to and be wrong than to not expect them to and be wrong.
What does this have to do with prepping your apartment for a date? Well, you need to expect your date to look a little further and a little deeper. This might mean as little as them looking at literally everything you have out in your house or apartment. Or, it could mean they go through drawers in your bathroom or start poking around places you wouldn’t expect them to look (or didn’t invite them to look).
This means that anything you don’t want found or you don’t feel like explaining at this point of your relationship should be put under lock and key or somewhere that they would not be able to easily snoop. If you need to put everything that you don’t want them learning about just yet into a box and putting it in the garage or in your car trunk, then go for it.
The Big Picture – Prepping Your Place for a Date to Come Over
Having a date over should be something exciting and be viewed as a positive step in the right direction. It takes a lot of trust to agree to go over to someone’s house outside of the public eye. If you want to keep seeing that person again, you’ll want to show that you care by putting in the effort to clean up your place.
If you don’t care that your date thinks you’re a slob, then ignore everything we just said. But, people have a tendency to draw conclusions about you as a person based on how your apartment or house looks. Do yourself a favor and take the time to get things prepared for your date properly.
