My cleaning routine. If only I had a pound for every time I’ve been asked to share this with you! This post is all about my daily cleaning routine, not my deep cleaning which I tend to do once a week and I will detail that in a further post – keep your eyes peeled!

Cleaning is a dirty job. There’s not many of us who enjoy it. I think of it like dieting. It’s not particularly enjoyable, but the benefits are thoroughly rewarding. And the more you do, the more you want to maintain.  I wouldn’t say I particularly enjoy cleaning, but I do find it therapeutic if I’m worried or stressed. Which is often, perhaps that’s why my house is so clean!

As documented in my tidy home post (link) I always aim to go to bed with a clean and tidy house. Tidying and cleaning are very different for me. If my home isn’t tidy, I don’t have the motivation to clean. It’s important to have a relatively tidy home before you start to think about cleaning. You can’t wipe down your work surfaces if they’re cluttered with dishes.

Despite my home being lovely and clean first thing in the morning, the chaos of getting Sofia and Leo dressed, fed and watered in the morning turns my neat, sparkling house upside down. All in the space of an hour! After dropping Sofia off at school, it’s home to get some breakfast and tidy up the aftermath.

The first thing I do in the morning is open the blinds and windows. I can’t bear having these closed during the day, even in winter. I want my home to be bright and I love fresh air. Next, I switch on my electric wax melts to fill the house with fragrance. I use Scentsy. I change the melts every couple of days. It’s so easy to do, I simply pop a knife around the edge and out it comes ready for a fresh scent.

 

After scraping the coco pops off the table and sweeping the grated cheese off the floor, I load the dishwasher. It looks like I’ve fed an army instead of two young children. When my work surfaces and kitchen table is clear, I then spray them down and wipe clean. I always dry them after with kitchen roll so I’m not left with water marks.

Then I’ll tackle the hob if I’ve not cleaned it thoroughly after dinner. I usually spray on some Zoflora, leave for a moment and then wipe clean with a kitchen sponge. When it’s clean I then buff it up to a shine. I love to use window/glass cleaner with an e-cloth (LINK). If I’m really going to town, I’ll buff it up with a smidgen of baby oil and a soft slightly damp household cloth.

The next big job in the post breakfast kitchen is to sweep the floors. Generally I use my cordless shark (Link) You can save 10% off using PINKPEONYON10 however soggy cereal and cheese is definitely a brush job! I then mop my floors with my JML Whizz Mop (Link) and the kitchen and hallway is done. These are the first areas of the house you see when entering and I like to tackle these first.

 

I’ve usually loaded the clothes horse before bed and they’ll generally be dry and ready to be folded away or ironed. I pile them into a basket to deal with later. I always iron in the evenings when the kids aren’t around. I watch some TV or YouTube to make it less tedious.

Next, I give the kid’s bedrooms a quick blitz. Firstly, I open their curtains and windows,  tidy their toys and books away, make their beds, switch on their scentsy warmers and give the carpets a quick vacuum. I quickly go over their surfaces such as desks, radiator covers and shelves with a cleaning wipe. I love the ASDA floor wipes. They are just huge wipes saturated in an apple scented cleaning solution which smells delicious.

 

Lastly in the morning, I give the living room a quick once over. It’s usually still tidy from the night before but I like to fluff the cushions and fold the blankets. If we’re staying at home that day (which is rare) Leo will bring some boxes of toys downstairs and spend time playing until it’s time for lunch.

After lunch I tend to give the kitchen another clean to prepare for cooking dinner. If we do arts and crafts I lay a huge plastic mat down to minimise the mess. You can even buy party table covers and cut them down! I always have wipes nearby too.

We then pick Sofia up from school and I tend to try and prepare dinner whilst they are playing upstairs. I try to tidy as I go, binning vegetable peelings straight away, wiping work surfaces whilst dinner is in the oven and load the dishwasher.

The post dinner mess is the worst of the day but my husband and I share the load. We take turns bathing the kids whilst the other blitzes the kitchen once again and then I give all the rooms a quick vacuum with my Shark (LINK) You can save 10% off using PINKPEONYON10. You may think vacuuming every day is excessive, but if I don’t I’m left with crumbs everywhere! It just makes me feel better and it’s good exercise – especially if you have a three floors like me.

The last thing I do before I sit down in the evening is pop some Zoflora and boiling water in the sink. The scent fills the entire house. At the moment I’m loving Bluebell Woods.

