What naice things do you make sure are visible to visitors

I'm now looking at my books grouped by author and subject. Do I know rearrange to colour..........? Decisions decisions!

m.youtube.com/watch?v=rpgFDXeh6kw

Whilst watching random YouTube videos, I found a real life example of a 'stunt pineapple'. Look at the man dancing in the white T-shirt.

I like the colour sorted books. However I can't get my dads voice out of my head that they must go from tallest to shortest. On each row.

Unpacking and organising my house now and will probably steal a few ideas from this thread!

'anyone else do this with their books?'

No. But I now know how I'm going to be spending the afternoon [happily rolls up sleeves and briskly rubs hands together]

Off to rearrange my books...

Oh no I thought I was the only one with co-ordinating book spines in tasteful cream. I used to buy suitably classy-looking paper in Ikea and cover old tatty books in it.

I'm more laid-back now and prefer real, but very tidy, paperbacks (penguins are best for that insouciant-but-intelligent vibe mentioned upthread. I can't bring myself to do full-on intelligent, though, because I hate papery mess.

A few Private Eyes maybe, together with the odd Viz to create that affectedly highbrow disrespect for authority.

And jazz, preferably cool and mellow, to create that chilled, intellectual ambiance.

But please stop giving me ideas - my house is ridiculous enough as it is

I just outwardly 'ooooo'-ed at that picture Abyss - how lovely

Anyone else does this with their books?

Evil. Pure evil.

MaQueen you're my hero too! Colour coordinated books - I love it.
And you've reminded my I have some 20+ years old ancient unfinished cross stitch in the loft to dig out, so I can do as you suggest with the casual draping.

When I first put these books next to my bed, DP asked if I was enjoying Professor Hornblower. I looked at him like this and asked him what the bloody hell he was talking about. He said 'the book? Next to the bed?'

'Oh' I said. 'I'm not reading it, it's just to match the wall '

I love Method sprays hubcap. I had one of each scent at one point.

Ha, sunnysky! One thing I don't stage is towels and I almost always buy them in white. Once in a whim, I decided the family bathroom needed a burst of colour and bought some nice turquoise ones from Homesense. About 3 weeks later, I thought something was amiss when the coloured towels remained pristine on the rail. Turns out DH had been instructing the children to not use the "show" towels. No need to guess if my MIL staged them then.

Love the coordinating set texts.
My house would more likely give people a superiority complex than an inferiority one, but I'll be off to buy my Christmas editions of home magazines to swoon over in a couple of months as i do each year. Some of the houses mentioned sound like they'd be good in a home magazine.

Delurking to say how much I'm loving this thread.

Cyberfairy's stunt accordian is an outright winner for me.

I'm guilty of always having to have things naice and staged for visitors, whip out the Molton Brown handwash and shower gel, and won't let DH use the bathroom or downstairs loo once they've been cleaned, or sit untidily on the settee. I do the overflowing interesting fruitbowl thing too. I have the method cleaners out and the cheapie stuff in cupboards. Hadn't thought of decanting stuff into posh bottles nor staging a washing-up area, but will add those to the list.

I vet the stuff on the bookshelves - the bonkbusters and vampire/fantasy/crime rubbish books we actually read are upstairs in the spare bedroom/office/crudhole, and on the living room shelves I have photography books ( although 10 years on I still use my camera on manual), gardening books (though my postage stamp garden suffers from my absence of green fingers) and big dictionaries to make us look intelligent .
I used to keep my grandma's 1949 singer sewing machine in the corner, to add an air of fake retro to my fake crafty-ness. I rarely got it out as I loathe sewing, so it's now in the loft. Might have to dig it out again as I embrace all these inspired staging tips. Keep them coming.

MaQueen you are my hero

eolian ultimately my plan for world domination will result in every woman owning a bundle of stunt towels and having a piece of embroidery work casually draped over the arm of a chair

Mwahahahahahahahaha...[strokes cat]

I'm torn between loving this thread and being at the idea of the inferiority complexes all this beautiful fakery probably causes in guests. Which in turn makes them go and do the same fakery and inflict it on others!

I have an ego-shelf in our hall, on which I have artfully lined up all my set texts from university...but here's the clincher...I have only used the ones with white, cream, beige covers to tone with my neutrally decorated hall...

The set texts with blue, grey, black covers are artfully lined up on a shelf in the guest bedroom (which is decorated in pale grey/white).

Shoot me now...

Love love love this thread!

I admit last week, I made some additions to the bathroom, along with matching towels in the colour scheme purely as decoration.

First night ds2 has a shower and uses my new black one to stand on as he gets out of the shower.

He really could not understand my angst at this was only a 'staged' towel........ Now they are all being used and I have to go and buy more!

Sorry, some bizarre smilies somehow ended up in last post!

Never mind the stunt artichokes, I want Gowgirl's stunt kids!

Have to confess to having a stunt pineapple in the fruit bowl but that's because Ocado only ever seem to deliver the horribly unripe green ones, so it's sitting next to the bananas until it ripens sufficiently to not provoke a cat's bum face when you eat it.