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Why These are our Favourite Purchases Since Lockdown

This post may contain affiliate links

Spending much more time at home has given us the opportunity to assess our situation and to see what we need to change. As a result of this, we have made several purchases in order to change up certain things. We also wanted to improve our circumstances in some situations.

If you scan below you will see some of our favourite purchases during the lockdown and why we love them so much.

Ikea to the rescue: One of our favourite purchases since lockdown

Going into lockdown was exciting at first. Then it became a scary thought. One of our very first thoughts was that we needed a pantry. A quick brainstorm reminded us that we have a storeroom off the kitchen that we could actually use.

You can see a video of our finished pantry here. The best purchase we made for the pantry was some bookshelves from Ikea.

The reason for this was that they were exactly the right height and width for the space that we had. We were able to use the shelves for baskets and bottle, cans, jars, and packets of foodstuff.

Best of all, they were not very expensive and the delivery was available as we don’t have an Ikea near to us.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

From a cluttered storeroom emerged a useful stocked pantry. Changes are still taking place… We like to call it a work in progress.

A post shared by joleisa (@joleisacreed) on Apr 1, 2020 at 4:23am PDT

 

Creating a cosy vibe for Autumn/Fall

Right when the lockdown restrictions were being eased, we thought of changing up some of the decorations in the house as we had spent so many months indoors. One of the easiest ways to do this, if you ever want to do this, is to swap out some pieces. This includes things like rugs, curtains, and cushion covers.

Our living room colours were teal, grey and white. Those are not quite Fall colours, are they?  We wanted to make the living room look more Fall cosy so we changed the mostly teal rug to one that had black, white and grey. The blinds were teal coloured and those were changed to grey. For the cushion covers, I bought some tan coloured fabric and mine two rectangular shaped ones. The others we bought on Amazon.

My favourite purchase for the Fall renovation was this really pretty and plush area rug. The colours made us realise that it could actually be used for any season at all.

We like that it is a lot larger than the old rug so that we just cleaned the old rug, and laid the new one on top of it. It feels very comfy and adds that extra level of warmth to the space. Just what we need.

A rug that is black grey and white

 

Magnetic curtain tiebacks

One of the best things about shopping with Amazon is that you can search for the best prices. Nowadays, I use the feature where you can type the name of the product you are looking for and then sort the search by price, from low to high.

This allows us to find some great prices if you are willing to wait a while for the delivery.

So we wanted to find some matching curtain tie backs and found some really good prices on Amazon. Using the search function I mentioned earlier, we found some from China for less than £2 with free delivery. They did take a month or so to arrive while we used the old ones. They are beautiful and work really well. See the picture above for what they look like. The same ones sell for between £5 and £20 with free delivery for Prime members.

These tiebacks are the ones we bought. We notice that a little more has been added on for delivery charges.

It is definitely worth using the search function to get good prices.

I find that it’s a good idea to look in advance for things that you want to buy on Amazon. For example, although it’s still September, you can order matching PJ sets for family members. There are good prices to be had. It’s a long wait but cheaper if the item is coming from China.

Plant stand

Can you see my plant stand by the curtain in the photo above? Although it is so simple, it reminds me so much of growing up with my mother. She used to have flowers in almost every corner of the house and also outdoors too.

My only problem is that in this climate I don’t know what plants will do well here. We have tried several and even though they start off well, they usually die or look sad soon after.

If you have tips for us in that regard, that would be awesome.

Sonic Scrubber to the rescue

I don’t know about you but we have some areas in the house that seem quite hard to reach when we’re cleaning. These areas include grooves, crevices and hard to reach areas.

In particular, our newly refurbished bathroom has a tendency for the grout to go dark. We really didn’t want to spoil the good look of our new bathroom. Then we saw a friend on Instagram talking about this sonic scrubber that she bought and how much of a game-changer it was.

I immediately looked it up on Amazon for the next day delivery. The best way to describe it is that it looks like a very big toothbrush with different-sized heads that are interchangeable.

It is battery operated and the ones I got even came with the batteries.

We use it for scrubbing in between the tiles of the bathroom and also in the little groove between the inside and outside of the front door.

It is extremely handy to use especially as you can change the head depending on the size area that you are cleaning. All we do is wet the area first and then use some of our magical Pink Stuff on the Sonic scrubber head. A rinse with water is all that is needed to finish off the job.

 

Well, the lockdown has given us a lot more time at home than usual, and although we have tried to keep within our budget, we are happy with these purchases that we have made. They help us to feel cosy and comfy in a nice clean home.

If you like this post please click the image below to share it on Pinterest.

 

 

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Hey guys and gals!

Hi, we're Jo and Leisa, twin sisters and authors of Joleisa.com. Originally from the sandy beaches of Jamaica we now reside in England where we followed our calling to teach. But sometimes that call changes and our new passion is writing. We're here to give the ups and downs of it all with our lifestyle tips and tricks to help you avoid the sour lemons that can get in our way of frugal budgeting, intentional living and happiness. Join us and learn more about how we found the simplest ways to achieve easy living. Read More…

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