Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping HouseThe classic bestselling resource for every American home. Choosing fabrics, cleaning china, keeping the piano in tune, making a good fire, folding a fitted sheet, setting the dining room table, keeping surfaces free of food pathogens, watering plants, removing stains -- Home Comforts addresses the meanings as well as the methods of hands -- on housekeeping to help you manage everyday chores, find creative solutions to modern domestic dilemmas, and enhance the experience of life at home. Further topics include: Making up a bed with hospital corners, Expert recommendations for safe food storage, Reading care labels (and sometimes carefully disregarding them), Keeping your home free of dust mites and other allergens, Home safety and security, A summary of laws applicable to the home, including privacy, accident liability, contracts, and domestic employees and more in this practical, good-humored, historic, philosophical, even romantic, guidebook to the art of household management. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - juniperSun - LibraryThingworth it for the section "When is Good Enough Good Enough". Mendelson's intent in this book is not to make us feel guilty or compulsive about Keeping House, but how to do it in a way that is effective. Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - navelos - LibraryThingI liked the introduction to this book and the general idea, but I felt that the content switched between common sense and stuff I'd never do and thus wasn't that helpful to me. It is very thorough though and if you're new to housework, it might have much valuable information. Read full review
Contents
My Secret Life | 3 |
CLEANLINESS DAILY LIFE | 5 |
Easing into a Routine | 17 |
Neatening | 30 |
The Whys and Wherefores of Home Cooking | 37 |
Breakfast Lunch and Dinner | 49 |
Serving Meals | 58 |
Stimulating Beverages | 70 |
The Chemistry of Household Cleaning | 436 |
Aprons Rags and Mops | 446 |
Dust and Dust Mites | 450 |
Vacuuming Sweeping | 454 |
and Dusting | 458 |
Textile Furnishings | 466 |
Floors and Furniture of Wood and Woodlike Materials | 487 |
Resilient Floors | 506 |
The Center of a Dwelling | 88 |
C Kitchen Culture | 103 |
To Market to Market | 122 |
Cold Comfort | 142 |
Bread and Honey | 155 |
Safe Food | 161 |
The Fabric of Your Home | 193 |
Transformations | 221 |
The Natural Fibers | 232 |
The ManMade Fibers | 242 |
and Blends | 253 |
Fabrics That Work | 266 |
IQ Carefully Disregarding | 270 |
Care Labels | 276 |
Gathering Storing and Sorting Laundry | 288 |
Laundering | 303 |
Drying the Laundry | 329 |
Ironing | 339 |
Folding Clothes and Linens | 351 |
How to Launder Tricky Items | 358 |
Common Laundry Mishaps | 363 |
and Problems | 367 |
Sanitizing the Laundry | 375 |
Removing Stains from Fabrics | 380 |
The Air in Your Castle | 393 |
Peaceful Coexistence | 401 |
with Microbes | 417 |
Ceramic Tile | 510 |
Stone | 516 |
ManMade Solid Surfaces and Other Plastics | 523 |
Bathrooms | 529 |
Pipes and Drains | 534 |
Walls Ceilings Woodwork and Windows | 536 |
China and Crystal | 543 |
Metals | 553 |
Caring for Jewelry | 563 |
Kindly Light | 569 |
Fireplaces | 587 |
Some Quiet Occupations | 594 |
Sewing | 599 |
Caring for Books | 612 |
Music | 617 |
Images and Recordings | 622 |
Home Offices | 628 |
and Computers | 631 |
Pets | 637 |
SLEEP | 643 |
The Cave of Nakedness | 653 |
Beds and Bedding | 671 |
Closets for Clothes and Linens | 687 |
NOTES | 839 |
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS | 847 |
857 | |
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Common terms and phrases
abrasion bacteria bacterium beans better blends bread breakfast care labels cause chapter cheese chlorine bleach clean clothes coffee cold color colorfast comfort contain cooking cool cotton detergent dinner dishes dishwasher dry-cleaned dryer durable dyes eggs espresso fabrics feel fish flavor fold foodborne illness freeze freezer fresh frozen fruits garment glass heat household housekeeping iron keep kitchen knife knits knives labels laundering laundry less linen machine manufacturers meals meat milk modacrylic mold months nylon odors oils optical brighteners package pans pantry pasta Pima cotton plain weave plastic polyester polypropylene poultry produce rayon refrigerator resistance rinse safe salad sanitizing serving silk soak soap soil soup spandex stains storage stove sure synthetic fibers taste temperature tend things tion towels treatments usually utensils vegetables viscose warm wash weave wine wool woven wrap wrinkle yarns