The impetus for writing this book was my manic (and true Cancerian) need to establish a comfortable home upon my arrival in New York City in the fall of 2008. I work from home, so a careless attempt at “home” just would not do, not with the chaos of big-city life lurking just on the other side of my door.
I’m not going to lie to you: most of the things I’ve written about here were rather daunting to me at first glance too. This book materialized from coaxing myself into and eventually reconciling with the formerly intimidating task of keeping house (while maintaining some sort of life outside the home).
I didn’t learn many of these things growing up, or if I did, I blocked them out entirely. I was surely not a natural born homemaker, or even remotely good at things domestic. My mother swears we sewed together, but thoughts of my grandma’s handmade blouses and slacks deeply frightened me at age thirteen, so I conveniently left that skill-sharing session off the mental record. I wasn’t bad at cleaning when I was growing up, but those times I mustered up the inspiration to do it were because I was grounded or extremely broke.
As it turns out, moving to Brooklyn served as inspiration in both of the aforesaid capacities. I didn’t have much money in hand (still don’t) and was sequestered at home (still am), so I had to learn how to make my home a livable one out of necessity. After the house was reasonably settled, I kept going and decided to learn how to incorporate other impressive acts of domesticity into my routine. With a how-hard-can-this-be attitude and a little help from some friends who actually knew what they were doing, I discovered and cultivated a new confidence in myself as I learned these skills. You will too after you learn some of these tasks.
To use this book as a quick decorating-on-the-cheap reference, check out Part I, “Room-by-Room Guide to a Homey House, Homie.” If you’re wanting to read the book as a source for dredging up inspiration for the more housewifey tasks at hand, then Part II, “Impressive Acts of Domesticity: Do Try This at Home,” is a fun section to peruse. Consult Part III, “Life After Restaurants,” for a baby-steps introduction to your kitchen and things you might eventually do in there.
Part I provides quick and easy solutions to make your place cozier. These are steps that won’t take all day or a week’s pay. Check out these low-cost, creative touches to help you tap into and show off your inner artist.
Part II is the meat and potatoes of home ass-kicking, from attempting your own mending to getting happy life stains off your prized linens and cleaning with stuff you could eat (not that you actually want a baking-soda-and-vinegar cocktail). Every hip homie should get tight with his or her tool kit; after all, it’s not exactly useful when you don’t know how to use it.
Part III is all about impressing yourself (and others) with the gratifying pleasures of kitchen self-sufficiency; this is a first-time guide for the first-time cook, baker, home preserver, and entertainer. Regardless of the size of your kitchen, you’ll learn how to make your own convenience products and not spend the few dollars you have on things you can do yourself. Most important, you’ll find out how to show off your hard work by having people over to enjoy your space.
Why Homemaking?
Because it’s cool to have a cool house. It’s damn gratifying to throw down a loaf of homemade bread with your home-preserved blueberry jam. Because feeling in control in your own house does wonders for every instance when you’re not under that sweet roof.
This book is for your first forays into householding tasks, both alone and with others, from college through the middle adult years. It’s for all the ladies and gents who need a place to relax and rejuvenate; maybe you’re single and lovin’ it, or maybe you (and spouse) fit all the components of the traditional household unit yet your place (or attitude) still feels wan. No matter your station in life, you deserve a charming and inviting place to call home.
So what do you do? Do you entrust this feat to IKEA? Do you ignore it entirely? Do you think it impossible until you’ve found a significant other? A roommate who does dishes? Here’s your guidebook, you the reluctant homemaker, charming individual, to extend the personality I know you have into the home (which I also know you have).
For the record, I’ll never assume that all this stuff is easy breezy (when placed in the context of your entire life). I understand that the home feels like the never-ending chorey, and I’m a firm believer that sometimes looking the other way is the best solution.
Just remember: the house is supposed to be relaxing, and if it’s your attitude toward it that’s stressing you out, just change your mind. Don’t think about the stack of laundry you should put away, the sweeping under the bed that never actually happens, how the plants didn’t get watered. You, the house, and likely even the plants will survive. Make a list, and then schedule yourself at home to manage these things under less pressure.
Housekeeping Under Fire
Those old-school homekeeping manuals, though handy, are a bit unwieldy in times of chaos. The only time I consult mine is when something’s gone wrong: I’ve dyed all my whites a pretty shade of pink with an insurgent sock, or I’ve forgotten for the seven hundredth time on which side of the plate the napkin should be placed. Nowadays the Internet spouts at least ten answers before we can even glance over at the bookshelf, so why another book?
The digital age has its perks, don’t get me wrong. But the digital age is uninspiring, to say the least. Sure, I can double-click my way to instructions for just about anything, but rarely do those instructions seek me out. You have to want to do these kinds of things, and you have to know how to ask the questions. What’s more, if a task seems intimidating (as most everything does for any novice), the chance that you’ll give it a try is slim to none.
I hand you a book, dear reader, so you don’t just bookmark these things as ideas to try someday. I think you, O busy one, can swing most of this stuff before the next time you even review your browser bookmarks.
