House Warming Party

Mrs42509 · August 2010

We just bought our first house in May and we are wanting to have a house warming party. I have some questions....

How soon after you moved into your house did you have your house warming party?

What kind of food did you have/make?

Did you provide alcholic beverages or just water and pop?

What time did you have it at?

Any other tips or suggestions would be great.

Do you give everyone a tour or do they just walk around and look themselves?

TIA!

lovetara00 · August 2010

We had ours about 2 months after we moved in.

It was June, so we grilled out and had various side dishes and desserts to go along with the standard grill-out food.

Umm...hard for me to remember, lol. I think we had people bring their own beverages but had some on hand in case people forgot, ran out, etc. I realize this is probably not the societal norm, but happens to be the norm amongst our group of friends.

I believe we started around 5, had dinner around 6:30, and then people stayed late into the night. That's another norm for our group.

Our house is fairly small, so we didn't give formal tours, but there were definitely people who wanted to look around and we'd accompany them. Plus, several of our friends had already seen the house.

101709lovey · August 2010

With my first house I did the party a year or more after I bought it. The second house we didn't do a formal housewarming party, but had a get together somewhere around 9 months after. I wanted time to get things done like painting, etc. and I didn't want to rush or be pressured.

I made apps then grilled out burger and hot dogs, had some desserts. Some people offered to bring something, so I incorporated that into the menu.

I had some alcohol, soda, and punchy drinks, but told people if they wanted more alcohol than what I had, to bring some.

Had it around dinner time.

Mostly let people walk around on their own if they wanted to, or if they asked I showed them around.

My biggest piece of advice is do NOT stress about doing it. Take your time, get things done on the house you want, and then do the party when its convenient for you. There is no set guideline you have to follow. Give yourself time to get things done on your own schedule. You will be there for many years more than likely and the party will always make it feel new again, even if its a year or more down the road.

daves_sweetpea · August 2010

I moved into my house in March and had a Christmas open house. It was 9 years ago so I don't remember the food-I know it was something-maybe heavy snacks? Pretty sure I had a little alcohol out too.

ellynanddan · August 2010

We found that almost everyone who came brought us a bottle of wine. It was a great way to 'stock' our wine fridge.

We did an evening after dinner party with light apps and drinks provided. If you are new to the area, it would be cute to have 'Cincinnati' favorites like Chilli or a Graeters Ice Cream cake.

My husband and I gave a few tours around the house but also allowed people to walk around on their own.

If you did any work or decorating it would be neat to have a 'before' and 'after' photo album.

anotapotamus · August 2010

Mrs42509:

We just bought our first house in May and we are wanting to have a house warming party. I have some questions....

How soon after you moved into your house did you have your house warming party? We were renting the first floor of our house for 2 years before we bought it, so our party was about 5 days after purchase.

What kind of food did you have/make? Standard trays of veggies, fruit, picked up wings from our favorite wing joint and cake from our favorite cake joint

Did you provide alcholic beverages or just water and pop? We provided everything.

What time did you have it at? started at 4pm, ended at 3am

Any other tips or suggestions would be great. Invite your neighbors. Take shifts on giving tours. Don't justify all the 'we haven't done this yet but's' - it just points out things your guests might not even notice. Put food in more than one place to keep people moving.

Do you give everyone a tour or do they just walk around and look themselves? Both. Some people got tours. Some people just walked around.

TIA!

Now I have a question.

AM I INVITED?

Christine.Louie · August 2010

Mrs42509:

How soon after you moved into your house did you have your house warming party? We closed on our house in middle of June but then gutted our kitchen and didn't move until beginning of August. We had our housewarming party at the end of September so about 2 months.

What kind of food did you have/make? Pulled pork, cocktail meatballs, hot dogs, chocolate fountain with strawberries, marshmallows, nilla wafers, and graham crackers for dipping, veggie tray, fruit tray, pasta salad, maybe broccoli salad, and I think spinach artichoke dip and brownies were also on the menu. We had lots of people stop by our open house (big family!) and they're big eaters.

Did you provide alcholic beverages or just water and pop? Water, pop, and we had a few beers and Mike's Hard in the garage fridge just in case.

What time did you have it at? I think in the afternoon sometime...my family stayed well into the evening which prompted my mom to cook even MORE food. (you NEVER go hungry when you're with my mom)

Any other tips or suggestions would be great. Agree with PP about inviting your neighbors. We created postcard invites on VistaPrint and sent them to family then hand delivered some to our immediate neighbors next to and across the street from us. We also knew a few ppl in the neighborhood from work so invited them as well. I think of all 6 or so families that we invited only 1 showed up but can't hurt to try to break the ice and get to know your neighbors . If you can, designate someone as the official greeter at the door and also have someone in charge of refilling food as needed. Depending on the format of your event, you may also want to either have designated "tour times" or put someone to work on giving "official tours" because you want to be free to mingle with your guests. If you're like me and dislike the idea of shoes trampling throughout the house have a shoerack near the door and ideally some seating area so that shoes can be removed upon entry. You can also put I polite sign (mine says "Welcome! This is an American home lived Asian style so please remove your shoes and stay awhile!" - it hangs on our stair banister in the entryway).

Do you give everyone a tour or do they just walk around and look themselves? I took our house floor plan (got it off of Drees website) and then added some * that matched locations in various rooms that were "points of interest". I then printed them off and put them on a table near the entrance saying they could self tour but hubby also did some "guided tours", too. Each point of interest had a print out paragrah statement about the significance of what they were looking at. Some examples for us were: A painting that included my preserved bridal bouqet, a Peter Max painting we bought on our honeymoon, a painting that DH's husband created for us and gifted to us for our wedding, our sand ceremony frame, the $800 elliptical that I bought for $30. I also had 3 posters that I made and hung up: Before/During/After kitchen remodel photos with captions (placed in kitchen), Before/During/After great room/entryway remodel (placed in entryway), and the timeline of our home buying adventure with key properties and milestones (it took us over a year to find our home!). I probably have these materials still if you're interested in more details.

House Warming Party

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