January 1939

ACROSS THE Editor's Desk

The Picture on the Cover: This Eighteenth-Century bedroom is pictured, not because there's any particular story behind it but because we thought you'd like it-- and because bedrooms are one of our favorite subjects. Of course you've discovered the fact that the bedroom is the one room in the home that may selfishly express your personal taste.

It's News to Me!

New color for concrete flooring in your basement playroom, on the porch, or in the garage, is called Flor-Dye. Put on in two applications, after acid-etching, the first penetrates into the cement, colors and binds to stop dusting. The second protects and intensifies the deep, rich color-- your selection of tile red, green, brown, or maroon. [Materials, in gallon cans, cost about 2½c a square foot of coverage. The Truscon Laboratories, Inc., Detroit, Mich.]

WHAT HOME MEANS TO ME

"There is a spot of earth supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest." THESE words aptly express what HOME means to me.

THE DIARY of a Plain Dirt Gardener

Jan. 1 Methinks this day, instead of making resolutions that I'll break, I'll just set down some of my misdeeds and shortcomings. Maybe it'll do me some good. So here goes:

SKY GARDENS

NEW YORKERS don't live in New York. They work there. They shop there. They may even rent apartments there. Yet, by and large, they have their true beings in the suburbs-- 10, 20, 30, sometimes 40 miles away. Many of them wouldn't live in town if you gave them the place any more than would visitors from Accident, Maryland, or Zanesville, Ohio.

Motors, Motors Everywhere

SOMEBODY'S always getting written up in the papers for saying that this is an age of something-- of machine-made ugliness, transition, chaos, electricity, or something. I say it's an age of household motors.

This Way, Please

THERE'S no mystery or metaphysics about planning your home grounds. Anybody who says there is is spoofing. Planning is merely arranging-- like arranging furniture in your house.

Lady, Look to Your Linen!

EVER since Mrs. Cavelady substituted finger napkins for deerskins and towels for Nature's breezes, good homemakers have been known by their linen closets.

You Asked for These

1 IN THIS AMERICA OF OURS which each year spends as much for radios alone as for new houses, there are thousands of owners financially able to build better homes than they now have, thousands of young couples, renting now, who might far better build homes of their own and pay for them in monthly sums about what they now pay in rent.

JANUARY Indoor Gardening Guide

JANUARY Outdoor Gardening Guide

IN JANUARY lie back in front of an open fire and dream and plan your 1939 garden-- a garden planned, cared for, and grown better than any previous one. Digest 1938 catalogs until the new crop starts to arrive; read up on the plants you want to grow; learn pest control; especially, learn something about soils and plant foods, for they are the basis of all successful gardens.

Designed for a Doctor

YOU can tell it's Doctor Hall's home by the above weathervane on the garage. There, silhouetted against the sky, an old-time doctor and his buggy careen along in a race with the stork. The horse is outstretched; the doctor is straining forward, whip alash.

Is the Gloom Worth the Candle?

SCIENCE is certainly making wonderful strides-- backward, forward, and sideways. Uncle Naboth tells me that he can remember the time when every home had an overhead chandelier. All you had to do was to press a button, and an entire room would be flooded with clear, white light. No fussing with candlewicks, adjusting shades, or untangling extension cords.

Come to Tea Anytime!

IT'S a fine old English custom-- this pleasant gesture of serving tea in the fag end of the afternoon. But the British never did copyright it, so now, with our usual sudden enthusiasm, we Americans have taken it to our bosoms as the perfect antidote for the stress and strain of hurry-up modern life.

Needlepoint--HEIRLOOMS OF TOMORROW

SUFFERING from an attack of post-season let-down? Then squelch it before it spoils your nice new January. Needlepoint, whether it's new or old to you, is a grand antidote. It's a fascinating craft and good pick-up work for snug quarters, for the canvas can be rolled up and tucked away between sittings. When well made, needlepoint becomes a practically indestructable upholstery textile which will delight you for years.

EVERYDAY LIFE

--AND I BEGIN to feel like Methuselah! Until recently, I'd never worried about my age. Every year brings another birthday. So what? Everybody has 'em, and it's a fact that the farther along you get, the more old age recedes ahead of you.

"But I have dark woodwork

"PAINT your woodwork white," dictate the decorators. "But what," you wail, "if I've dark woodwork, like it, and can't afford to redecorate now if I wanted to?"

Up From the Nineties

SCRAMBLE a couple of Grecian columns, a couple of imitations of grilles from an old Turkish harem, and some assorted woodwork and mouldings, and you get an architecture pretty typical of the feather-duster era.

The Man Next Door

I wonder if there's any sweeter flattery for a parent's ears than the exclamations of the young tyrants when you're going out in the evening-- "Mommy, don't go out again this evening!"-- or "Daddy, what time will you be home?"

Inside Garden Catalogs

I WENT over to see Dr. Jim White one blustery night last week and found him in his den, knee-deep in garden catalogs.

Play the Music Game!

DO YOU realize that the most important events of our lives are connected with march music? When we go to war, military marches are played; when we return in peace, triumphal marches; when we marry, wedding marches; when we crown kings, coronation marches; and when, at last, we die-- funeral marches.

The Poppy

BACK TALK!

Dear Editor: Gladys Denny Shultz hasn't mentioned Eleanor and Peter for a long time. I recall her first article about her spoiled "darling" Eleanor, years ago. She turned out fine, didn't she? More power to Mrs. Shultz and other psychologists.-- Mrs. Bertha H. Kipple, Marysville, Wash.

Make a Christmas-Tree Pillow

WHEN you've enjoyed the Christmas tree several days and things begin happening to it, do you always have difficulty with the family when you want to take it away? Here's an idea to help you win your point-- and keep the children occupied for an hour or so.

Whims & Hobbies

Joyce Compton, the "giddy gal" who did the "Gone With the Wind" dance in "The Awful Truth" movie, is really a very factual person. She not only designed and decorated her ten-room home, but helped with the brick work and painting, and built some of the furniture.

Along the Garden Path

TO THINK of bringing into the house garden color in the form of bouquets or living plants is as natural as chintz in a cottage; but to reverse the process seems to be rarer than Button Gwinnett's autograph.