What naice things do you make sure are visible to visitors

It might have been pedlars actually. When I had money I used to chuck it away on all sorts of pointless rubbish. It's the only thing I miss about xh at least I've still got my copper pineapple and quite a few strings of overpriced fairylights, vases and one of those fancy racks for hanging wellies on

Oooh I love Cox & Cox for prettily pointless stuff. Pedlars do some bonkers, but gorgeous, stuff too.

Gowgirl....it's a long time since someone said that to me
I believe it came from cox and cox or somewhere like that...

I'm so doing that thing with the leaves...

Polish just inside the front door. Guests get a waft of clean as they arrive and their brain is tricked into thinking the whole house is clean.

We sort of have a show front room - no toys live in it and the DC mainly only use it for screens so it's very quickly tidied. Turn on a lamp and it's suddenly a very grownup room. Friends with children love it probably helps that there's always Prosecco and home made cake.

I don't care but when it was the annoying HV from hell I would light a yankee candle, quickly clean something for the clean smell and have a load of DD's toys out. You know the best ones and educational ones. To be honest a yankee candle is as good as it gets with me. Just don't look in the cupboard where there is a bin bag full of crap I didn't have time to tidy away properly!

Namechanged in case someone recognised the photo.

Gowgirl, a cake stand is your best friend. My "cake" stand is a £4 white candle from tk maxx and a white plate on top - white tack holds them together and when I don't need the stand, I can take them apart. Saves storage space as I find cake stands so ackward to store.

Right....

1/Collect some lovely autumn leaves.
2/Buy glycerin in boots and Google how to preserve leaves. Takes about 3-4 days.
3/ while leaves are still sticky, borrow your kids' glitter. Gold and purple work best. Sprinkle liberally
4/ you might need some sort of a "sealant". You could get an expensive acrylic one from hobby craft or just buy super strong aerosol hairspray. It stops the leaves from being sticky snf glitter falling off but the leaves don't go brittle.

5/ arrange a bed of preserved glitter leaves on your plate/cake stand

6/ arrange your gourds on top.

If you have any oak trees about, stick a small branch with the leaves in glycerin too, then stick the preserved oak branch in between them

Here's a photo of a black Christmas wreath that I temporarily turned a Halloween wreath with the kids. The leaves were attached to the wreath with some floral wire.

Just been cleaning the kitchen and OH did the lounge and playroom/reading room and I've arranged the fruit bowl (looks a bit naff though, needs a stunt pineapple for sure), reckon my house is visitor ready now - just need to find some visitors!

Last bus clean ceiling to floor in 20 minute bursts, and buy lovely smelling cleaners it makes it more satisfyingmust go buy floor cleaner

I love your box Nigel!!!!!

Got the plumber coming tomorrow, need to make my kitchen look much nicer than it is. No stunt pineapple but I did buy a mango and some big red apples (DD will eat them though). Did briefly consider staging a washing up area but seeing as I'm washing up in bowls because can't use the bloody sink (hence the plumber) there's not too much point trying to fancy that up.

I'm renowned for always having a (stunt but no one knows it) pineapple. So much so that someone bought me this for my last birthday .
But I still also have a real one in the fruit bowl.

Amazing thread.

I have slight Monica Geller tendencies anyway so our house is always pretty 'visitor ready'.

I've RTWT thinking that I don't really do anything special for guests apart from maybe light my nice smelling posh candles (which I light in the evenings anyway, for myself, because I'm worth it!) but I just went for a wee and realised that I do in fact keep some stunt Aesop body products on the bathroom shelf because I love the packaging so much.

I use the lavender Method cleaner and it is so lovely. I am lavender mad though. I didn't know about the wood floor cleaner - it is on my list!

The Method almond floor polish smells lovely when it mixes with the smell of the wood.

I really want to contribute to this awesome thread but feel I should just master basic cleaning before stretching to stunt pineapples and Jo Malone candles .

I treated myself to the 3 4 2 in Waitrose, almond polish, euclyptus bathroom cleaner and clemantine kitchen cleaner for 6quid, so about the same as flash!

I agree with the element of having a beautiful home for yourself. Staging to me is about faking it till you make it, I always want fresh flowers, plenty of milk and a fresh smell. (I have 5 cats, this will never happen)
My sister in law has a beautiful house, I was convinced it was staged for guests but over the years have turned up unexpectedly and the house is 99% always pristine, the 1% was when I arrived and she was mopping the floor. I'd like a house where we have guests and I don't need to spend the weekend before scrubbing and tidying to get it ready. Although I have spent the morning tidying and cleaning and just have the mopping to go...I havent entered the bedrooms. I dare not!
Also I love the smell of method wood polish, the sweet almond is lush

I love this, it is my highest aspiration in life to have a house with an immaculate sitting room for Best where the dogs aren't allowed to set foot inside (while they flop all over the sofas in the everyday lounge). I don't even like having guests but I covet beautiful homewares for my own personal satisfaction.

I worked in a charity shop for the last few months so I was always finding naice things for the house. I particularly love my two little metal statues of drunk tramps

Love it, thanks Cowgirl :)

www.etsy.com/uk/listing/451660974/vintage-fruit-vintage-ceramic-fruit?ref=market
For you pregnant....

True, I'm at home for at least another 2 years, have time to hunt round charity shops etc...plus my titivating balances out dhs love of tech, we have his voice activated stuff and my flowers and fruit stand50p glass cake stand from car boot but at least it smells nice.....

I just realised we staged the lounge - took the telly out of it altogether and put it into the study/spare bedroom so now it looks like we're highbrow people who don't watch telly. In the place where it used to be is a collection of records and the record player.

gowgirl "it makes me happy" ...and there, you have answered your own question.

My (also rampant stager) friend and I were discussing this very thing recently. And we concluded that, generally, if you actively enjoy spending your time fripperising then you're probably in quite a nice stage of your life? You have a bit of time on your hands. You got some spare cash to blow on trinkets. You're feeling quite upbeat and so want to do fun stuff...

Some might sneer and think it pointless and shallow. But I can think of far, far worse traits than wanting your home to look pretty and to spoil guests with nice things.

I don't have masses of time on my hands, I work and read a lot. But I rarely watch TV (except Poldark, and I am loving Nampara's rustically Georgian interiors) and prefer to spend my evenings titivating our home

Fancy cutlery only comes out for guests and a running joke is that any special guests get to drink coffee/tea out of our one and only 'designer' cup. My husband got it as a free bee and it has an orange handle hence designer