Saturday 1 October 2011

one::newlywed::homekeeping


on a wing and a prayer

::: to see all 31 days of posts please click here :::

welcome to 31 days of newlywedded bliss! i've decided to join up with a group of bloggers, who are writing on one topic for 31 days. topics are varied and it will be so great to see what people come up with. i'll be linking up via the reluctant entertainer - i LOVE her blog and find so much great inspiration for entertaining ideas!  i'm looking forward to this challenge and to exploring some of the new bits of life that come along with being newly married: hospitality, home organisation, cooking and friendships to name a few. my husband, affectionately referred to as 'le boy' on the blog, has given the green light to the slightly greater-than-usual reveal of our daily lives...but really, he started dating me after the blog was started, so it's a bit part and parcel eh?

when we were married (all eight weeks ago) i knew that our lives were changing. and there are many great, really great, benefits to being married. i'm fortunate to have been raised to know the basics of running a home and i fortunately married a guy who does know how the washing machine, dishwasher and vacuum all work! but running a home is a bit of trial and error, and a bit of learning from others, and a bit of stealing ideas from martha stewart.

recently we've been learning how to handle the masses of laundry that two (!) people generate. there's of course the personal laundry - which we just do together, and whoever realises first that something needs to be done, throws it in the machine. we're extremely fortunate to have a washer/dryer combo! many british homes only have a washer, which is fine, and great for the environment, but can be a little tricky given that there's not much extra space to handle laundry. our machine has a handy delay function, so you can start something in the middle of the night, and it will be finishing up as you wake! (or gets done in the middle of the day and is ready to be unloaded as you get home from work). 

figuring out the cycle for bedsheets and storage of all our wonderful shower gifts of towels and sheets was a bit of a process - but i think we've stumbled on something that's working (for now at least.) 

saturday morning (today in fact!) we change the sheets on the bed. 


we try to immediately put new sheets on - this takes five minutes, but means that tonight, when we're tired, or coming back from somewhere late, or finished having people for dinner, we don't have the moment of 'darn, we still need to make the bed.' fortunately, le boy is obsessed with a made bed, and happily helps - i think his favourite night of the week is saturday, simply because there are fresh sheets on the bed. we change our sheets every week, we change our duvet every two weeks. this seems reasonable for us now and keeps us feeling, well, fresh. 

in a small european flat however, there is always the challenge of storage. where on earth do you hide all those essentials (you know, sheets, towels, bathmats?) we had a moment of genius when buying our bed and bought a bedframe that had drawers built-in to the frame! it provides us with oodles of storage and helps because we can store items in a logical location - bedsheets next to the bed, you say? novel? well i've known people to resort to storing bedsheets in the bottom of a tv-cabinet, because that's where there was space...so yes, it's rather novel! 


this drawer has 8 towels, 10 face cloths, three sets of sheets, two bathmats and 10 hand towels...it's the little drawer that could! now if only le boy would fold the towels 'just-so' and everything would fit! but actually, in this newlywed adventure, i'm realising that you can let things go...and equally, you can gently mention the 'best-practice' i find a bit of jokey manner to be the best...but that's just my guy :) 

finally, for us, it's all about ease. can we find all the pieces we want to make that bed in five minutes flat? and here we steal from martha, again. fold your fitted sheet (tutorial for that pesky fitted sheet here), flat sheet and one pillow case to the same size, i like making them the depth of the pillow case, and then neatly place everything into the remaining pillow case. then when it's bed-making time, you just pull everything out together! plus, things fit in the drawer better this way too! 


whew. who knew i could speak so long on sheets and towels. sorry if this has been a total bore. but these are the things one thinks of when getting married and setting up home! 



2 comments:

  1. What a great idea for a blog series!

    I love that shot of all your sheets and towels folded neatly in the drawer - domestic bliss!

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  2. I used this trick the other day, my husband thought I was the smartest woman ALIVE. I did come clean and give credit where credit was due but I must say I loved the praise!

    Thanks for the tip and warning to all the other women out there who implement this, your husband might be amazed at your kung fu-like sheet wrangling! ;)

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