5 Little Touches to make the Bathroom Mine!

When we moved back to Northern Ireland from Belgium in Dec 2010 I was so pleased to be moving into a house with a light, spacious, nicely decorated bathroom.

It along with the good kitchen and the large master bedroom with a dressing room were the main attractions to persuade us to forget the previous decision of

"We do not want a house at the top of a hill!"

View of the town from our house at the top of the hill!

The Bathroom really did not need redecorating.


But you are probably like me even if the bathroom is really nice and attractive you don't want to feel like you are in someone else's bathroom; you want to enjoy being in your own bathroom.


So I had

that I added to the room just to put my stamp on it 

and none of them were difficult to do.

1.  Bath Door Sign

Now it is easy enough to tell anyone that the bathroom is the door facing you at the end of the hallway and they shouldn't get lost but isn't it nice just to have a pretty little sign on the door?

I went on ebay (as I love to do) and found some nice door signs and got three to match: one for my bathroom, one for the back toilet and one for my study.

This makes me smile even before I even go into the Bathroom.


This has two uses:  it is a useful bathroom sign for visitors and also a piece of decor for the room.

2.  Bath Pillow

For someone who loves to take a bath and lie there reading a book then a bath pillow is a great addition.

I had a plain white one that I had got a few years ago but it was starting to look like it was not so comfortable as a pillow so I got myself a new one.


One that makes me smile when I go into the bathroom and not just when I'm enjoying my bath.

This has two uses:  it is a useful bathroom accessory and also a piece of decor in the room.

3.  Candle Jar

I would love it if my husband was the very romantic type who loved to light candles around the house but I have to admit he is not and when I do light candles he is usually heard to say

 "don't forget to put that thing out before you leave the room"

I am also not the greatest crafty type person but will sometimes throw things together and that is exactly what I did here.

I had bought a large glass vase/jar thing one time a couple of years before leaving Belgium but had no real idea of what I wanted to do with it but when I saw that bathroom it sprung to mind along with the coloured sand I had bought another time and the kind of wood chips I had bought on yet another occasion. Of course I am always buying candles if they are cheap and as my husband is not the greatest candle lover they usually lie in a cupboard for years so I knew I had a couple of large ones and why not put those things together and have a Candle Jar in the bathroom.

This makes me smile when I'm soaking in the bath even if I have forgotten to light it.


This has two uses:  it is a peaceful nice smelling addition to my relaxing bath and also a piece of decor for the room.

4.  Conch Shell

We went to the Bahamas for our 25th Wedding Anniversary Trip.

It was one of the best trips we have ever had, lots of smiles and laughs and other things which might make their way into a Travel blog post someday or become A Dose of Encouragement post.

While we were there we saw some beautiful Conch Shells and I decided I wanted to bring one home so we packed it very carefully in our beach towels and happily it did not get broken on the journey back.

It sat nicely in our bathroom in Londonderry, Northern Ireland for a few years and then was in our ensuite in Belgium for our time there.

So it was a natural addition to our newest bathroom and there is plenty of space for it on the wash hand basin.

This makes me smile every time I use the wash hand basin in the Bathroom - Happy Memories.


This has two uses:  it is a lovely reminder of an anniversary with my husband and also a piece of decor for the room.

5.  "Believe" Plaque

I love to go into craft shops or little miscellaneous shops and one day I saw this

I couldn't resist it and it was cheap so I bought it and it was only when I got home that I thought about where I was going to put it.  I just couldn't think where it should go and it might have become one of those things that my husband says

 "whatever did you buy that for?"  

after it has been sitting in the kitchen for a long while.

But then one day while I was in the bathroom I realised that the inside of the door was one of the places probably most looked at because of the position of the toilet and the bath and I thought I should put something on it to make it less boring.  And of course the "Believe" Sign popped into my mind and it now has a home.


This makes me smile whatever I am doing in the Bathroom.


This has two uses:  it is a useful bathroom sign for visitors to make them think and not be so bored and also a piece of decor for the room.

So I really did make the Bathroom feel more like MINE because it makes me smile when I enter and I really enjoy my long soaks in the bath surrounded by happy memories and my things.

Now this bit of work for the Bathroom definitely had to be classified as FUNWORK and not HOUSEWORK because none of it was hard to do and I enjoyed the simple decorating and will enjoy the final effect for years to come.




Is there some way you have made your bathroom Yours?

Or perhaps another room?

5 Things To Remember when Spring Cleaning

The painters were coming to paint the Lounge and a few other rooms this month so my overhaul plans for the house were changed and I decided to Spring Clean the Lounge even though it is not Spring time.

When we were working on the Lounge I thought about 5 things not to forget for next year  PLUS  a Bonus Tip.

All of these of course could refer to practically any room in the house but because I was working on the Lounge my examples are based there.

1.  Furniture Pads

When you buy a new piece of furniture you should fit felt pads to the furniture feet or legs;  especially if you have wooden floors..

If you haven't got ones fitted then do this while you are Spring Cleaning.

If you have fitted them then check each time you are Spring Cleaning to see if any need replaced or any have come off and put new ones on.
In this case the pads had been on since we bought the Nesting tables 10 years ago and were still doing fine BUT note they always catch all the hairs and fluff so need to be hoovered well regularly too (see pic on right & this was after I had pulled off some of the hairs) .

The best thing to do is to buy more pads than you need to start with so that if one gets dislodged or has worn very thin and needs replaced then you have one of the same type and thickness to put on because you do not want to end up with a difference in those chair legs  -  no wobbling.

New suite - Furniture pads were added




2.  Scratches and Scrapes

No matter how careful we are the longer we have an item the more scratches and scrapes will appear on it.

When you see them during your very detailed Spring cleaning either write down a note about each of them or take a picture of them.

