Getting your home ready for a home exchange comes with good and bad components. The good thing is it makes you clean out your pantry, organize your closets a bit, and straighten out your dresser drawers. The bad thing about a home exchange is that you have to clean out your pantry, organize your closets a bit, and straighten out your dresser drawers. It’s always good to clean out your pantry, organize your closets, and straighten your drawers but when you’re packing to get ready to go on a trip, it can turn into a mad scramble when you’re trying to do all of those things and get your family out the door with suitcases in hand.

I’d like to tell you that my pantry and refrigerator are always organized but they’re not. (That’s another plus to meal planning – it makes you dig around in your pantry every week and see what you’ve got!)

I’d like to tell you that all of our closets are clean but they’re not. They usually have a gang of dust bunnies ready to attack whoever dares to disturb them.

I’d like to tell you my dresser drawers are neat and tidy. Ok, they are. My dresser drawers are pretty neat and tidy but only because I don’t share them with anyone and I’m usually running down to the basement to get my clean clothes off the drying line because they don’t even make it into my dresser drawers!

Tips for a home exchange

• Leave an empty drawer. Leave an empty dresser drawer or 2 for your home exchange family. It’s so nice to put your things in a dresser drawer rather than live out of a suitcase. A note directing them to their space is a nice touch.
• Make room in each closet. This is simply scooting items down and rounding up some empty hangers. I like to leave different types of hangers – jackets, skirts, padded, etc. This is also a good time to get my kids to clean their treasures off of their desks.
• Make room in the kitchen. Make space in a cabinet, drawer or pantry for your home exchange family. I consolidate what’s in my pantry and scoot our food to the back.
• Replace what you use. If we use all of the olive oil or the last of the chocolate sauce, we replace it with new. The last family we traded with didn’t replace but left us money to do so. Either is fine.



• Put out a clean sponge. I always leave a new kitchen sponge for a home exchange family and I always travel with a new sponge (nerd alert!). On our first exchange, I took one look at the sponge and thought, “Is this what they scrub the floor with or clean their dishes with?” That was the last time I wondered.
• Leave a little gift. I like to welcome people into our house with a homemade treat of cookies or granola and a note. A bottle of wine is also a nice way to say enjoy your vacation at our place.
• Leave a thank you note. We all enjoy reading the note that gets left behind at our home. It’s not every day people you don’t know stay in your house and sleep in your beds and it’s great to read about what they did or enjoyed. We always leave a thank you note and everyone signs it.

We always try to leave the home we stayed in nicer than when we showed up. That’s not always easy to do because the homes we’ve stayed in have all been clean, comfortable, and welcoming. That’s how I want people to think of my home – and not have to wonder where the sponge has been…

What’s on your travel to-do list this summer?

Read more from Sara:
Our first home exchange is here
Fall in love home exchanges – I have – you can, too
Vacation meal planning- yes, plan your meals while on vacation!
Travel packing tips and chart can be found here

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Sara Tetreault, a frugal, fancy and fun blogger, inspires readers with thoughtful spending, smart use of resources, and efficient use of time.  Sara loves to eat fabulous meals, wear designer clothing, decorate her home, and travel the world.  How does she do it?  By cooking at home, thrifting, and home swapping.  Sara keeps a home, one husband, two children, and three backyard chickens.

Visit Sara’s Website at http://gogingham.com

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