D is for Decorations

Our Christmas tree is up! I'm super excited about this, as it is our first Christmas tree in six years of marriage (how my husband managed to deter me this long is a mystery to me).

Looking pretty awesome

Cute woodland/outdoors theme

We've opted for a 'living' Christmas tree, with roots, in a pot (£30 from Homebase for a tree about 1 metre tall). I stuck the pot in a bucket and wrapped it with some red gingham fabric and a white ribbon. It looked pretty cute just as it was, but then I got so excited about putting up all the tree decorations, so I went a bit mad and covered nearly every branch!

I had so much fun shopping for decorations. The wooden hearts came from Marks and Spencer (£3 each, in 3-for-2 offer). The sparkly snowflakes are from Primark (£2 for nine - my favourite bargain!). The snowflake garland came from Dunelm (£4.99) The red painted heart you can see in the main photo is part of a set of three from Poundland. The star at the top is from Hobbycraft (£4).

Candles in the snow

These candles are just tea lights and holders from Ikea, with epsom salts as the snow!

I love decorating the house for Christmas. It just looks so festive and it's wonderful bringing the outdoors inside.

Did I mention how excited I am?!

Laura x

C is also for Cupboards

Recent visitors to our house will have noticed a change. The long unfinished cupboards in our hallway have doors! My brilliant husband crafted them himself and they look great!

Beautiful white doors - thank you Nick!

How to have a clean house without really trying - Part 7

Here's what I probably should have said at the very beginning.

Don't worry

Having a clean house isn't the goal of life. It helps free up time and energy for other things, and provides a nice environment to enjoy with others, but it doesn't provide true fulfilment. After all, things get messy just as soon as they've been tidied.

Ultimately, a welcoming home isn't a matter of how clean it is, but a matter of the heart. The hardest thing for me, given that I'm house-proud, is choosing to put achieving a clean before being loving, acting with kindness, and growing as a Christian. My home is a helpful tool but all too often it dominates my entire life.

I started this series because I've been challenged recently that worth and value aren't to be found in the material things of life, or in having a clean house. Those things don't ultimately satisfy. The state of my heart is much more important. If I have a clean house but an empty, broken, evil heart, what good is that? Thankfully, I I believe in a God who can give us new hearts and new life. That's amazing!

So, if you visit my home, you'll probably find it's quite clean and tidy, but I hope you'll also find a place where kindness, truth, and grace are scattered all over the place.

Laura x

How to have a clean house without really trying - Part 6

Unfortunately, sometimes you just need to take a bit more time over it.

Set aside time for deep cleaning

I can only do this when I have babysitting from either Nick or another family member. But occasionally, I'll take an hour or two or a half or whole day to tackle a big job, like cleaning the fridge (my absolute least favourite household chore), washing the windows, cleaning the oven (I use an amazing paint-on gel from Lakeland), a deep clean of the bathroom, or dusting underneath and behind furniture.

My whole cleaning mantra doesn't work for a house that isn't already reasonably clean and tidy, because it focuses on upkeep rather than turning around a previously messy place! Normally, that can be done in only a few minutes each day (as I've previously described), but without getting into the nooks and crannies (and the back of the fridge), it won't be really clean.

It's not that onerous though! I tackle my fridge/freezer, for example, probably once a quarter - because I wipe up spills as I go and it doesn't really get that dirty that quickly. My windows? - once or twice a year. Underneath and behind furniture? - once a year, in the spring. By keeping up with the routine cleaning, I don't need to do deep cleans that often, so it pays off doubly.

How to have a clean house without really trying - Part 5

My next pearls of cleaning wisdom:

Keep the floors clean

People coming to your house aren't going to run their finger along the dusty shelf, but they will notice if bits of food or dirt are sticking to their socks. With a baby in the house, that means I vacuum downstairs about every other day, but for some people once a week might be enough.

Clean as you go

Spills and such are much easier to clean if you do it right away (or soon after) than left for a long time. Sophie drops a lot of food when she's eating, so I clear it up after each meal, which is very little effort.

How to have a clean house without really trying - Part 4

When it comes to cleaning, a little goes a long way. By which I mean 15 minutes of cleaning a day is (unless you have a huge house) sufficient to keep up the cleanness of the house.

