The secret to a perfect home? Don’t let guests in the house!
Books too pristine to read. Sofas you’re not allowed to sit on. One woman’s unabashed confession
AS USUAL, I’ve laid my six-seater oak dining table with great care. The linen napkins are carefully pressed, I’ve used my best porcelain, and the glasses are sparkling crystal. The finishing touch is a vase filled with roses and lilies.
The beds in my four spare rooms are made up with freshly laundered Egyptian cotton sheets and there’s not a wrinkle in sight. The sofa cushions are plumped, coffee table books arranged ‘just so’. Even the marble countertops in my kitchen are gleaming.
All I’m missing are house guests. But you won’t find any — because while it may look like I love cooking and entertaining, I haven’t actually had anyone to dinner or to stay at my 17thcentury farmhouse for years.
In fact, so keen am I to keep my house in pristine condition that even I barely use many of the beautiful things it contains.
My range-style cooker is clean because it’s virtually never turned on — I just make salads for myself — and the beds, except my own, are so pristine because they are unslept in.
I love my kitchen island, but I wouldn’t dream of putting dishes or crockery down on it. While I haven’t read a single book on my shelf, as I don’t want to break the spines.
At 55, I’m single and my two children are now in their 20s and have left home. Friends and family do occasionally come round, but I prefer them to stay outside on the terrace if the weather is warm enough.
Friends joke that my lovely Shropshire farmhouse is like a show home — I’ve been known to call it a ‘faux home’. Because while every corner looks inviting and welcoming, the opposite is true.
Only recently one close friend pointed out that she’s never sat on my sofa. Thankfully most of them simply roll their eyes, rather than taking offence.
If we have to sit inside we’ll use what I call the ‘garden room’, which has easy-to-clean oak flooring and more casual sofas. Even outside, I tidy around people, scooping up used coffee mugs or wine glasses the moment someone puts one down.
And if, God forbid, someone dares put their handbag on my kitchen island — why do people do that, it’s messy and unhygienic! — I immediately place it on a bar stool.
MANY other women I know feel similarly houseproud. I’m not a fan of cleaning influencer Mrs Hinch myself, but the fact that she has won 4.5million followers for her Instagram-perfect home and clever cleaning tips proves it’s increasingly seen as normal and acceptable, rather than embarrassing.
In the past decade, my best friend has stayed overnight just three times, but she is now banned because she insists her pet Chihuahua sleeps with her. Her dog is barred completely as it always gravitates to my best sofas, which are off limits for most humans, let alone animals.
I’m the only person allowed to relax in my living room and I use just one of the sofas, so that the other remains immaculate.
When my beloved brother recently moved back to the UK after 20 years living in Spain, and asked if he and his dog could come to stay, my answer was that they were very welcome — as long as they slept in the barn in my garden, which has no heating or running water, because I don’t allow dogs in my house!
You might assume that my immaculate home is down to my career as an interior designer. And yes, it’s in my nature to want to make a room look perfect. But that’s only part of the story.
My now ex-husband and I bought this five-bedroom, threebathroom house together in 2006 when our children were small. I was drawn to the character and space it offered.
While I did my best to keep our home in order amid the chaos of family life, it was never good enough for my husband. Among the 49 reasons he cited for divorcing me was not keeping the kitchen worktops tidy. I was a nervous wreck trying to keep everything perfect to please him and, when he left the family home two years after we’d moved in, I embarked on a rebellious period of untidiness.
I was intoxicated by simple thrills such as leaving a used coffee cup on the side or dirty dinner dishes by the sink overnight.
But after a year of freedom, I began to feel irritated by the mess. I’d always been a stay-at-home mum and I realised I was going to have to take control of my own life financially and emotionally.
The next day, I started the process by tidying, all the time repeating ‘tidy house, tidy mind’. Sure enough, as order reigned in my home, success began to follow.
I launched a company importing clothes from Italy, then my interior design business (theinteriorco.co.uk), and converted my garage into a holiday cottage. I believe all of this happened as a result of the basic discipline of being ultra tidy.
Surrounded by mess, my thoughts were cluttered, but my newly calm and orderly home gave me the feeling I was in control.
When my daughter, who’s studying to be a barrister, came home from university for a visit she said, ‘You’ve got too much time on your hands!’ But knowing where everything is and not worrying about mess actually saves me time.
My daughter is my one concession and has no rules when she’s here. I tidy around her and, as soon as she’s gone, I blitz her room, removing dirty plates, stripping the bed and putting everything back to normal so you’d never know she’d been there.
I’ve come to relish my Saturday cleaning routine. I dust, vacuum, clean the windows and wash the floor. I put fresh flowers in every room, and use my professional laundry press to iron bedding, before tending to the garden.
FINALLY, I sort the finishing touches, plumping cushions and smoothing duvet covers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I haven’t been invited to friends’ houses in years and they’re open about the fact that they fear their homes won’t live up to my standards.
I have one friend whose home I’ve only set foot in three times in the past 15 years. By her own admission, wherever you turn it looks like a bomb has hit it. When I asked her why she rarely asks me over, she said, ‘Well, we couldn’t even sit at my dining table because it’s piled high with all our mail from the past five years!’
It wouldn’t do for me, but I’d never judge. This particular friend and her husband are among the most contented people I know. And I don’t care about the lack of invitations because I’d rather be in my house than anywhere else.
Still, I’ve decided that it’s time for a fresh challenge — so I’m selling this house and buying a fixerupper, a six-bedroom farmhouse with four acres of land and a lake.
I’m the first to say that a woman living on her own buying such a big house sounds like madness. But I love it — and I’ve worked incredibly hard to afford it.
Just don’t expect me to have a housewarming party indoors. I’ve already booked a marquee.
Is your house more of a show home? send your houseproud stories and pictures to femailreaders@dailymail.co.uk