Wednesday, July 3, 2024

Another Dose of those Hilarious Housekeeping Tips ~ Julie Lence

 Tomorrow is July 4th, and as most of us are spending today either preparing for tomorrow’s backyard grilling or heading out of town for our nation’s celebration, I thought I’d keep this blog simple and fun. And what better way to do that than with some housekeeping tips of days of old.

--Keep plenty of matches in every room to keep one from having to search the entire house for a match. It’s considered a good idea to give one daughter the job of filling the matchboxes every day.

--Keep nothing in your house that you believe is not useful or beautiful. Wastefulness is proof of a lack of brain function and culture.

--If possible, a family bedroom should be on the 1st floor of the house. The room should be plain and warm, with simple and scanty furniture. Items in luxury homes such as dainty toilette cushions and knickknacks are of no use.

--Using an old-fashioned feather duster on tapestry, picture frames and curtains only serves to move dust from one place to another.  To dust proficiently, spread out a cloth and gather dust into it, folding the cloth as you work. Shake cloth out the window.

--To rid the home of moths, wash the floors with common lamp-oil. The smell is horrible, but will be gone a few days and so will the moths. Another trick, when the floor is dry, spread cayenne pepper into the cracks. To keep moths from getting beneath carpets, grind black pepper and mix with camphor gum, then spread under edges of carpet.

--When doing laundry in the middle of winter, set the clothes pin bag in a kettle of boiling water. The hot clothes pins will keep your hands warm when hanging the clothes. 

And you thought modern day housekeeping was tough, lol! 


5 comments:

GiniRifkin said...

Very interesting, such a minimalistic approach, love the clothes pin idea.

Barbara Denniston said...

I could have used the clothespin idea when I was a kid and helped my mom hang the clothes on the line.

Julie Lence said...

Hi Gini & Barbara! So glad you enjoyed the 'helpful' hints. Back in the day when I did hang laundry out on the line, I think the clothespin tip may have come in handy, too.

Kristy McCaffrey said...

Those are priceless lol. Happy 4th!

Deborah said...

I have a couple of old match boxes from the 1930s. Reminds me of how they used to be essential in every home. For a few years I had an old cook stove that had to be lit with matches and I used those match boxes religiously. Your "tips" reminded me of that old stove. It was a dandy, although a bit inconvenient. Also, the clothes pin one took me back to childhood when my mother hung out the laundry and cursed the blue jays who dined on our mulberry bushes and relieved themselves on her clean sheets. LOL!