How often do you redecorate your home?

[user1461609321]

Evening everyone

Just wanted to check how often you re-paint walls, buy new items like curtains etc

I feel like my house needs a yearly re-paint otherwise the house looks so run down and scruffy

My walls are magnolia but get so stained in the kitchen or kid's bedroom, I don't know why?

The sealant around the bath is often getting mould spots etc

We tidy up daily, sweep/ mop frequently but my home always seems to have something broken (like a light switch etc, and as we own the property, it costs us personally to fix it)

Whenever I visit other peoples houses or look at social media, everything looks so clean and shiny so I feel like a slob

Recently did kids room last year, painted, put wall stickers etc, new curtains etc, just one year later wall stickers have been pulled off wall, leaving unsightly marks, wall a mess, they have spoilt their bunk bed etc

Finally how do people keep rugs clean, I have tried using scrubbing brush and carpet cleaner but how do you get the carpet dry in this weather whilst avoiding the damp smell?

Please help me!

Please, please, please relax. Our home when I was growing up was no show house, it was in the countryside, we had dogs and cats, kids, a huge untidy garden, my father worked outdoors and wasn't great at shaking off sawdust etc, my mother worked fulltime but baked and did all meals from scratch so not a lot of time for cleaning, Iconstand friends dropping in and being fed, I even remember my father helping my older brother and his friends to fix a motorbike in the kitchen, my cousins on the other hand lived in a spotless clean tidy house, not a speck of dust, not a thing out of place, not a toy to be seen, small garden concreted over and no pets. Every school holiday my cousins looked to stay with my family and never liked going home, even now we are in our 50's and they talk about the lovely warm happy times spent in my parents house, about all the local characters they met, fishing with my father and then gutting and cooking the fish etc. Your children will remember happy parents far better than parents stressed about keeping up with impossible standards.

Living room/ bedroom furnishings 5 years.

You replace furniture every 5 years? why?

Paint maybe 5-7 years. Changed our settees last year after moving house the old ones lasted twenty years. Won’t be replacing for another 20 years.

We done need to renovate at some point 2 of the bathrooms are 30+ years old but excellent condition.

I feel the same as you Op. always seems unacheivable to get the house all neat and tidy and fresh all at once. I think it’s just because we notice it as we live there. Other people don’t notice in the way we do. And if they do and care then they don’t deserve to be in your home.
I bought an old decrepid Georgian townhouse in 2017 and basically gutted everything but have actually a very low budget to do it up and live in it. So everything is being done gradually. It’s
Never ending. But I don’t really mind tbh I just think it’s a lovely safe house I love and it will be done one day….. probably be finished when I retire 😂
Be kind to yourself and your house I’m sure it’s lovely and happy xx

I would probably just put a poster over the wall where the stickers were, iirc DS destroyed his bed, I'm sure he used to gnaw the end of it and he stuck stickers everywhere, best just to leave it, we redecorated it when he was about 11 and he needed a proper desk and stuff.

My Mum was (and still is) completely averse to cleaning, and our house was stuffed with stuff - not hoarder style, but lots of books/knick knacks/videos/dust traps. It didn't ever bother me, but as soon as I got my own place I discovered the joys of cleaning and a clean house! To be honest, I don't think kids care as long as they have a warm and happy home, are clean and loved and well fed. There are limits of course, but a bit scruffy and untidy is not that big a deal at all.

Continuously. Old house, things need redoing regularly.

I dream of a new, empty, white walled apartment with guarantees

Also had a flashback to a house I used to go to after school when my Mum was working, which was spotless. The parents made their daughter use sellotape to clear up lint and fluff from the carpet in her room. I HATED it there.

I always get comments about my house always looking tidy (showroom tidy) but that's because I'm a minimalist so I sont have too much stuff. Just enough so its super easy to keep it clean. I can clean my whole house in 3hrs and thats a deep clean too. I also put things back as they've been used.

I only repaint every 5yrs. I redecorated my rooms after 6yrs when I could afford it and won't be doing that again until something breaks or is really worn out that it looks horrible. So im hoping things like sofa, curtains last at least 10yrs

I also don't have kids so makes it easier hah

OP maybe you need to clean more regularly - get magic erasers for wall marks and wipe as soon as you can after the spill?

