Acacia decking: thickness, joists and a ventilated facade
Choosing acacia decking boards by thickness and grade, setting joist spacing under a deck, and why a ventilated cladding keeps exterior timber dry.
The whole record
Index of entries
Everything written down so far, in date order, most recent first. The date on an entry is the day it was filed, and it moves when the entry is revised, so this page is also a record of what changed and when. The homepage carries the recent entries and each section carries its own, but this is the only page that holds all of them at once.
The record opens on March 14, 2026 with the household inventory, which is the least glamorous thing on the site and the one that answers questions for the longest. If you are starting rather than browsing, the two entries that change a house fastest are the fifteen minute reset in the evening and letting frequency decide where things live in the cupboards. What the record is for, and how it is written, is set out in about Kept.
Hanging a mirror so it stays safe and straight
How to hang a mirror so it cannot fall, why an old mirror darkens at the edges, and what cleans glass without harming a frame.
A yearly fire-safety round for the house
Where smoke alarms go and when they are replaced, how to build an escape plan that works in the dark, and when a garden fire is allowed.
Cables and settings behind a television
One certified HDMI lead, a soundbar that wakes with the screen, and where the boxes live: the practical order behind a television.
Reading the finish on solid wood furniture
How to tell an oiled finish from a lacquered one, what a veneered panel does that solid wood does not, and how to tighten a chair joint without stripping the
Wall, ground and roof as one system
How a thermal barrier, earth tubes, ground heat storage and a solar roof work together, and which measurements show whether the house performs as planned.
A weekend away: what is settled before booking
What a household settles before booking a weekend away, how the date is chosen so the season does the work, and what guests are asked to bring.
A cupboard of simple preparations
What to keep in the kitchen cupboard for a foot soak or a scrub, when a sugar and oil mix beats a bought one, and how a lunar calendar sets garden days.
A week of meals from the fridge, and one loaf
A no-knead loaf starts the week, then leftovers carry it: what to cook without a recipe, and the small repairs worth doing before the heating season.
A house at altitude: snow load, pipes and winter work
What a mountain house asks of a roof, how exposed pipes are protected before the first hard frost, and what to check on a property before buying.
A dry-climate garden: water, shade, ground cover
How much water a planted bed needs in a dry summer, where shade earns its place around a house, and which low-water ground covers hold a slope.
Wrapping framed pictures for storage
How framed pictures are wrapped for storage, what a plaster wall asks of a fixing, and where pictures should not be kept between hangings.
What a good table depends on
What makes a table work for a group, which restaurant habits are worth keeping at home, and how a table is booked and held for a party.
One shelf for garden and animals
A single shelf holds seed, feed and small tools. What stays within reach, how it is stored against damp and mice, and what comes indoors at season's end.
A seed tray on the windowsill
Sowing indoors, pricking out and what a late-winter windowsill really gives: a plain guide to light, timing and handling seedlings.
A kitchen that cooks from the garden all year
What to grow in a small kitchen garden, how to deal with a glut in one evening, and which utensils earn their place on the worktop.
The mortgage file a household keeps
What a mortgage application asks for, what changes between fixed and variable rates, and which papers stay in the household file after signing.
Papers that travel with a move
What paperwork follows a household from one address to the next, what gets checked before signing, and how the record of an old address is kept.
Reading a home's energy use, room by room
How to measure what a house actually spends on energy, room by room, what a heat pump or boiler costs over a year, and which measures pay back first.
A maintenance calendar for a piece of land
A field, paddock or rough plot wants its own sheet in the calendar: which jobs belong to which season, and why the ground decides the day.
Before a kitchen garden: the questions a household settles first
A kitchen garden is decided before it is dug: what a plot asks of a week, how much ground is enough, and what the harvest does to the pantry.
Putting the childhood soft toys away so they come back whole
Clean, dry, breathing and labelled: how the childhood soft toys survive the loft and come back whole twenty years later.
Tied, rolled and bundled: storing the awkward shapes
Rugs, canes, cords and poles fit no box: how the awkward shapes are rolled, bundled and tied, and the three knots that cover the work.
A games evening at home, from the first chair out
A games evening works like any other use of the room: decide what the surface has to hold, feed people from the week, and end with the reset half done.
Keeping a house in order with a long-coated dog
A long-coated dog adds a season of mud, a shelf of kit and a weekly appointment with a brush. The house copes when all three have a place.
