Jay Blades’ Home Truths – his favourite chores and pet peeves

Cor blimey, that’s a hard one. It’s all day, every day! I’m just so grateful for living right now. 

But really, it’s when I’m playing vinyl – and that could be any time. I love buying vinyl, especially reggae, soul and jazz. Then I like to do livestreams on MixCloud and Twitch.

I’ve got a zero gravity chair and it would definitely be when I’m in that. It makes you feel as though you’re weightless and floating, which is great for me as I’ve got four ruptured discs in my spine.

A full decanter of water and a glass. I have a drink of water before I go to sleep and a big glass of water in the morning before I do anything else.

It’s probably finding things that I can make or adapt. I love heading to charity shops, finding cool stuff and taking it to my workshop so I can do it up in a way that’s totally unique to me. 

Normally you pay quite a bit of money for something that’s bespoke, but because you can do it yourself it’s, like, cool, I’ve made this! 

I remember once I was walking around a local forest and there was this youngish tree that had fallen and I asked the guy who owned the land if I could take it. Once I got it home I rubbed it down slightly, leaving a little of the bark on and attached it to the wall by my stairs to act as a handrail. It wasn’t perfectly straight but that’s the beauty of it. 

And it ages – as you put your hand on it as you go up down the stairs, you’re sanding and grooving it so it becomes a part of your family history.

Smells! I’m really sensitive to smells so we like to open the windows and let air in. My missus is also a bit of a clean freak, so if it doesn’t smell of the outdoors it’ll be smelling of bleach anyway!

Ironing. I meditate during ironing, so I can iron for about four hours straight. It’s quite boring and I love doing boring things because that’s the opportunity for your brain to start thinking. 

When you’re busy you don’t have time to think about anything but what you’re doing. So ironing offers that quiet time that allows your brain to digest everything, and get that lightbulb moment.

I think I am but it depends on the people you have coming around. To me, a good host depends on the guests that you’ve got. You have to choose wisely who you invite into your home. 

Play vinyl or organising. I don’t get much time to organise things. I’m so busy that when I’m home I’ll be ironing or packing ready to go and film again, so when I’m here I’m just thinking about the things I’ve got to sort out, and I just love getting things organised. 

My bed. It’s really comfortable, and staying in different hotels with different pillows… it’s not great. Sometimes I’ll even turn up with my own pillow!