I have a schedule of what I tackle each day, and I don't do any routine cleaning on weekends.

• Monday - Bathroom: clean bath, tiles, sink and toilet, and wash floor
• Tuesday - Kitchen: clean counters, sink, hob, window, and sweep floor
• Wednesday - Lounge (and Office on alternate weeks): dust and polish
• Thursday - Vacuum and mop downstairs
• Friday - Bedrooms: change beds, dust and polish, vacuum

Woohoo - only 15 minutes - that's a win as far as I'm concerned!

Laura x

How to have a clean house without really trying - Part 3

In my last post, I talked about keeping things tidy. Here's something that I try to do to mean it's easier to achieve that:

Have less stuff

Having a lot of stuff is endemic to modern day life. We have piles of books, DVDs, kitchen equipment, photos, and clothes in our homes. These things aren't bad in and of themselves, but the more we have of them, the more upkeep there is to do, the more space is needed, and the more there is to tidy.

I've been consciously decluttering for a year or so now. We did a car boot sale the other day and it was a great way to make a little bit of money from things that we genuinely don't need or use. Most of the stuff in our house is now there for a purpose (either we use it or we find it beautiful). Yes, there's some stuff that's still there because we don't quite know what to do with it (old computers and the like), but in general, it's quite streamlined nowadays.

The second part of this is:

Have homes for the stuff that you do have

Personally, I think t's fine to have a 'junk drawer', but if there's junk in all the drawers and cupboards of the house, that's a problem. It's really hard to keep a house comfortable and attractive if there's stuff spilling out everywhere.

The third part of it is:

Don't put it down, put it away

Once you've got homes for your stuff, use them!

How to have a clean house without really trying - Part 2

Here goes. My number 1 tip for faking a clean house?

Keep it tidy

The number one enemy of a clean house is an untidy house. That means I tidy the toys every evening, put mail in the in-tray or the bin, keep the kitchen counters clear, and put things away in their home, where they belong. If I'm going upstairs, I see if anything needs to be taken along.

The reason this is important is because it's really hard to actually clean if there's stuff everywhere. It gets in the way and makes the cleaning itself take a lot longer, which as you've discovered is not part of the game - the aim is to get the house clean in as little time as possible! I don't have the time to spend an entire day cleaning each week, so I need to do it fast. Having a generally tidy house helps me to do that.

Also, people coming over probably won't notice a bit of dirt, but they will notice if there's stuff everywhere!

What this doesn't mean is that I pounce on things out of place and put them back before whoever's using them has finished! That wouldn't be fun, for them or for me.

In my next post, I'll tell you some more specific things that help me to keep it tidy!

See you soon!

Laura x

How to have a clean house without really trying - Part 1

Hi everyone!

Anyone who knows me well knows that I love to have a clean house. However, I don't really like cleaning. Conundrum?!

Normally, our house looks pretty clean and tidy, even though we have a small child at home. People sometimes seem genuinely shocked when they come round. I recall one instance when the four-year-old son of some friends of ours asked, on entering the living room, 'Why is it so tidy in here?'!

So, I thought I'd share, over the next few days, a few things that help me along in my mission to have a (fake) immaculate house without a lot of elbow grease.

But why, you may be wondering, do I enjoy having a clean house quite as much as I do? Let me tell you. I enjoy making my home an environment where my family can thrive and where guests feel warm and welcome. For me, that means not always tripping over stuff, not worrying about whether there's toothpaste all over the taps, and not having to apologise to visitors. I have a low threshold for dirt but it's not just because I'm picky, it's because I want to create a place of warmth, fellowship, and fun for everyone who lives or visits here. It doesn't mean that my home is actually immaculate - it does, after all, house two adults and a baby - but it does mean that I take a little time to look after it and make it as welcoming as possible.

I don't have a lot of time to do this, with a small baby, a family to feed, and piles of laundry to get through each week, not to mention going places, taking Sophie to playgroups, and having fun! - which obviously, given my aversion to actually cleaning, suits me fine. So, this series is about doing it in the most cut-corner fashion possible!

More to come!

Laura x

Preparing for winter part 2 - and plans for 2012

A month or so ago, I posted about preparing for winter. Life has been a bit mad since then, but some of the things on the list have been achieved. Curtains are in progress, the winter duvet has come out, the chimney has been fixed (thanks Nick!) and the loft has been insulated (thanks Nick and Eric!).

