50 Super Quick Scrumptiously Fresh Treats For Summer

I’m all about scrumptiousness, me. While I usually regale you with half a dozen puttery treats when the mood takes me, I know that finding time to breathe when the kids are under your feet in the Summer is a task and a half , and so today I wanted to offer 50 Brocantehome style quick fixes for freshening up a house suffering from the Summertime Blues.

Teeny, tiny things you can do when afternoons seem both endless and limited by the demands of your little people, not altogether life-changing but enough to make you feel you are still dedicated to the art of making your world as lovely as can be.

Are you ready to make life feel scrumptious again? Let’s go…

1. Open every window and door in the entire house for at least an hour to blow away the cobwebs.
2. If you aren’t going on holiday, amass a small collection of Vintage postcards and spend a tranquil afternoon sending the shortest, sweetest missives form home.
3. Read Swallows and Amazons out loud to the kids.
4. Add six drops of lemon oil to a cup full of olive oil and use it to scrub wooden chopping boards.
5. Add an olive oil pourer to a vintage glass bottle and use it to hold ironing water in the laundry room.
6. String white fairy-lights everywhere to bring memories of warm evenings on the Mediterranean flooding back.
7. Go hang fresh, new tea-towels out right now.
8. A pot of basil in the kitchen will instantly scent the air.
9. Grab a basket and chuck every last bit of clutter you can find into it. Instant tidy house!
10. Fill the prettiest bowl you can find with zesty limes ready for impromptu fruit juice cocktails.
11. Save orange peel and bake it in the oven for fifteen minutes to rid the oven of anything stinky and make the house smell sweet.
12. Strip back the beds and spin and flip the mattresses.
13. Throw listless towels into the tumble dryer to fluff them up.
14. Use spray beeswax to polish your furniture and add the old fashioned scent of home in an instant. (Look out for WoodSilk as it doesn’t contain silicones known to attract dust).
15. Change the images in at least half the photo-frames around the house. Ring the changes!
16. Burn rosemary oil in a burner for an instant pick me up for the living room.
17. Pop the entire families toothbrushes and mugs into an empty dishwasher and run on a quick, hot programme without soap to sanitize them.
18. Encourage the kids to have a pillow fight, then call time and re-make the beds, et voila! Puffed up pillows!
19. Add three drops of aromatherapy oil to dish soap and shake for a fragrant treat at the sink.
20. Wrap long match boxes in pretty vintage paper and leave in every loo in the house. It’s a very traditional, rather basic method of banishing smells but lighting a match is both quick and effective.
21. Bury banana peel in the soil below each rosebush so the potassium they contain will feed your glorious rose garden.
22. Have an indulgent half hour helping yourself to anything lingering in your Comfort Drawer.
23. Loop rolls of vintage lace bunting style across windows.
24. Re-purpose a gingham topped jam pot as a portable sugar bowl. Perfect for a casual afternoon tea in the garden.
25. Similarly decant milk into an old-fashioned lemonade bottle at the breakfast table.
26. Buy new oilcloth and perk up the kitchen table in an instant.
27. Leave a book full of curious facts in the loo.
28. Add a vintage floral corsage to a tea-towel and leave it hanging purely for decoration in the kitchen.
29. Stitch tiny pearl buttons at intervals along a length of vintage lace and wrap around a plain or flower sprigged lamp-shade.
30. Leave a stack of scrumptiously inspirational interiors books sitting on the coffee table.
31. Replace every single bar of slimy soap in the house with a fresh new one.
32. Hang a pretty floral shopper over the banister and use it as a catch-all for everything that needs to come upstairs and downstairs again..
33. Make a layered jelly in a vintage mould.
34. Soak tea-stained cups in a solution of baking soda and warm water overnight.
35. Take houseplants outside and give them a holiday on the garden table on warm days.
36. Pop feather filled quilts into the tumble dryer for ten minutes with a few tennis balls to re-distribute the feathers.
37. Starch cotton pillowcases and notice how scrumptiously fresh they feel on Summer nights.
38. Use the prettiest, twinkliest Kirby grip hair pin you can find as a bookmark.
39. Patchwork a series of vintage tray cloths together to make a garden table cloth.
40. Capture children’s a4 artwork in a decorated three ring binder, so the more prolific artist’s work doesn’t take over your life. Have one for each child.
41. Line fridge door shelves with kitchen paper so even the shortest of drips are soaked right up.
42. Swap morning jam for Summery lavender honey or lemon curd.
43. Thrill the kids by mixing up milkshake in a cocktail shaker with ice.
44. Get into the habit of grating odd ends of soap into a Kilner jar to use at a later date for all-purpose household liquid soap.
45. Pin a lace shawl or tablecloth over the back door frame on warm days to discourage naughty flies by making their entrance into your home beautifully difficult.
46. Bake olive bread and serve it warm with Normandy butter and grape juice for breakfast.
47. Punch holes into the top of a vintage postcard, thread it on to pretty ribbon and swing it from a cupboard door handle
48. Cover a collection of battered recipe books in co-ordinating wipeable vinyl wallpaper: you only need scraps so sample pieces from the DIY store will be plenty.
49. Treat yourself to a new Welcome mat.
50. Top piles of white towels with the prettiest white lace doilies in the bathroom for an extra layer of vintage loveliness.

Happy Summer Holidays Housekeepers!