What naice things do you make sure are visible to visitors

[Wiggles84]

Most of the time I have detol hand soap in my bathrooms but if I know someone is visiting my home I get out the posh L'Occitane matching soap and moisturiser stuff I recieved for Christmas a few years back. Surely people notice it's always the same amount of fullness each time they visit? Plus who has enough time to moisturise their hands every time they wash them with a toddler in the house. Jesus if Im more than 15 seconds having a wee he'll be banging the door down wanting to come in or he will have jammed quavers in the xbox. There's no time for the luxury of hand moistorusing. Plus it's a bugger keeping a grip on his squirmy hands St the best of times let alone adding lubrication into the mix.

When my guests leave, back it goes under the sink so as not to waste it.

I also like the fruit bowl to be bursting with beautiful fruit. We always have bananas and satsumas but for some reason a pineapple just makes my mundane life feel that little bit more exotic. "Ooh look at wiggles84 she must peel her pineapple fresh each morning for her delightful childs breakfast". No a quick bit of toast and a banana and we're off to start our days. No one's got time for that surely?

None of us even like pineapple

I know, I know I shouldn't care what people think but what little things do you project to the world so as to not to appear the frazzled dog tired slutten you are?

Feck.

Life's too short. I'm a slob and happy to be one. Take me as you find me is my motto.

I don't do anything really, but I will be swapping the bog standard liquid soap for a proper cheapo version when ILs visit simply so they have nothing to be judgmental about. They'll have to judge what their DS spends instead

Loodledoodle - get thee to sainsbos! Place stunt pineapple accordingly and report back once the offers come flooding in!

Gin tickled pink with fake washing up area.

"Overheard" several house guests (usually vists do not coincide) gleefully discussing the terror/horror of my Oh So Special Guest Basket O'Towels that I have faithfully created and lovingly placed in guest rooms for years. Turns out nobody feels comfortable unraveling my lovely (complicated) fold & roll, so surreptitiously use the ones in guest bath already. Hmmm. I confess I do find myself harummhing loudly at DH when he dares to mess up the entire house sit in the perfectly set living room awaiting company

LoodleDoodle, for staging a house sale, you need to bring out the big guns - a pyramid of fresh lemons (or clementines /satsuma switch leaves attached from waitrose) on a cake stand.

Not my home but I do have a cake stand of lemons and limes on my kitchen table as I type. Just not that - ahem- fresh anymore

We had stunt apples in our fruit bowl-really bright green granny delicious ones that looked fantastic but tasted horrible.

Sorry, our stunt apples definitely helped sell the house-it went in the first morning of being on the market.

Love the cake stand idea, I buy bug bunches of fresh parsley at the market as well and keep them in washed out jars on the kitchen side, the helmans ultimate mayo jars are round and pretty!

Big not bug

Have to say nothing.

When we sold our previous house, I went to extreme levels of staging and employing stunt accessories to the extent that...

I got my Mum to bake a Victoria sponge (artfully left on kitchen table on a pretty cake stand).

We borrowed a friend's swishy 4x4 to park on our drive (DH's car is nice but is always mucky).

I artfully hung my (one and only) expensive, designer dress on the wardrobe door.

Fresh flowers in every room, and several scented candles burning.

Offered all viewers fresh coffee

It worked. We had 3 offers in the first week

I light a Yankee candle in a few rooms of the house, buy two lots of expensive looking flowers for the only two vases I own, and get out the Bayliss and Harding wash and moisturiser set!!

Sooooo happy to know it's not just me that does this!

I do also 'stage' the sofa if people are expected round, and ban anyone from sitting on it before they come round. So DP, dog, cat and I all scrunch ourselves up on little armchairs and pretend the big sofa isn't there!

So, actually, Gin, the staged washing up area is only a minor foible in the general madness of your guest stagings!