I advocate for strength in numbers, the involvement of real friends (whom you may or may not have found through Facebook or Twitter), and the experience of hands-on knowledge. You’ll learn how to throw parties on the fly, share skills or craft parties, and get people in your home for real live ways to show off your domestic accomplishments.
Whose Job is This Anyway?
Busy working women have existed throughout time. My great-grandmother Harriet was a live-in housekeeper and nanny for a wealthy family in Michigan, leaving domestic duties in her own home to the eldest of her eight children. Grandma Mannie—Bertha Burnham, whom you’ll meet periodically throughout the book—stole warm cookies from the countertop (rather than help bake them) and chased after the boys in the marshland behind their house. She remains anti-domestic.
My great-grandmother Rose, on the other hand, had the time to cook, entertain, and keep house. She baked bread weekly and imparted this (along with many other tools for domestic bliss) to her only daughter, Virginia—Grandma Jinny.
I’ll not make this book about gender, because the advice in this book is as much for guys as it is for girls. Let’s make this about life in general. I’m a girl, so this is obviously from my perspective, but I live with another girl, so who’s supposed to do all this stuff around the house?
We’ve come up with a system of democratically delegating household chores based on what we each don’t hate doing. I hate mopping, so she does it. She hates laundry, so I do it. This system works with roommates, romantic partners, and spouses. Giving, taking, doing more than your fair share sometimes—thus is the nature of relationships with anyone (and holds true with the home).
Whether you fit the standard mold or maybe shaped your own, roles are interchangeable in the complex, modern house. One thing it seems we all have in common, no matter what type of household we keep or background we come from: there’s too much to do, and not enough time in the day to do it.
The Convenience Truth
How did our urgent need for convenience arise? Our prepackaged and heavily processed lifestyles have roots in a few major historical events. Here is a (really) short history: women landed the role of domesticity throughout most cultural traditions for all sorts of reasons, the handy possession of a uterus included at the top of most lists; America became a nation; a lot of things happened (i.e., household production ceased, the industrial revolution occurred, the food industry was born, wars took place, etc.).
I’ll leave you to unpack each chunk of history and piece them together at your own leisure. Suffice it to say that most of our present social mores and ideas surrounding homemaking and all things domestic came from extra household income and corporate boardrooms in the postwar era. For example, the convenience food industry was born out of the need to turn profitable wartime food into postwar consumer demand (think SPAM).
The gendered history of housewifery is filled with socioeconomic and cultural land mines. So let’s shift focus to address whoever is doing stuff around the house, and all the different kinds of households we see nowadays.
Phasing out convenience foods allows for smarter, healthier, and oftentimes cheaper alternatives. This is not to say that homemade food is inconvenient; after all, it’s hard to determine whether or not something is convenient if you’ve never once tried making it for yourself. Don’t worry, this book isn’t about dogmatic approaches or all-or-nothing attitudes. We’re all busy. We have a lot to get done in a day and usually not enough time to do it, but let’s not forget how to use our common sense too.
Famous Last Words
I have to trick myself into productivity.
I admit it; I said this. And though I’m not at all a fan of people who quote themselves, this one landed on the quote wall started at my former office. We were grant writers in tight quarters; we needed some linguistic inspiration. I think you’ll find it helpful too. Here’s your own little quote wall to keep with you along your way through this book.
We need a wife.
Newlywed Jed sighs as he looks at his lovely wife, Sarah. They both work full-time and find it hard to manage their dry cleaning pickup, much less eat dinner together at a reasonable hour.
We are tending [to housework and children], but few of us have the option of doing it without also holding down a job that pays real money. Homemaking is moot if you’re homeless…. Given that we have to make our own way in this big old world, it seems rude to try to make women (or men) feel guilty about neglecting the household operation.
Barbara Kingsolver reminds us that excess homemaking guilt is unreasonable in the essay “The Household Zen” from her book High Tide in Tucson (HarperCollins, 1995).
Just as in planting a seed and seeing it come up, there is a visible connection between mixing a few ingredients and seeing the resulting product emerge. Such a relationship is genuinely straightforward…. When we grab a commercial product, there is, I think, a false sense of simplicity.
Annie Berthold-Bond introduces us to making our own cleaning and body care products from a few basic (and nontoxic) household ingredients in her book Better Basics for the Home: Simple Solutions for Less Toxic Living (Three Rivers, 1999).
Much of the appeal of the industrial food chain is its convenience; it offers busy people a way to delegate their cooking (and food preservation) to others…. [A] successful local food economy implies not only a new kind of food producer, but a new kind of eater as well, one who regards finding, preparing, and preserving food as one of the pleasures of life rather than a chore.
Michael Pollan illustrates the subject of his Omnivore’s Dilemma (Penguin, 2006) by tracing various food chains from field to table.
Don’t own so much clutter that you will be relieved to see your house catch fire.
Wendell Berry telling it like it is in “Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer,” a poem from his book Farming: A Handbook (Harcourt, 1970).
You can do this yourself, with your brains and your own two hands. You don’t need to get it from a package. You can take charge. You can stand at the center of your own world and create something very good, from scratch.
Laura Shapiro sums up Julia Child’s and Betty Friedan’s messages in her book Something from the Oven (Viking, 2004).