To ask what makes a home lovely?

[googlenut]

Because I just don't seem to have that knack of creating a really warm, stylish and cosy home. I have to visit a lot of houses for my job and I think the following seem important:

1. Really clean - seems whatever the size if house if it is shiner clean it just seems really inviting
2. No clutter but not sparse. If there are things in a room they are colour coordinated.

3 good lighting - so lots of lamps etc What else do you think? I've been in tiny house which were lovely because of all of the above so don't think it is necessarily anything to do with money.

I like light and lots of it. I hate clutter and I live with a hoarder and it drives me crazy. I like candles but fear having any because of the children. I like clean, can't stand walking in a house and sticking to the floor! I am slightly precious about my home, but only because I have guests who've sat back and let their children wreck the place so I am fussy about who I invite over, only those I know who will respect my home.

a real fire, lots of books, and plates of fine food

Today 08:56 Roussette
Mardy is that to me?

No. To the OP.

it has to be lamps & good pictures on the walls

I am going to stretch this to any pictures on the walls.

So many houses have one picture up way too high, and nothing else to look at, at all. Id rather have anything to look at than bare walls.

A real fire in my bedroom.

A calm house.

I'd like to say tidy but mine is not that :(

I like to think our house is lovely and inviting.

I try to keep it clean at all times but I am not prissy about mess being made when people visit.

It is co-ordinated but not cluttered... ie. Strategically places books on kitchen shelves but piles of cook books stored in cupboard/accessories compliment in all rooms and hall flows into lounge/dining room etc. I am not a fan of completely different themes for different rooms.

Lots of texture. All beds have lots of cushions and a throw (or two!). Curtains add warmth to a room as do good carpets/rugs.

Lots of pictures and framed prints make it personal.

Lots and lots of candles... and light them, they are not ornaments!

I always have fresh flowers in the dining room and on the kitchen table.

Scent - not a mad sweet-berry type smell but something that makes it smell freshly washed.

Shiny taps

My house in the UK was not really clean, it was clean enough. It was cluttered but apparently in a comfortable way. I had lots of colour, lots of different stuff and sometimes it wasn't even symmetrical - and yet friends found my place warm and inviting, probably because the colours were mostly warm colours, and I had dimmer switches on my chandeliers (sounds posher than the reality!) so I could turn the lighting to a comfortable warm glow rather than in yer face 100W brashness. I also had a real fireplace, that was used in the winter, and favoured claret red velvet curtains.

I personally find very clean, very tidy and sparse furnishings pretty "show house" and therefore unwelcoming. In fact, one set of friends whose house is always in pristine condition, I really dislike going to because of my children.