Calming Clean with me | Living Room Clean, Armchair Makeover Fail, Golden Turmeric Latte ☀️ ☕️

I like to do certain jobs around the house every day, making the beds, cleaning down the kitchen sides and sorting out the dishwasher, putting on a load of laundry. But each week I like to give one area in the house a bit more attention. I've split the house into different zones, how official of me, and each calendar week I will do the jobs in that zone. I do not stick to this hard and fast, it just gives me some kind of plan and it reminds me of some jobs that I tend to overlook. It's the first week in July so I'll be sorting out the living room today. I'll come back to that later on though as it's just turned sunny and I want to try and rescue these armchairs. They were originally a light beige colour. My mother told me not to get light beige but I did not listen. I didn't mind the thought of having to clean them but it turns out this fabric is just impossible to spot clean and as you can imagine with three children running around with sticky fingers, they got dirty quite a lot. So after a few years of cleaning them, I thought I would have a go at painting them. Well it didn't work. I don't know if you can tell but it's very patchy. I don't know if again it was the fabric and it wasn't suitable for painting so I bought a couple of throw blankets and covered over the worst parts and we've just lived with them like that for now. I do have a small amount of the paint left so my thought is I'll paint over the most patchy parts and I'll see if I can get them looking half decent. Originally when I did this the first time, I followed the product instructions to completely wet the area with a water spray bottle but I have such little paint left that today I'm just going to use a damp sponge and use that to paint over the really patchy parts. We'll see how they dry but I'm not holding out much hope. These magnet tiles fell off a bit sticky while we were playing with them so we're giving them a quick little bath. I always think if you're stuck for a toddler activity just let them wash something. Particularly in warmer months a bucket of soapy water and some of their toys will give you a much-needed break. I quite like seeing what we unearth every time we pull out the sofa. Maybe it's the archaeology student in me. It's a mixture of disgusting and things dusting. Not everything has to be a deep clean each month but doing a little bit is better than doing nothing. This radiator has started pealing. I think because I put clothes on it to dry in the winter. So I've got some primer that is suitable for metal radiators and I'm just going to give it a quick paint with that. I won't have time to paint the top coat today and that's something that used to put me off starting a project. If I didn't have time to finish it often I wouldn't even start and the reality is with children there are often no long stretches of uninterrupted time. Things have to be done in parts. It's okay to need a part two or three or four or five. Each little thing you can get done is a bit more progress. Goodness what have I started. That's all I'm getting done today. My little one wants to play and that's what we're going to do. It's cold and drizzly today. Welcome to a British summer. I'm trying out a golden turmeric latte today. I'm using instant coffee because frankly it's easy and the spices are going to be the main event. I'm going to put the spices directly into the milk frother and hopefully that will the armchairs after they have dried and yeah I don't think they worked. I think they may be beyond help so if anyone knows of some small size comfy but affordable armchairs I am in the market. I cleaned the alcove shelves when I decorated them for summer so they don't need doing today. Looking after a home it can often feel very repetitive. The same tasks need doing only for them to be undone by the end of the day. I think I need to remember that I'm not preserving a house, it's not an exhibit. It's more like a machine that needs constant maintenance to make it run smoother and the lives that live inside of it they'll run a little bit more smoothly as well. There are finally a few cut flowers ready in the garden. This flower bed has really started to take off and I think I need to come up with some sort of staking system. This is just a small moment of my day that was just for me. I think we often overlook ourselves in the rush of looking after everybody else but you're important as well and cutting a few flowers, arranging them, it wasn't a task that needed doing. It served no overall purpose, it just made me happy and that's enough.