Little and often is key. My house would be in chaos if I left all of my cleaning until the end of the day. If you make cleaning a routine, you’ll becoming quicker and more efficient.

I hope that gives you a little insight and feel free to share any tips you have below.

Happy cleaning!

Love

 

 

 

 

 

I love my bedroom. Located at the very top of my house, as it was an attic conversion, it’s a little haven of tranquillity to retreat to at the end of a hectic day. The windows look out above the rooftops of the surrounding houses and I feel somewhat in my own little piece of heaven.

I designed the layout which was going to work best for us. We had a great size to work with and the result was more than I could have possibly wished for. The bedroom of my dreams. One evening per week, I like to treat myself to some pampering. I have a long bubble bath, hair and face masks, do my nails and then I do my weekly tanning. They’re usually tanning Thursdays, preparing me for the weekend ahead. I like to light some candles in my bedroom afterwards, watch some TV and relax up there completely alone whilst the kids are asleep and my husband has peace downstairs to watch Narcos.

To be able to have a special place to relax, it’s important to keep on top of keeping your bedroom clean and tidy. You won’t enjoy that time if your husband’s socks are strewn across the floor! If you need some tips and advice to create that beauteous bedroom then this is the blog post for you!

Make your bed a statement

Big beds are on trend! Whether you choose a bedstead or a divan, you can give your bed the ‘wow factor’ by choosing a sumptuous base or a huge eye-catching headboard. If possible, have your bed in the centre of the room facing you as you walk in. It should be your main focal point. Our bed is the Elise in French Grey. Our latest addition is this gorgeous Morris bench from House of Brissi. There’s currently 20% off too!

 

You can create layers to make your bed look inviting as well as beautiful. Drape a throw over it. I love to mix textures here, so if you have some sparkly cushions, I’d choose a luxurious faux fur throw to contrast this. If you have it all glitzy it can become a bit too much. You want your bed to look comfortable too! Choose a bedding that compliments your bedroom theme. Try and stick to a palette of colours that appeal to you and mix well. I’m a huge fan of calming neutrals, especially in the bedroom. Choose silvers, greys, beiges, golds, creams. No matter what colour you opt for, crisp white bedding will always work well. I love this gorgeous Next bedding but it has since been discontinued despite its huge popularity! Bring it back Next!

Try and look for bedding with the highest thread count. Thread count refers to the number of horizontal and vertical threads per inch. The higher the thread count, the softer the bedding. A good sheet will tend to be numbered between 200 – 800, but you can buy over 1,000! Have you ever wondered why the beds are so comfortable in hotels? They tend to use the highest thread counts. This includes pillow cases too!

If you’re putting your bedding on straight from the packet, remember to iron out those awful crease lines where it has been folded. They’re my pet peeve! Ironing your bedding is a tedious job, so I do it when its already on the duvet! I remember watching the presenter doing this on 60-minute makeover and I thought GENIUS! I simply plug the iron into the socket behind my bedside tables and lightly run over it to keep it looking fresh.

 

I do love a good puffy duvet, and beautifully laundered bedding makes the whole thing feel and look special. I also like to give it a quick spritz of some linen spray. I also  spray my pillows with This works deep sleep pillow spray. It leaves the most relaxing, delicate lavender scent in its trail and I swear by it, it really helps me sleep. (The plus version is even better!)

You want to look forward to slipping into the sheets at night. Isn’t it funny how the one thing we hated doing as children, becomes one of life’s simple pleasures in adulthood?

Buy for the biggest sized bed you can. One of our biggest regrets is buying king sized when we had plenty room for a super king! On the weekends when are rudely awakened by two excitable children who insist on jumping in beside up to watch Paw Patrol at 6.30am, we always grumble to each other in a fog of sleep ‘why didn’t we buy the Super King?’ Do not buy a smaller bed just because it’s a little cheaper – instead think about all that stretching out you can do when being forced to watch Cbeebies at dawn! Priceless.

 

Choose a good quality mattress

I remember reading a quote which said
‘Invest your money in your shoes and your mattress, because if you’re not in one, you’re in the other’.
How true! When we chose a mattress for our brand-new bedroom, I knew that I wanted to spend and invest in comfort and a good night’s sleep. We went to our local Next Home store on a quiet afternoon and made sure we could properly try out all that they had to offer. We decided on the Sealy 2200 Pocket Hybrid Mattress. I cannot begin to describe how comfortable it is.
It’s how I imagine being cocooned in a marshmallow and floating on a cloud might feel like!
Going to bed is like coming home. No matter where I lay my head, nothing compares to my own bed.

