This post made me laugh and I will work on a picture, but I get dirty daily. As I go from job to job all day I step in drywall mud, rub against wet paint, get drywall dust smear all over my pants, and for sure the sticky epoxy gets somewhere. I have busted shoes, torn purses, and scratched glasses. Hazards of the job, it's all in a days work.

When visiting other people's homes I always gravitate to the photos. I enjoy looking and talking about them. In my own home I have pics of mum and dad in their youth and they are in my bedroom. For my children and grandchildren's pics I have made a collage in the stairwell interspersed with photos of me and my mates in our heyday. It always gives my girlfriends a good laugh as we reminisce old times.

The timing of this article is perfect! Given the erratic weather lately, shielding outdoor furniture has become a real challenge. While I've experimented with some methods here, I'm still searching for a solution with lasting effects. Do you have any specific product or brand recommendations? A big thank you to @Kevin Carol (https://qr.ae/pyDKpb) for suggesting The Cover Company NZ for outdoor furniture protection. I'm definitely going to explore their offerings. It would be fantastic if you could compare a few similar brands in terms of quality, pricing, and customization. Your insights would be highly valuable.

We've eaten in the dining room or outside for the past 20 years. When the children were younger, we had the kitchen table angled off the end of a kitchen bench with just enough space for the whole family to eat at it, and we only used the dining room when we had guests. I found that saved a lot of work. I now hate that we have to set the dining room table for just the two of us. I've tried using stools at the servery (and I use those for the grandchildren when they visit) but my husband refuses to sit at the servery, so we plan to renovate the kitchen and re-shape it with a standard-height table on the end of the servery. We are doing away with the existing dining room to make the living room larger, and security-screening a large covered outdoor area to make a combined dining and outdoor kitchen. Since there's only two of us now, we don't see the need for an indoor dining room. If we have guests, we always eat outside. The area is well sheltered and will be partly enclosed. If it's cold, we can set up a folding table next to the kitchen table to extend the indoor eating space. The kitchen table will seat 5 anyway, so it would be rare to want to eat inside and need the extra seating.