How often do you do the Big Jobs in your house? Feeling so overwhelmed

[embarrassedbymyhouse]

Things like decorating, glossing, new floors?

I've been in my house for six years. Was brand new when I moved it and yet now it's all just such a state that I sobbed earlier. It feels insurmountable.

I'd thought it was ok until my mum came round and said it looked dirty. Now I'm looking at it through new eyes.

The carpets are dirty despite professionally cleaning them last year, the vinyl is dented and ripped, the shower grout is orange, the sideboards are chipped and or/stained.

Have a dog so just keeping on top of hair and dust feels like an endless task.

How often and what things do you do to keep your home looking "nice"? Just don't know where to start

Probably every couple of months one big task gets done on average. It is harder if you move into a new or just refurbished house it all gets worn at the same time.

Do you need replacement flooring that is more dog friendly?

The grout is an easy one to start with. The orange staining is from iron in the water - it’s not dirt as such and so doesn’t need scrubbing away. Get something like Flash with Bleach which is frothy and will sit for a while. Spray it on, leave for several hours or overnight, then just rinse, and you will have lovely white grout again.

It’s hard work and costs a lot of money!

I think you have to make it a priority tbh. If you work full time and have a few kids then it’s never going to feel nice all the way though the house.

For the grout I use astonish mould and mildew and spray it on some cotton pads, stick them to the grout and leave them as long as you like and when you taken off the grout will be lovely and clean again.

Also restrict the dog to just one or two rooms. Dogs stink! I have 5 and they’re only allowed in the kitchen. The rest of the time they are in the garden or I take them out.

Bleach for your grout, extra thick one on a sponge rub a thick layer over the top of all the grout and leave for a few hours and rise off.
Are they cream carpets by any chance? I had them and changed them to a darker colour last year because ethey were depressing me. I was havenug them professionally cleaned every 6 months maybe less, and they would just be back to manky within a couple of months. It was depressing. Could you swap the vinyl to click vinyl? Much tougher, I'm going to do it in my kitchen and bathroom soon as we had new stuff put down a while ago and it's just moving and tearing, it look awful.

My skirtings and door frames are awful, it's an old, ex cpunsil house but it will cost a fortune to replace them. I have to go round and sand them and touch them up around every 6 months. I don't sand the whole lot, just the chopped bits but I'm lazy

We have a never ending list if it makes you feel better. The jobs that get worse if you leave them annoy me most as i can see them getting worse/ more costly eg rotting bits of window frames, leaky gutters etc. One perk of renting must be freedom from house maintenance...

Yep the carpets are cream!

Think I need to get a sander and some gloss and just dedicate some time to doing the doors and skirts and radiators and bannisters. New flooring would really help to make me feel better about the house too I think, it's just money. 😭

Will try bleach on cotton pads for the grout tomorrow. Thank you.

You can use bleach on white gloss work too

We have carpet that you can bleach...if you’re replacing it might be worth considering (we have cats and small DC...).

We normally have a bigger DIY job on the go. A few years ago our hallway was a total state. It wasn't worth a full decorating job, but over a fortnight I filled the holes in the plaster and got rid of the globs of glue left from the toungue and grove days and painted it a new colour that worked better with the off-white top half than the that'll-do colour that had been slapped on half the house by a previous occupant. It's definitely fresher to tide us over for a few years until we are ready to do it thouroughly.

The downstairs toilet was done properly a while back, but two boys have been toilet trained since then. A weekend re-doing gloss work has worked wonders.

It's worth looking at what can be tidied up with a good clean, benefit from a light decorating job and what needs properly doing. Washing the walls down can make a surprising difference!

Once you’ve done one room, it is quite motivating to carry on. It’s any chance your mum would help by babysitting etc while you do stuff?

We glossed the window in our bedroom last weekend. Made a huge difference....if you ignore the rest of the gloss.

I've just started painting mine! Hasn't been done for 2 years. I have durable paint so wipe it down if it gets mucky fingerprints etc. When I see them. Hard floor is better for animals and kids I find. I have laminate through lounge and hallway. Easy to mop up quickly if kids spill. I have tiles in the kitchen. I do have a huge rug in the lounge though. Glossing I do with the painting.

My thing is is to do a bit at a time.

1 room at a time.

Grout is easy with bleach or similar and doesn't take long.

If you have kids and a dog then it will need doing more often. We have a cat and one child and are glad we had hard wood flooring downstairs.

Skirten boards only need keying not full in sanding and then painting. Egg shell is just as hard as gloss and shouldn’t need doing as often.

All this said we haven’t had the time to do any of this stuff recently and are sacrificing the equivalent of a holiday to get most of the house painted by a professional because our next baby is born.

Hard floors with pets - such a difference! Decorating every 3 years, tough paint that you can wipe the crap off in between times.

(Pink grout is mould, not iron.)