My mother and stepdad are downsizing and moving, and that’s led me to inherit some lovely family heirlooms in recent weeks. One of my favorites is a beautiful chocolate pot and matching cups and saucers. There’s no markings on it so we can’t tell who made it, but it was a wedding gift to one […]
Category: Home and House
Cleaning, organizing, decorating.
Deciding on a Color Scheme (1956)
We’re about to embark on a bathroom renovation on Monday, so we’ve (well, let me clarify ~ I’ve ~ the hubby is tolerating all of this with good nature) have been obsessing about large tubs and tiles and fixtures for quite some time. I should be cleaning out the old bathroom right now, but instead […]
1928: Installing a Shower-Bath
We’re in the midst of planning a bathroom renovation, and although the driving force behind it is to replace the tub with a deep one that I can actually bathe in, I was amused to find this advice about “Installing a Shower-Bath.” It appears in The House-Owner’s Book, written by Allen L. Churchill and Leonard Wickenden […]
Gardening
Pink geraniums, orange marigolds, sonata mix cosmos, sunscape daisy nasinga white, snow crystals alyssium, brachycomb, a tomato plant, and some herbs. They should be outside enjoying the spring, but tonight they sit in my living room waiting for the season’s last frost to pass us by. I’m certainly an amateur gardener, only filling a few […]
Earning, Spending, and Saving
Financial woes ~ we are all familiar with them. With the new year upon us I’ve tried to get a handle on my own, so have done a bit of reading on the subject. Maude Richman Calvert’s First Course in Home Making offered some good tips for future savers, which I will share with you here. […]
The Cost of Clothing
What is it about January that makes me hate my clothes so much? I blame the extra sweets around the holidays. Whatever the reason, my closet just got a bit fuller thanks to a little shopping spree today. I probably should have read the following excerpt, from Mary Lockwood Matthews’ textbook Elementary Home Economics, before I […]
Washing the Dishes
This week’s selection is from a high school home economics book, but I don’t think I had to wait that long to learn how to do this fairly common childhood chore. My mom had me scraping and scrubbing dishes at a much younger age! For those of you still a bit clueless about this particular […]
Laundry, at Home
I’m a bit obsessed with cleaning lately, can you tell? It might have something to do with the recent installation of a sump pump in my basement apartment. Let’s just say that jackhammers create quite a bit of dust, hence my interest in this subject. Elizabeth Craig offers this bit of advice in her 1000 Household […]
Should Guests Remove Their Shoes?
Q Dear Miss Abigail: We recently moved into a new home that we built. We have beautiful carpet that cost a lot, and I worry constantly that it will get dirty. I want all guests to remove their shoes. Most of my family won’t abide by this, and my husband says its not right to […]
The Vacuum Cleaner
To think, all my life I’ve been nonchalantly cleaning floors without a second thought about the machine that truly does all the work ~ the one, the only… 1941: The Vacuum Cleaner A. Use. 1. Adjust the nozzle to rug or floor unless adjustment is automatic. To test for correct adjustment, place the cleaner on […]