Home Sweet Home; part one - the hallway.

I'd like to invite you for a tour of my house; a series of posts which will hopefully encourage me to clean and tidy for you, my virtual guests!
We're going to start in the hallway where this cross-stitch hangs - not made by me, but a wedding present 12 happy years ago.

Come on then, what are you waiting for?

We have this lovely original tiled floor in our hallway. The house was built in 1935, so it's lasted well! It was one of the things we loved about the house from the first time we viewed it.
The pine box is where all the shoes live.

 Here's the hatstand corner, and we have two little pegs on the wall too. In theory this is to encourage small people to hang their own coat up.
Look, there's my zebra shopping trolley! Invaluable for picnics and shopping trips with a baby in a sling.

Our hallway has many doors; pretty common for halls in general. Open plan living is not for me, I am far too untidy.
There are lots of family photos in our hallway, and the decor is rather tatty and dated. It's on the To Do list, but under the heading Big Jobs.

 And of course the stairs come off the hall. Not every 1930's suburban house has a set of antlers in their hallway.

And right at the end, just before the kitchen we have The Calendar. If it's not on The Calendar I don't know about it and won't remember it. It also incorporates the bulldog clip of miscellaneous bits of paper. (House filing system.)

And there you are, hope you enjoyed your tour. I'd love to look around your house sometime!

Making a home

I've been thinking lately (much have too much time on my hands!) about how I came to be a housewife.
Obviously I got married. That was way back in 1998. A year before that we got a house - 1997 - when I was twenty three. But at that time in my life looking after a home and a husband were not the main focus in my life. I certainly took on the lion's share of the housework, but my efforts only occasionally reached bare minimum. I did most of the cooking, but our diet included many pub meals, things in jars and liquid lunches!

Our first son James as born in 2003 and this is when I suddenly thought I should become a proper housewife. After all I had just left my proper (ie wage paying) job and really ought to make myself useful all day at home. Except of course I had a small baby to look after, and that was quite alot harder in real life than my wolly pregnancy brain had imagined.. I had a crisis; I was rubbish at this. I was lonely, I missed talking to grownups, I missed getting drunk in the afternoon, I missed spending my wages on shiny shoes and cigarettes. Eventually I found some mummy friends and settled into a routine of playgroup, coffee and watching CBeebies.

Then I got pregnant again and Anthony was born in 2005. I can't really remember what happened next; it's all a bit of a blur. House was still a mess and while I had no desire to return to work I still hadn't really accepted that homemaker was a valid occupation.

I think alot of change happened around 2007. I found Flylady and gradually I realised I was in charge of this house and I was going to accept the responsibility. So not all the mess was mine, but I was the one who had the time to do something about it. I bought a pinny as a symbol of my new found domesticity.  I don't really follow Flylady's routines anymore, but I still visit the website when I need to find some inspiration.

Poppy came along in 2008, my last baby. I decided to really enjoy her infancy, her dependency. I felt secure and confident in my familial role. As she comes up to two years old I am still not the perfect housewife, but I don't really care about that. I feed my family home cooked meals and freshly baked cake. I provide them with clean clothes and cuddles. I take time to do my hair and make up, I buy fashionable clothes and shiny shoes. Sometimes the house is cluttered and dusty but there are more days when it is fairly tidy. Very occasionally I even dust the skirting boards.

Mostly I am happy, and that is what I think makes a home.