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The princess who had all that trouble with a rogue pea under her mattress could have learned a thing or two about comfort from Australian domestic guru Shannon Lush.
The top-selling co-author of household bibles Spotless and Speed Cleaning goes to great lengths to get rid of anything that gives her a nasty feeling, she says over a cuppa in a downtown Auckland apartment. She always cuts the labels out of clothing and look, she says, "showing a seam inside her top, any rough edges like these, I line in satin".
She likes to sleep in sheets rinsed with rice starch, which makes them crisp and smooth, plus wonderfully soothing on the skin. When she's upset, she retreats to her linen cupboard, with its fragrance and collection of beautiful antique fabrics. Lush travels with favourite snuggly things from home and on arrival makes sure to lay in a wide selection of her favourite beverage, tea.
The Sydneysider is a woman who knows how to feel good.
This desire for domestic bliss is the subject of her latest book, How To Be Comfy, written with journalist Jennifer Fleming, and subtitled "Hundreds of tips to make your house a home".
Her first book, Spotless, is the biggest-selling non-fiction book in Australia ever, she says, and Speed Cleaning is not far behind. But this latest is the one closest to her heart.
"Your home is somewhere that should feel like the best place in the planet to you. When you walk in everything should look nice, feel nice, smell nice, taste nice, sound nice. All of your senses should be involved right through your house."
Lush is big on empowerment. She dishes out household advice on 16 radio shows around the country, a couple of telly shows and the thrill is feedback from people who say, "I did it and it worked".
A favourite story is how her tip that dehydrated snake poo is the best way to ward off mice created a whole new livelihood for a catch and release snake man in South Australia. Lush loves anything that gets one over all those commercial products and saves you a buck or two.
One of her favourite cleaning tools is an old pair of pantyhose. "Do you know what those cleaning mitts are? They cost a fortune and they are just fluffy pantyhose!" she says.
Her books are so popular because "there are generations out there now who did not get this household knowledge passed down to them," she says
That did not happen in her family. Her mother, grandmother, great-grandmother all ran families and businesses such as clothing factories or barber shops and were the kind of women who always passed knowledge on. Lush herself is a mother of two, foster mother, runs a fine arts restoration business and is an artist, on top of her books and broadcasting work.
Crikey. Lush says she has no concept of the word rest. She works 17 hours, seven days a week, fuelled by about 8 litres of tea a day. As well as all that work, she manages to read between 15-25 books a week, usually while doing something else. For an exhibition she once knocked out 4000 works in just over a week.
She never stops adding to her encyclopaedic knowledge. In Comfy there are suggestions for every room in the house, the garden, kids activities, food advice and recipes, first aid.
Top of her own list of comfy activities is having friends around for dinner and getting into a cosy pair of socks for bed. For Lush is certainly someone who knows how to savour the small pleasures.
"Lovely," she croons over her cup of tea. "It's wonderful, so cool," she says of the Auckland rain. As well as a book, Comfy is clearly also a state of mind.
How to be Comfy by Shannon Lush and Jennifer Fleming ABC Books, $24.99