Can I ask what all of your responses are then the guests mess things up by sitting on the plumped cushions, wiping improperly rinsed mucky hands on your expensive white towels, or - the most horrifying, perhaps? - visibly cannot distinguish between the best and the bad, and get up from your carefully laid tea table, complete with Spode and exquisite macarons on cake stands, to rummage in your 'shameful hidden items cupboard' and produce a Sports Direct mug ''cos it's big, innit?' and the Tesco custard creams they brought with them???

Do you bar them?

Would never do anything different - let it be the mess it always is ... I've never cared what people think and I certainly know I wouldn't look down on someone for a messy/homely/not bursting with expensive items house - I like people for their soul, not their things

We had a bowl of green stunt apples out on the table when selling our old house and I'm convinced they made all the difference.

Nowadays I just declutter and buy fresh flowers if someone is coming over. Oh and I get posh biscuits. Nothing as elaborate as the fake washing up area.

This is a fabulous thread and has motivated me to go out and buy several Expensive Candles. Just in case.

Got to say though, I have one friend where every time I go around the stunt towels are the same, i.e. never repositioned or moved. As time passes they get dustier and I think she would benefit enormously from this thread.

I tend to deploy a stunt orchid if the occasion arises. I also casually make tea in a teapot as if that's how I normally make tea.

Stunt Towels My favorite thread. Ever. May just have to NC.

I love a good towel, (would rather splurge spend on towels (and bedding) than most things)and have bought really good quality ones for us all to enjoy, not just the guests. Dear family members seem to refuse to believe that they are for them though, and scrounge up from the darkest corners of the linen closet old, worn, holy ones. I imagine all this prissing and fervor for guests comes from my home growing up, where we literally climbed over piles to sit.

I do find that I have 'friend blindness' - I only notice their nice touches and do not see anything amiss when I go visit them!

Oh gawd this is BRILLIANT.
I am totally nabbing 'Stunt pineapple" and "fake cleaning mise-en-scene"
You people are bloody brilliant.

When selling our house, I was often shouting at my husband "don't use the show towels"

I do lots of this nonsense.

I only buy (naice) biscuits when we have visitors and I have an guilty feeling that I might have been the person who sent their hubby with the 'naice ham' shopping list 😶

I might also be guilty of just 'leaving' craft projects lying around (oh you just caught me!) And I always, always hide the shit toys and get out the wooden ones.

When my husband takes photos for instagram I have to see them beforehand to check that the house looks nice in the background.

I have large white company candles and i have ingenious stunt lemons. I fill a white bowl with good quality plastic ones then put a few real ones on top.

I know stunt lemons are a thing because my daughter sent me an Internet meme with a photo of a bowl of lemons with the heading 'a huge bowl of lemons - shows you've got your f.....Ing shit together.

I knew then I was perfect.

Most British thread ever.

When subletting our old apartment I took photographs for the ad, one of which included a bowl of tangerines, (the ones with green leaves, natch), and another one with the KitchenAid mixer which I never use in it.

Had 15 phone calls in one day

Holy crap. I can't believe I forgot this.

I have a 'stunt livingroom' that is always tidy and none of us are 'allowed' to go into in the day UNLESS and unexpected visitor pops by and the rest of the house is a tip.

Hubby and I use it at night to watch TV. No kids rule.

Oh God, writing it down makes it seem even more ridiculous.

I inherited this nonsense from my nan. She always had a 'best' room that wasn't to b entered.

Tiger you've just reminded me of the time I purposefully didn't tidy away my sewing things from the coffee table for about three weeks, so it looked like I was always crafting something on the sofa. I repaired DP's ripped arse on his jeans once, that's it!

DP has just come home to find me crouched against the wall crying with laughter at your post Puny

The more I think about it, the more I realise how much of this house is a bloody stage!

I just make sure there's no cat litter scattered over the kitchen floor and house is reasonably clean. No fancy toiletries!

This thread is hilarious .

My special effort for guests ..... is to sweep the leaves and cobwebs from the outside toilet - do I win??