Neat as new pins

KatyK so glad you went with your heart when you bought your sofa. We changed our three piece suite for two large cream leather sofas in 2001. The grandchildren were still quite small at the time and I wondered about sticky chocolate fingers, and buckles on sandals. The sofas have been great and with a quick wipe over always came up like new. They are still going strong, maybe a bit tired round the edges, but so are we, and they are sooo comfy. Enjoy

We kick off our shoes/boots as soon as we go indoors because we live on a farm but I never ask visitors to take off their shoes because we have wooden floors which are easy to clean and we have dogs so their socks would soon be covered in white hairs.

I like a balance between neat and tidy and comfortable chaos.

Ours is a shoes on house, although we both slop around slippers for comfort. However I do wish I'd stuck to my guns when we moved in. I wanted wood flooring in the porch and dining room - which gives access to the back of the house. DH insisted on carpet. Beige carpet. Every time I Hoover I have to follow up with spot cleaner.

I am always completely mind-boggled when I go to someone's house and it is immaculate - how do you LIVE - I mean really live - in a house that is immaculate? Above all else I cannot understand the absence of books and newspapers and magazines. Next to me as I type are about 30 books in jumbled piles - poetry, quilting, novels, books on painting and literature, joke books, crossword books..........I dip into them every day; as well as whatever I am reading on my kindle.

And opposite me is a collapsing pile of children's books to about waist height - the GC dive in and love them. That is apart from the 3 large boxes of children's books in the snug next door, and the 2 plastic cars, - oh, and the potty!

Our suite is cream! - but covered in throws, that spend most of their time falling off - or on the floor for pretend picnics!

Our hallway is cluttered with shoes, gloves, hats, scarves, pushchairs, bags of music - that is what greets people when they arrive - and if they don't like it then they ain't our kind of people!

A friend once said to me that they liked my house because they felt they could slop around in their slippers - I took it as a compliment! We LIVE in our house - it is not a show home, it is OUR home!

When I was still working, my upervisor was a stickler for everything being kept immaculate. One of the very few people who got invited to their bungalow told us that although there was a beautiful fitted kitchen, complete with a gorgeous cooker, all cooking was done on another cooker in a separate scullery, also the washing up. The visitor told us that he took his cup to the kitchen sink and washed it before leaving, and she nearly went mad, telling him that they didn`t use that sink! Their cars, which they changed for new every 2 years, were always kept like new, with the plastic covers on the seats all the time, and they never went anywhere without a box in the boot full of polishes and cloths.

You're a nice person KatyK. Hope you are enjoying your lovely sofas. I knew a woman once whose daughter was a friend of my daughter's. Her 3 piece suite was covered in plastic and my automatic reaction was oooh, youve had new furniture? Her reply was that she was keeping it clean from the eventual ravages of her 5-year-old daughter. How sad. It was still in plastic a couple of years later.

I had a friend who's parents are Spanish when I was at school. Her mum insisted on shoes off at the door and her sofa was still in it's plastic 4 yrs after I first went to her house. She also insisted that her two miniature poodles were bathed at least once a week. I lost touch with my friend, I wonder if she's the same.

I don't consider myself house proud and never request people to remove their shoes, although some do automatically. We have recently bought a cream leather suite. After years of buying dark ones with easy to care for fabrics, we were out looking for a new one and saw this cream leather one and I said to DH 'ooo look at that beautiful thing' and then we moved over to the 'sensible ones' DH then said 'you know what, just for once in our lives, let's be a bit reckless'. So we bought it and it's lovely. If people spill anything on it, it doesn't matter. 'Things' have never been important to me, I just want people to feel comfortable - but I also love my suite

I usually wear slippers in the house leaving outside shoes in the hall but I never ask anyone to take off shoes before coming in as I have wooden floors and they are swiftly cleaned when they get dirty... funnily enough all my grandsons take off shoes in the hall of their own accord.

The husband was rather aggressive and i admit to being intimidated!
I presumed it might have been a cultural thing as he was from the indian subcontinent. Perhaps someone could enlighten me as to if this is the case?

We ate tea at the dining room table and only went into the sitting room to admire the 52inch television.

Galen I would have found 50 excuses, true or otherwise why I could not-mainly blinding them with medical science, why I would/could not.

I must admit that i never wear shoes in my own house as my feet are very painful and its more comfortable to be barefoot.
I did not like it though when i was visiting a claimant once and was ORDERED to remove my shoes at the front door!

I have throws over the 2 armchairs but this is to contain cat hairs. There is not a throw over the sofa- Tara knows that she is not allowed there and 99% of the time keeps that simple rule.

We always remove shoes at the door and we never eat in the lounge but the furniture is comfy and not covered with throws or plastic. All our family do the same, I think it dates back to the babies being born and crawling around the floor.

whitewave visiting a house like that I would not like to accept a cup of coffee and biscuit in case I dropped crumbs on the floor or shock horror, dripped coffee on to the carpet or chair. I do not normally have accidents but it would be sod's law in a place like that.

I only went into a perfect house once. To my horror I turned into Elizabeth from Keeping up Appearances. My hand shook and eventually I spilt my coffee managing to hit the cream sofa, the cream carpet and Hyacinth my hostess. She took it very well and insisted on making me another cup. I was so frightened of dropping this one that I bit the edge of the china cup and cracked it. I daren't say anything and hoped she'd think it happened as she washed up.

Needless to say, and to my relief, I was never invited back.

galen yes! We both sat in our socks. Mind you how awful if I had marked the carpet

Last year I went with a friend, helping her to house hunt. She is an old polio so cannot walk indoors without her shoes on and I also have issues walking without shoes. Fine in my own house but not in many others where the floor coverings can change and I can slip and fall easily.

We went to view a smart looking house on the outside, we were asked to remove our shoes at the door and we both refused. The house was reasonably clean downstairs but upstairs there were layers of dust everywhere and our socks/tights would have been filthy if we had complied.

Agree with kitty I would choose your home over the cream house every time whitewave

What? that's beyond ridiculous Ana though a friend of my parents did take every cushion (seat, back) off the sofa before they sat down and then brought the vacuum cleaner out to hoover as soon as they'd drunk their tea!

I'd be on tenterhooks with a -- home-- show house like that. I'd hate to be worrying about the furniture etc. instead of enjoying the company.

Ive seen it frequently. Plastic covers and take your shoes off at the front door.

I've never come across this in RL but have heard of houses where the sofa is kept in its original plastic cover...

I'd rather come to your house whitewave!