Cheap and simple ways to make your house attractive

I first found this post on Reddit which gave cheap and simple ways to make your house attractive and convince your guests that you are in fact a grown-up. After reading it, I realised that although the ideas sounded silly at first, they worked really well. I’ve condensed the list and added my own notes now as well. 

1. Buy a whole bunch of glass jars – Mason jars work best, but you can put everything in it. Sugar, coffee, rice, marbles for decoration. I’m not sure why but it makes you look fancy and organic. Don’t do what my mum did and not remember which jar had the salt and which jar had the sugar, as our house guests have never asked for sugar in their drinks again.
2. Buy large bottles of mineral water – Large bottles of water can be very cheap, my local store does them for 50p. You only need to bring them out of the fridge when you have guests around. I’ve found you can also buy glass  jugs or bottles and just fill them with tap water, then refrigerate, voila you have posh water to serve your guests.
3. Have a clean bathroom – This sounds really obvious but it’s more than simply bleaching your toilet. Try and keep the bathroom as tidy and mess free as possible. I find this almost impossible since I have a habit of buying tons of shampoo and beauty products which litter my bathroom. But if you have a cupboard or something, just hide it all out of sight for when guests are around. Also invest in good toilet paper, non of that single ply nonsense. Even if you just break it out for guests, there’s nothing worse than wiping your bum on something rough.
4. Get a big ceramic bowl and fill it with lemons – this seemed like the most random of all the suggestions but it actually makes a lot of sense. You add colour to the room, it adds freshness and it alludes to your cooking ability. Lemon is also underused in my opinion, as acidity is hardly considered by most people in cooking although it has such a big influence on the overall balance of a dish’s flavour. I’ve found a touch of lemon juice has never done anything bad. Also no need to worry about scurvy!
5. Having plants – It adds colour and life. It also shows you’re capable of looking after a living creature. My friend has a collection of cactus, and I reckon if he just puts them all into glass jars, he’ll be sorted for life. I also really like goldfish, but fish are much harder to look after as they need cleaning as well as feeding.
6. Create ambience in the room – This can be done with dim lighting. You can’t see as much mess in dim lighting and everything feels more romantic. If you don’t have a dimmer switch on your light bulbs (I don’t) then you can use lamps and candles instead of the main light. Scented candles are a plus because it makes your house smell nice.
7. Keep books around – it makes you look intellectual! Of course, I think having books around can never be a bad thing. I love reading and I have books in every room. I might have too many and they start looking untidy. Think about buying a nice hardcover book and putting a bookmark inside and then placing that somewhere strategic. Don’t make my mistake and just keep a pile of hentai manga next to the toilet, it did not look classy (although I still read them there.)
8. Cook a roast – Roasts are horribly impressive as meals go and nothing else really says “I’m a proper adult now” than cooking one. They’re also a lot easier than you would imagine, it’s more the bits that go with them I find annoying. If the idea of that is too daunting, I suggest getting a slowcooker and making some pulled pork, super easy!
9. Simple Desserts – No need to worry about your baking skills. Just melt chocolate and cover berries. Everyone likes chocolate covered berries. If you want to be adventurous, why not try my lazy baked Alaska recipe?
10. Have a billion different types of tea – When you have guests, offer them a ridiculously huge range of teas. You won’t need to restock any of them any time soon as most people will probably want normal tea, but doesn’t sound impressive if you can offer them early grey and mint tea and red bush and green tea and vietnamese lotus tea?