I still need to have a clear out of my closet and of the upstairs 'junk' cupboard. In fact, in 2012 I would like to declutter the whole house. So many things get held on to because they are sentimental, or they might be useful, or I am too busy to think about taking them to a charity shop or selling them. In reality, these things just take over and make life more complicated: more to clean, more to maintain, more to think about. Little by little, I would like to rid our home of the things that are mere clutter, things that we do not use, things that are past it, things that might be useful but then again they might not, and if we did need one we could easily get or borrow one.

That's my mission!

Preparing for winter

It is 26 degrees today, so it seems odd to be thinking about preparing for winter, but that is what I am doing. The brief blip of summer we've had for the last few days (during which we did a lot of gardening and took our kayak all the way to Sandford Lock - good times) is surely going to be over very soon, and will be rapidly followed by several months of dark evenings, bitter cold, and the associated feeling of never wanting to leave the house, ever again.

So, here are my thoughts on things my household needs to do before winter really kicks in. We already had the boiler serviced, hurrah!

(By the way, I find the wife of noble character described in Proverbs 31:10-31 totally inspiring. 'When it snows, she has no fear for her household; for all of them are clothed in scarlet... She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.' I want to be just like her.)

• Stock up on tinned and dry goods (for which a semi-major pantry reorganisation may be required)
• Put away summer dresses and make sure winter clothes are ready to go
• Make thermal curtains for living room
• Change to autumn duvet
• Move a duvet downstairs for when we're cold in the living room
• Get a blind for the kitchen
• Install a new fan in the bathroom - no more open windows for showers!
• Make draught excluders for front and back doors
• Clear out upstairs cupboard so we can actually find things in there, and make a place for candles, torches etc
• Get chimney fixed
• Insulate loft in small room

Lots to do! Hopefully over the next few weekends we'll be able to get a lot of this done, and hopefully the result will be we won't be so cold in the house this winter as we were last year.

National Trust and IKEA days out

Nick and I hired a car this weekend and went out on fun visits to lots of different places. The weekend didn't work out exactly as we expected, mainly because the hotel we had booked near Gloucester had lost our reservation so we couldn't stay there, but we had a great time anyway.

We started off at Lodge Park near Burford, a 17th-century hunting lodge which the National Trust has restored. It is set in lovely countryside and is very peaceful. There is a small but interesting exhibition about the history of the lodge - firstly a hunting lodge, later cottages, later a home for the last owner and his wife before the family tree died out.

We then visited Chastleton House near Stow-on-the-Wold. Apparently this is where the rules of croquet were first codified. There were two nice-looking croquet lawns but sadly no balls or mallets so we couldn't have a game. The house itself holds a collection of interesting objects from the 17th century through to the 20th, including a terrifying 1940s bakelite bed-warming contraption, like a hot water bottle but powered through one's unearthed bedside lamp socket. Yikes. I really liked Chastleton. The grounds were small but lovely, and included some delicious scented roses and a wonderful kitchen-cottage garden. 

Sunday we indulged in the rather more 21st-century pursuit of shopping. Firstly we visited Bicester Village, which seems to me to be almost a shrine to shopping. Next it was on to IKEA in Milton Keynes, where we purchased a lot of stuff including a new lamp for me and new desk legs for Nick to make himself a standing desk. We assembled it together when we got home (via Stowe Landscape Gardens where we had a cream tea in the car with home-made jam and scones and the most amazing clotted cream ever, bought in Gloucestershire the day before). I think both of us were pleased with the day's results!

Roman blind

The roman blind I made last weekend is finally up!

I also made some matching cushion covers, which were really easy: one piece of fabric (length: 2x width of cushion plus 11 cm, width: width of cushion plus 4 cm), hemmed at both short ends (2 cm hems), folded with right sides facing and ends overlapping by 7 cm, then stitched on both sides taking a 2 cm seam allowance, and turned inside out to create a pillow-like cushion cover. I plan to add some buttons to the back 'pocket' to jazz it up a little.

I really enjoyed making the blind. I'm now thinking about what window treatments to make next, for our downstairs room.