When you have children you’ll realise that your vision of a perfectly curated family home, with white walls and fluffy rugs, is soon out of the window. You know those perfect houses on Instagram with lovely well behaved children and perfectly laid out front rooms. Don’t believe everything you see. I guarantee that It looks like that for maybe 4 minutes a day before the children decide that jam looks better on the walls than on their toast and the carpet really does love chocolate spread! So what can you do to help keep you home looking somewhat how you want it to? Here are a few tips to help your house look that little bit more Instagram worthy and ultimately give everything a longer life.
Wood Flooring
I love soft, fluffy carpets and rugs as much as the next person. There’s nothing better than digging your toes into something soft in the morning. But, let’s be honest. With little one’s running around it isn’t going to last long. From being worn around from running laps around the house to every single one of your favourite meals being lovingly trodden into your favourite rug. It’s going to happen. Stains, wear and tear and also, don’t forget the trip hazards for your early walkers! So the best thing all round is solid wood flooring. It’s hard-wearing to the point that instead of being replaced every 5 or so year,s it can just be sanded down and refreshed. Amazing huh? There are no trip hazards and that bit of Conchilioni that fell off your little one’s spoon can be cleaned up without any traces left behind. Makes you wonder why you considered carpet in the first place doesn’t it? Wood flooring is the way to go.
Easy-care paint
We all love white walls (please landlords stop painting walls magnolia!) but they won’t stay white for long. As I type I can see gravy stains, pen lines and other random unknown substances plastered across my walls. Oh, and the massive random paint gaps where I’ve attempted to clean the walls and the paint has decided to come off! So I’m literally in a lose-lose situation! I can’t even clean the walls if I wanted to! So what’s the answer? If you’re going to paint, I strongly advise you to use easy-care paint usually has some kind of stain repellent and you can actually clean the wall without causing damage to the paint. There are quite a few brands that do this now and I think it’s definitely worth it in the long run. Imagine painting your entire front room today and tomorrow you get strawberry squashed onto the wall. Exactly.
Sofa Covers
We now have sofa covers but I wish I had bought them months ago, actually, years ago! We bought a new sofa about two years ago and now it looks more like 10 years old. I’ve tried cleaning it but it doesn’t look much different, to be honest. The stains are from all sorts of things courtesy of my little ones. But with a sofa cover, it basically does what it says on the tin. It covers the sofa, protects from stains and other dodgy stuff and can be thrown in the washing machine! Sofa sofas are much nicer now than they were a few years ago so they won’t look like some outdated, weird piece of furniture in the corner. They’re actually quite nice now! So I would invest ina. Sofa cover or two before it’s too late and your sofa becomes the talking point of people visiting for the WRONG reasons.
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