House proud

We've had the week off this week and it's been much needed on so many levels. We've been spending some quality time with little man, we've made his new bed and a couple of other new things for his room too and we've caught up on general life stuff.

Being a full time working household can make it hard to keep on top of every day tasks and chores. Be it sorting bills, sorting through things or cleaning, there's always something else to do, and usually more fun, isn't there?

I've been so looking forward to having a break and the chance to do what we want, when we want, at our own pace. I've also been keen to have a few days to tackle some bits and pieces around the house. I'm generally quite good at keeping things tidy, picking things up as I go, but during the week, a few things seem to pile up (namely a laundry pile that never goes down and washing up that seems to multiply overnight) and by the weekend, there's easily a few hours of tidying up needed so cleaning is often left behind.

But not any more!

We've thought about hiring a cleaner in the past but never have, usually feeling that it would mean we were officially declaring ourselves as lazy layabouts. Which we are, sometimes, but we lead a busy life. Don't we all?! I like tidying and cleaning too, in small doses, but with just two days at home, we've been finding that more and more time is being taken trying to keep on top of things... and usually failing.

Sometimes it feels like you'll never get on top. So we decided that a little helping hand would be very helpful indeed.

We booked a local cleaner via Hassle.com - it's really easy to do, they have many cleaners listed by area so you just tap in your postcode, post your job and they'll confirm when a cleaner accepts. You can select which jobs you need them to take care of for you, including laundry and ironing should you wish, and you can view the profiles of the cleaners too and read their reviews from other happy homeowners who have had a magic cleaning wand whooshed over their house.

I have to say, we were a little worried and embarrassed at first. I mean, asking someone to come around and clean up after you? It feels cheeky and we did make sure that the house was relatively in order before they arrived.

We were in when our cleaner, Tosin, arrived but then had an appointment so left her to carry on with things while we were out. We made our apologies for this needing doing or that but obviously, she had seen it all before - and worse - so we felt a bit better about it all.

She was super friendly and super fast - if I had done everything she took care of for us in three hours, it would have taken me three days. Probably.

We wanted her help in getting the house generally ship-shape, so she took to our kitchen and bathroom first for a deep clean - both are white and show dirt within a moment's use - then a good surface and floor clean in all other rooms.

Before we left, we spotted our kitchen sparkling and when we returned, we had a lovely note from her and could not only see but smell what a good job she had done everywhere. Surfaces gleamed and dust had been dusted away and we felt very house proud once more.

So much so, we almost didn't want to touch anything. I even carried on tidying and sorting a few other things, as I didn't want one area to let down how good the rest of the house looked.

We will never have an immaculate home. We have to live in it. We will never have no clutter or a minimalist scheme. We love our things and we like to have them out on display. There will always be things to fix. But it's ok, it will get done.

Our Hassle cleaner has helped us get on top of things again and we very much want to keep this up.

For £10 an hour, fixed rate, that's a very small price for a very big difference. All the cleaners are independent, payment is done automatically and there's no contract so you can pick and choose when you need someone to come around, how often you like. It's all very easy and convenient - the account section of the website helps you manage bookings and payments - and we will definitely continue to use Hassle, and Tosin, in the future to keep us on the clean and narrow.

A big thank you both Tosin and the very helpful Hassle team too - the service has been great and very much needed too! (Hassle is available in a few different cities including Birmingham, so best check the website to see if you can use them to help you get on top of things too).

Tomorrow, I'll be sharing more on our big autumn house overhaul, including my top tips for getting everything sorted for the new season.