Where an instrument lives between sessions
An instrument that has to be excavated does not get played. Where it should live, and why the visible hook beats the closed case.
The rainy-day shelf: preparing a house for days when nobody goes out
A wet weekend is survivable when the kit already exists: what the rainy-day shelf holds and why it stays out of sight the rest of the time.
Closing the house before a week away
A house left for a week needs a closing routine, not a vague sense of unease: the last hour, room by room, ending at the front door.
A house kept by season: building a quarterly round of chores
Four short seasonal rounds beat one fixed chore list: which jobs belong to which season, and how to rotate the house with the months.
Reading a denim label before it goes in the wash
Denim wears for years if it is bought and washed on what the label actually says: weight, weave and the symbols that matter.
The medicine cupboard, read properly
The medicine cupboard is a store cupboard with paperwork: what belongs in it, how to read the leaflets, and when to clear it out.
Keeping the house steady while someone gets help
When a member of the household enters treatment, the house keeps running: the rota, the budget, the paperwork and the visiting.
The field-trip file: maps, permits and a site notebook
A day out to somewhere worth seeing runs on a thin file: the booking, the map, the rules of the site and one notebook.
A family-history folder that survives its subject
Family research dies with its keeper unless the folder can be read by someone else: what it holds and how the names are cited.
The fifteen minute reset
One short pass through the shared rooms before bed does more for a house than an entire Saturday. The order it runs in, what it leaves alone, and why the timer matters more than the standard.
Where things live, and why frequency decides it
A jar used daily and a jar used at Christmas should never share a shelf. Sorting a house by how often you reach for something removes most of the tidying before it starts.
Why a weekly hour beats a monthly afternoon
The same amount of time spread differently produces a different house. Short and frequent keeps a place level, long and rare only ever recovers it.
The seasonal walk around a house
Four times a year, walk the outside of the building and then the inside, in the same order, looking for water. Most household repairs begin as something you could have seen.
Reading a care label without guessing
Five symbols carry everything a garment needs. Once the tub, the triangle, the square, the iron and the circle are read properly, the wash becomes a decision instead of a risk.
A pantry list that matches how you cook
Standard store cupboard lists are written for somebody else's kitchen. Build yours backwards, from the ten meals your household actually repeats.
A paper drawer with four folders
Households do not need a filing system, they need four folders and a rule about what goes in each. Anything more elaborate stops being used by February.
The Sunday look ahead
Ten minutes with the calendar on a Sunday removes most of the small emergencies of the week. Which nights nobody will cook, which morning leaves early, what has to be bought before Wednesday.
Reading a house at eye level
Stand in a doorway and look only at what sits between knee and shoulder height. That band is what visitors see, what children reach, and where clutter actually accumulates.
The empty shelf is not wasted space
A cupboard filled to capacity has no way of absorbing a delivery, a school holiday or a bad week. Slack is what makes a storage system survive contact with real life.
Line drying indoors without the damp
Washing dries indoors on two conditions: moving air and somewhere for the moisture to go. Get those wrong and the wall behind the airer pays for it.
Batch cooking that does not taste like leftovers
Cook the base in quantity and finish each portion on the day. The difference between a stock and a meal is fifteen minutes of fresh work at the end.
Keeping warranties where you will actually find them
A warranty is only worth the minute it takes to find the receipt. One box, one clip, one date written on the front of each manual.
Squeaks, drips and the ten minute fix
A squeak, a slow drip and a door that catches are all ten minute jobs while they are small. Kept on a list and cleared in one pass, they never become a trade call.
Labelling that survives a year
A label written in biro on masking tape is gone by autumn. What survives a year is a label chosen for the surface it sits on, and written the same way every time.
The four towel rotation
Four towels per person, two in service and two in the cupboard, is enough for a household that washes weekly. It also stops towels dying of overwork in the same month.
What a maintenance calendar actually holds
A maintenance calendar holds jobs that arrive by season, not jobs that arrive by mood. Filters, drains, gutters, alarms and the two appliances that fail without warning.
Rotating a store cupboard, first in first out
A store cupboard fails at the back, quietly, in tins nobody reached. Loading new stock behind the old is the whole method, and it costs a minute per shop.
The household inventory, written once
Write down what the house contains once, room by room, with make, model and date. It takes an evening and it answers questions for years.