Moved in 2015. Have done:

fully redone living room inc carpet
Painted kitchen walls
Painted bathroom
Painted dining room
Painted and papered stairs
fully done nursery inc carpet
touched up son's room and new carpet
Relaid patio and front garden

Have not done:
Our bedroom
Most downstairs flooring - tatty laminate
Bathroom suite (booked)
Internal doors are shabby and need replaced

I have once or twice touched up walls that get marked. I just buy tester pots and it only takes a few minutes.

@EffOrfagain

I would probably just put a poster over the wall where the stickers were, iirc DS destroyed his bed, I'm sure he used to gnaw the end of it and he stuck stickers everywhere, best just to leave it, we redecorated it when he was about 11 and he needed a proper desk and stuff.

Fellow mother of a bed chewer here

You sound very much like my MIL. To me her house looks immaculate. I think that you notice the small flaws in your own home much more than any visitor does or what shows in an Instagram photo.

I don't think painting yearly is necessary at all and would agree with other posters to try the wipe clean paint. I think it's reasonable to redecorate (paint, curtains, throw pillows) every 5 years and furniture closer to 7-10 years depending on what quality you buy in the first place and your budget. Any more often then that seems excessive to me.

MIL repaints rooms and changes all the smaller soft furnishings probably every 2-3 years and big furniture every 10.

Every year? Your rooms will get smaller

Lived here 3 years.

Lounge twice painted
Ds bedroom twice painted.
Dd room once
Our room once
Hall once
Kitchen was refitted by landlord.
Bathroom we did the limo.

And before anyone says. Yes it's rented. And yes we've decorated to freshen it up. I couldn't live like it was. We've improved it no end. Bits like fillering, new lino, paint. Gloss. Garden much better
But our landlord is fab. Fitted a kitchen of our choice. He let us chose. Everything down to the tiles, flooring and units.
Anything that needs doing he does staight away. Ie leaky loo etc

Depends what you mean by decorating really. We moved into our house in September and we are gradually working our way around the rooms. The easy stuff like painting has been done, we just had new internal doors fitted and am in the process of sorting out the downstairs loo. There will be the kitchen, bathroom and hallway to do over the next few years. Once that’s all done, perhaps we will go back to our bedroom which we did first but certainly no more than that - decorating is very disruptive!

We get a couple of rooms done every year. Not fully redecorated, just new paint. Everything else gets replaced when it breaks and can't be repaired.

Every 7 years or so. I keep paint to touch up scruffy parts. But really can't be arsed decorating.
Life is too busy doing other things.

We've been here 15 years and did everything when we moved in as house was a state. Wish I had started redecorating at the 10 year mark as all rooms now need doing and it feels like a mammoth task. I did repaint the kids room though and some woodwork. Every year sounds excessive and I'm sure it can't be as bad as you think. I use one of those magic erasers on wall marks and it does the job. Just be careful as it just scrubbed away the washable emulsion!

OP your kids don't care how often you paint the walls

I move quite frequently- longest I've been a house ever is 8 years, both times I totally redecorated top to bottom so didn't redecorate before I moved, and the other homes I've had for two to three years.
I do occasionally repaint rooms/hallways if looking a bit tired, but rarely would paint it another colour than the one I picked in the first place. I do change pictures though as I have more than space to hang.
Just doing the last room of my latest move. I've invested more in this one relative to its size, and redoing the garden too. Still I think it's an 8 year house max.

I reckon it must be about 8 - 10 years for us.

Have you tried Magic Erasers for marks on your walls, OP? You just need to dampen them slightly and rub the mark gently. You can get them on Amazon.

My house never looks anything as I'm very untidy and my husband is almost as bad. Seeing those immaculate, cosy homes on social media makes me feel really down so I try not to look too often.

My mum used to have my poor dad painting yearly (I say poor as he had COPD so wasn’t good for him) but since he’s passed on and she needs to pay someone it’s probably 2-3yrs. She’s always cleaning marks off the wall though, I literally never do that. The whole house bar a few rooms got painted 2yrs ago and are still reasonable. Won’t be doing it again for a while.

Magnolia is quite a dingy colour though so possibly that's why you feel you want to "freshen it up". No way would I be decorating each year - last time for all the downstairs rooms was over 10 years ago.

My next door neighbour redecorates every room every year. Constant new kitchens, flooring, new windows, bathrooms.
I don't get it. Her aim is to live in a lovely home.
Truth is she has been living in chaos for 10 years