This is to remind you later what you have to go back to touch up and what colour it is because at the time you find the scratch you probably will not have the right product to do the touch up.

You know you will forget about this later when you are not seeing it each day.

I have to get black scratch touch up colour for the bottom of our Clavinova (electric piano) and a dark reddish brown for the piano stool.




3.  The Grooves in Furniture

I love to damp dust rather than ordinary dusting because it doesn't just displace the dust (and annoy my nose).

But even with that some items with grooves and ridges still hold that dust unless we take that extra bit of effort.

I have two items like this in my lounge - The Roll Top Desk and the Clavinova.

They don't look bad from these angles.
(Also reminds me of the fact that we need to remember to dust all sides and backs of items - you never know know who will have a different view of your furniture etc. depending on where they are sitting or standing in the room).

We even think they are dusted ok because we went along each one with the cloth but later sitting to the side of them the dust can still be rather noticeable.

The only solution for me is to get a small thin brush, put a furniture cleaning wipe over the bristles and use this in between the ridges.

I use a wipe and not the cloth as the cloth is just that bit thicker and then the brush doesn't seem to get right in to the depth of the grooves.

See the difference even after just a few grooves are cleaned with the wipe on the brush.




4.  Vertical Blinds and Roller Blinds

We tend to remember to take down the curtains and get them cleaned but quite often we just dust over the blinds.

Not always good enough because if we let them go too long they can be really hard to get cleaned and I know all about that from when I moved into this house 4 years ago.

This time I saw two parts of the blinds that needed my attention, one on the left of the window and one on the right.

So out comes one of my favourite gadgets talked about in a previous blog post  

My 5 Essential Items to make the Housework Easier

Yes my Steamer and this is the result even looking in closer.

5.  Candle Wax.

More and more we are all bringing candles into various rooms and setting them in different places.

The more candles we burn the more chance of candle wax dripping and staining items and if this goes unnoticed for too long we just may not be able to get rid of the marks.

As you can see I have marks on the logs in my grate but I don't mind that too much.
In front of the grate in plain view I had no drips and if I had they would have been noticed and cleaned up shortly afterwards but we had never checked in under the grate until now and that could have meant the Sandstone fireplace being stained and I may have had great difficulty getting rid of that but fortunately the wax had only dripped on the logs.

Oh does anyone know how to get candle wax off logs - in case I do decide to try it?



Well that covers my 5 Things to Remember when Spring Cleaning.




And I haven't forgotten

 The Bonus Tip. 

DON'T FORGET  -  The Things Dropped Down between Seats of the Sofa

We don't see them but they are there or rather they may even be on the floor under the sofa which you haven't moved for months.

Yes folks we lost the remote control of our DVD player in the lounge.

It was a DVD player which did not have all the necessary buttons on the player itself so it really needed the remote to be suitable for our family who are lazy when we sit down to watch dvds together.
No doubt you can guess what had happened after several months - because we watch a lot of dvds.

Yes we went out and 

bought 

another DVD player

Then this month we sell our suite and there is the remote control lying on the floor where the sofa had been.

5 Essentials Items for Any Kitchen

One of the best ways to make our work in the kitchen less of a hassle is really to make it

 easier to do 

 or 

 quicker to do 

 or

 both.

One way to do this is to have some simple but very practical tools.

I have picked out 

5 things that I automatically think of 

when I am considering  what I use often or a lot of to make things easier for me around the house.

Yes these are

5 Things I Don't Think I want to have to do Without.

1.  Clip-its



Both IKEA and Lakeland have really good sturdy clip-its and in a good variety of sizes.

However you can buy them almost anywhere now but they may not be just as good a grip.

How can we seal many bags without some of these???


USES
Bread bags
Bags in freezer
Large crisp bags





2.  Long Handled Spoons



LAKELAND sell them but I have also bought them from pound stores

I have some that are bent so that they will sit on the edge of a mug or glass and some that are plain but I also have 2 (not pictured here) that I got in South Korea that have a larger wider spoon part whereas the others are more of a teaspoon size.

Who doesn't need something with a long handle to do some scooping???


USES
Tall glass ice cream sundaes
Large coffee mugs
Getting to the bottom of jars of jam etc.






3.    Kitchen Scissors



LAKELAND, IKEA, Pound stores and  any supermarket now.

Different colours and sizes available, but do get ones with a good comfortable grip because if you get hooked like me you will use them constantly.  

Who doesn't have lots of occasions when it is so much easier to cut with scissors than to chop with a knife???     Well Not Tomatoes anyway!

USES
Lots of meats and vegetables are actually easier to cut using the scissors than a knife.
So convenient for cutting foods into foods already cooking on the stove.
Also how else do you open those horrible strong plastic bags that seem to stretch as you try to pull them apart?






4.    Silicone Basting Brushes

LAKELAND and also in pound stores.

The round ones I have found to be softer and more flimsy.
But the flat ones I absolutely adore.

Who wants to battle with pieces of greased proof paper or kitchen towels to try to grease items???


USES
Oiling and basting roasts
Putting lime or lemon juice on fish
Spreading jam or any other similar mixture on cakes etc.
Greasing dishes.





5.   Resealable Bags



IKEA have the best and at such a good price. 

These ones seal easily and well not like some others you can find other places.

They have two different boxes you can buy with two different sizes of bag in each so between all four sizes you are equipped for just about any eventuality.

Great to have bags that seal so well that the contents don't leak over everything else in the fridge or freezer and bags that can be reused over and over again.



USES
DIY accessories like screws.
Transporting any type of food stuffs.
I have never tried soup in one but thicker foodstuffs are fine.
Freezer use as well as fridge use.

I reckon you could tell me of a few things you don't want to have to do without either.  If so let me know in a comment.