Worried about our house and socialising

I agree about basic cleanliness but I was lucky enough to live in rather a lovely home growing up but it was old, a bit chilly with high ceilings and very formal, and I loved visiting my friends more modern, relaxed, cosier homes as a child and I didn’t judge negatively at all. I begged to stay over. So yes you do sound very snobbish I’m afraid.

What has happened to the world? Are we really making friends based on their affluence and interior design skills now? That’s pretty shallow! I blame Instagram tbh 😃

Speaking of which, there is an Instagram account which I think is great because it normalises “regular” homes, in other words homes that are unfinished, with ordinary mis-matched “brown” furniture and spare rooms with a bit of clutter. Honestly, as long as you and your children are warm, safe, fed, healthy and are able to sleep well and have a clean place to play with friends, and do homework, nothing else really matters.

What matters are: your character and your children’s characters, the quality of your relationships, your dcs education, your warmth and kindness, your common sense and your financial stability,

the people and children are coming over to see you and your DD, not the house. As long as its clean, nobody will bat an eyelid.

Have people over, if you feel self conscious, say 'Yes, it's a fixer upper and it going to be a few years until we've saved up enough to do it up' and honestly if anyone is a snob about it, that's their problem. I wouldn't even need someone to tell me that if I could see a place needed stuff doing.

Unfortunately, we can’t tackle big DIY projects either, as we both work full-time and don’t have family nearby to help out.

Honestly, OP, do you actually even have time and mental energy to host and organise playdates?
I also work FT, and the weekends are so busy and packed with family stuff that I can't event think of finding time for half-day playdates.

We're in a project doer upper house and have spent the last 2yrs apologising for the state to DDs friends and our family. We won't be done for another few years.

Totally agree. Your house is probably your biggest asset and should be maintained. Even if you only partially use your spare money it would be much nicer to live in

I’m sure my ex-NDN and friend did this, just lots of park and rec play dates. She had a cleaner but as most don’t tidy up I think she preferred others kids outside (she has 3 of her own).

My own DM when we had play dates, she has a big house but when we were young it was run down, much like most other people’s and kids either came over or didn’t (they came in droves). Probably because DM didn’t care about the house but let them have free run of the house/garden.

ours is a multi-year renovation project. It’s definitely not as easy as ‘ just tidy up’ and ‘clean’ when there are boxes of kitchen things in the corridor so you can hardly get through much less vacuum. Garden is literally a field but I get someone to come by with what is essentially a small tractor to hack it back so we can use it - even if it’s about as far from manicured as it can get. It’s hopefully my project for next year so at least we have a hosting space.

Im just honest that our house is a tip - but we’ll be hosting once it’s feasible and safe to do so. So far people have been very understanding!

what I do is the occasional big party when we are between the bigger projects… easier to justify moving lots of boxes or putting up strategic curtains when it’s for a large group and I’ve had time to prepare !

No idea where you live but it sounds like an area/country that is very judgemental (& I'd hazard a guess and say affluent?) nearest example I can think of is my friend who lives in the North London 'set'. They all seem to live in show homes and yes I can imagine some of her friends do judge a house that wasn't insta-worthy. It's tedious and I couldn't think of anywhere I'd rather live but presumably you choose to live there with some idea of the area?

A bit like others, I'm struggling to work out whether your home is just not show home-like (ie normal!) or genuinely awful but either way, as long as it's clean and safe stop fretting or use your extra money to do something about it. Accept that this is your home if this is how you want it and please don't let your children suffer because of your shame & guilt.

People come to see you not your house. If they they judge you on an older kitchen then they are not people you need to be friends with!

Window cleaner will clean a conservatory for a bit extra on top of the normal clean. Think ours charged us 10 or 20 quid. Roof and all. With the right equipment that's a small job.

I live in a fairly mixed social area where we've had playdates with 4 kid families where the single parent or some of the kids sleep in the living-room/kitchen. We've also been to some beautiful houses. Ours is ok, maybe a bit on the small side and somewhat tatty. We happen to have become something of a "playdate" house, I presume since there are lots of toys, I don't mind the kids running riot upstairs and I put out loads of snacks for them. We probably have at least 5-6 playdates at our house a term, which feels like a lot!

My advice would be:

• Sort your garden for next summer. Unless it's actually hazardous, you can probably ignore it for now.
• Kitchen (including fridge) and bathroom need to be clean.
• Make it clear your bedroom is out-of-bounds and consider a lock/high bolt. If you're going to let kids upstairs, put away anything precious that you don't want them to touch.
• Deal with obvious hazards such as trip hazards, any exposed wires obviously and the broken doors.
• I'd recommend door guards (just the foam ones) on the doors to avoid fingers getting trapped. Although reception children are not toddlers, they often behave like they are during playdates.
• Toss any obvious clutter in a box in the shed/loft/your bedroom just before the playdate.
• Best thing you can do to smarten up your house on a budget is a lick of paint though personally I'm waiting until my younger one stops drawing and smearing food on the walls so we'll just have to be shabby until then!

I don't apologise for our house, it's where we live and it's fine for us. But I'm honest that at the moment living in a beautifully kept pristine home isn't a priority for us or something we can manage. I find people don't really care tbh or they enjoy having a general chat about property or home decorating.

This is bullshit. I hosted before we were able to Reno and extend our house, it was properly shit before. But I managed to make lunch for people, we had to eat off our knees on the sofa and couldn’t roast meat and have roast potatoes because the oven was rubbish but we made an effort.

The majority of families both work full time and have to manage maintenance or diy. You say you like getting out of the house at weekends, well take a few weekends to get some jobs done and you’ll feel a bit better about your home.

I don't think you need to be embarrassed, I'd just concentrate on it being clean and tidy.

How about being outrageous and stopping trying to keep up with the Joneses?

Are gigantic snobs really who you want in your life?

As long as it's clean and safe people won't judge you on it. They will judge you more, however, if they have your child over to theirs and if you don't reciprocate.

You might judge the op but please don’t speak on behalf of all Mumsnetters! I wouldn’t judge and the dc couldn’t care less.

If you are a kind and welcoming person and your kitchen and loo are basically hygienic, that’s all that matters to me.

Op I would advise you to spend some time and energy on cleaning and organising and cutting back the garden. Buy a few nice plants for the conservatory and make sure the glass and floors are clean.

Make sure everything is uncluttered, clean and tidy, including the windows. Then paint a few squares from tester pots on the walls and leave out some paint colour catalogues. Stick a drawing of the floor plan on the fridge door. Visitors will get the message that you are planning to renovate.

It's a very prudent to overpay the mortgage so hold your head up high and invite friends in. If they judge you on your decorating standards then they are not worth bothering with.

Well it's up to you OP if you want to prioritise paying off the mortgage then that's your choice. I don't know how "bad" your house is and whether it would be unsuitable for a play date but it's not a deal breaker. We have a lot of play dates at our house even with friends who don't invite us to theirs if there are reasons such as we have more space, we don't have pets, and it doesn't bother me. I do think it helps if you can invite people over but it's not a necessity.

We also worked full time, parented 4 children, and with no ‘family help’ managed to completely renovate and build on to our tatty (previously rented out) 30’s home as and when we had a bit of spare cash. It takes dedication and hard work. But we had no choice!

You could do small things as pp said.
Clean the conservatory. Tidy garden etc.

Check out the kitchen make overs on tiktok using paint and stick on tiles.

I get it's busy working full time. Both DH and I do too but sometimes you just need to set aside a weekend and sort shit. That's just life unfortunately.