 

Soft lighting

Lighting is key to creating a relaxing atmosphere in the evenings. Do you ever notice when you’re out at night, there are people are relaxing in their homes with their ‘big’ lights on? I want to scream ‘put some lamps on instead and create some atmosphere!’ Matching lamps on both sides of the bed finishes off that statement as you walk into the room. You can also install a dimmer so that if you do choose to use your main light in the evenings, you can still have it on low and keep the tone of the room soft. A statement chandelier is perfect for the bedroom. I have the ever-popular Venetian chandelier also from Next.

 

Soft Furnishings

A bedroom just isn’t complete without the little details such as soft rugs and cushions. Have a soft fluffy rug beside your bed to sink your toes into on those frosty winter mornings and bundle some cushions of differing sizes and textures onto your bed to add character. Choose beautiful curtains to fit with your theme such as crushed velvet and always have black out blinds. What a difference this has made to the quality of my sleep.

My black out blinds, made especially for Velux windows are by vale blinds and they are completely black out. My husband falls, without fail, at least twice a week during the night when going to the bathroom because he can’t see a thing! I’ve never fallen, what does that tell you? Slow and steady wins the race!

 

 

 

Scent

Oh, how I adore it when my house is filled with sweet fresh aromas. I have spent a lot of money on achieving this. I have a Scentsy wax warmer in every bedroom, living room and hallways. I recently bought an oil diffuser too! I like to use different scents on different floors so that my nose doesn’t become used to it and you get a pleasant surprise as you come up stairs. Change your wax melts every two days as whilst the wax may still be there, the scent will be all but gone. In my bedroom I choose softer fragrances such as more floral and sophisticated notes to help me relax. Choose candles specifically for your bedroom that have names such as clean cotton and soft blanket. My very favourite candle for my bedroom is white tea by yankee candle. It is divine. It smells like your favourite spa! This one below is also perfect for a bedroom with the delicate scent of grapefruit and peonies (how apt)  Bee Happy by Katie Loxton.

For more photos of my bedroom click here to go straight to my Instagram feed.

Here’s to a goodnight sleep!

 

Love

 

 

 

 

 

We all love a gadget, right? Designed to make our lives that little bit easier and constantly reinventing themselves with more sleek and clever designs. I rely heavily on a few of these in my home. Without them, I think I’d be rather lost. You don’t need to spend a fortune either. There are some gems out there that perform amazingly well without breaking the bank. I’ve narrowed it down to my top five!

If you would like to purchase any of the below, simply click on the heading and it will direct you straight to the website.

Shark liftaway NV800UK

The best vacuum in town. If you follow me on Instagram and watch my daily insta stories, you’ll already know of my love for this product. I understand why some might be wary of this brand; their products seemed to explode onto the market from nowhere and suddenly we were bombarded with bloggers and instagrammers alike raving about this beast. People proclaimed to be throwing their Dysons in the skip and we, as a home loving community, found a new love for carpet tracks that this unique vacuum provides in abundance. GOALS. Every time I post a photo of those delightful little tracks I log on to countless messages from people excitedly tagging their friends and long-suffering partners with photos of their carpet goals! Now believe me when I say that this product not only lives up to the hype, it exceeds the hype! This vacuum has a suction like nothing else you’ll have experienced before. So strong, that my husband unknowingly sucked up a perfectly white pair of my daughter’s ankle socks which had been abandoned on the carpet. I used to happily vacuum Leo’s little rug in his bedroom. It’s necessary as there are usually some remains of Ritz crackers embedded in there! However, the first time I naively attempted this with the shark, it literally ate the rug! I managed to stop it in time to rescue the rug, luckily, and I’ve never made that same mistake again! My point is, you need this vacuum in your life if you have carpets and especially if you have ‘cracker loving’ children (or children that are just crackers). You simply won’t believe the dirt it will pull up from your seemingly clean carpets. But what I love most about my shark is how it makes my carpets look. They have very thick, deep piles and whilst my isense carpets are still beautiful and silky, my Invictus carpets have flattened terribly in ‘high traffic’ areas. My shark pulls the pile up to make it bouncy again, almost like it’s had a little blow dry! After a quick whizz around with this, once again I see footprints in my carpet which were long gone due to flattening. The bouncy effects don’t last, but if I do this daily it keeps it looking wonderful and new again You can also use this on hardwood floors and tiles, adjusting at the click of a switch. Have I raved enough? If you take one thing from this post, let it be that you need a shark in your life. For those of you who can’t be doing with dragging a cord around (it’s a pain but you get used to it) they also have a new cordless model IF250UK  ( 10% discount code – peonycc10 ) and whilst its suction does not quite rival its predecessor, it gives it a damn good run for its money! It also stores like a pro, it bends in half and slides into the smallest of spaces.

Both, of course, come with attachments to vacuum the stairs, pet hair, car, ledges – you name it. Genius.

 

Karcher WV5 Plus window vacuum cleaner
I’ve not given this ingenious product the recognition it deserves on my Instagram page; however, I use it all the time and I love it just as much as when I bought it two years ago. This is a battery operated handheld vacuum that uses an innovative cleaning system to leave your windows sparkling and completely streak free. This nifty little vacuum sucks away the moisture and dirt from your windows into its tank so there’s no need to wipe or buff. Even in sunshine I don’t find a single streak! Perfect for parents of sticky handed toddlers who are always attracted to those shiny patio doors. Now the instructions will tell you to use their detergent, which is good, however, I prefer to fill a bowl with warm soapy water, clean my windows with a cloth and then let the karcher work on whatever’s left. As a child I used to love watching window cleaners magically scrape away at soapy shop windows, leaving it completely spotless and shiny, was it just me who did that? So I find it overly satisfying having the same effect in my own home. Don’t stop at the windows, use it in your car, shower screen, oven door, tiles and mirrors. You can even use it to suck up spillages with ease. What more could you ask?

JML Whizz mop

It’s one of my most frequently asked questions: How do you get your floor tiles so shiny? The secret is all in this mop and it’s cheap! This mop has a 360 degree spinning head so you can pump the excess water out the mop before it touches your floor. Gone are the days of manually wringing out your mop which is time consuming and cumbersome. This does all the work for you with the pump of a foot pedal. I fill the bucket with boiling water, a small dash of floor cleaner and a capful of zoflora (my favourite scents are bluebell woods and twilight garden). I then pump almost all the water out the mop so it is left only slightly damp. THAT is the secret. Damp. Never wet. Streaky floors will be a distant (bad) memory. This method will also leave your floors smelling heavenly. I’d love to tell you that this product is beautifully made, however with it being cheap, it’s not the most durable. I will admit I’ve been through maybe 3 of these over the past 4 years which, considering I use it daily, isn’t too bad. But I always keep my receipt and return it to Argos when the foot pump gives up (perhaps I’m a bit over zealous with the pumping?) and get a shiny new one. I also have the Shark Klick n’ Flip steam mop which has minimal smearing. I use this once a week to give my floor a deep clean and it is by far superior to any of the steam mop I’ve had in the past.

 

Hand Held Steam Cleaner
Now I don’t have a fancy model. You don’t need to spend too much at all. The main benefit of these is the power of steam cleaning without the additional need for any need for chemicals. They’re great if you have a baby or young family as they blast away germs and bacteria with the power of steam. They do a fabulous job of cleaning the oven, tile grout and those niggly hard to clean areas around your shower base. The one job I really love to use this for is that impossible to reach area between the spindles of my bannister and the wall which collects endless mounds of fluff. The high-pressure steam is so powerful it literally gusts it all away effortlessly. Much easier than trying to wriggle through the spindles with a baby wipe!

Ninja kitchen Food Processor NN100UK

Now this is the anomaly of my post, as it’s not a cleaning gadget, but I couldn’t not include it! This nifty device is really something special. It’s truly versatile and you can knock up an array of tempting dishes in the kitchen with its help. You can of course make soups, sauces and marinades but we love to use it for smoothies, slushes and most importantly – cocktails! My husband has a real talent for making cocktails. So much so, that I seriously grudge paying £7 in a bar for something which is totally substandard to the homemade goodness I’ve become accustomed to. We have tried with numerous gadgets to get the perfect smooth, slushy ice consistency that is a delightful daquiri. We could never get it right….. until we got this. It makes them to absolute perfection. We’ve tried mango, strawberry and banana versions – all dangerously delicious! During the hot summer months, (days!) we experimented with various ingredients in mastering the perfect smoothie and were always delighted with the results. Perhaps you would like a blog post of our recipes for our favourites?

Pinkpeony10 will give you 10% off this too!

So, there you have it. If you have these bad boys in your life, you’ll have an extra little spring in your step, trust me! I’d love to know, what are your must have gadgets in your home?

 

Love