September 1942

THEY FOUND ROOM OVER THE GARAGE

THAT unused space over their attached garage bothered Dr. and Mrs. R. H. Rufe of Chalfont, Pennsylvania. There it was just going to waste while an extra room (half bedroom and half study) would round out the convenience of their rambling Pennsylvania Dutch home.

ARE WE Sleepwalkers?

THE Declaration gives us the right to pursue happiness, but it offers no assurance of the achievement of that goal. Perhaps this silence, no less than the written words, expresses the wisdom of the sage of Monticello. Nevertheless, we occasionally meet people who are truly happy-- people whose persons seem to give forth a kind of radiance.

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

Well, the most fashionable touches of house decoration this year are Old Glory and the service star. They blend well with any house front, from cottage to mansion, and give the deep-rooted solidity of old ivy.

How to Make a Man of Your Boy

TWENTY boys of assorted sizes are doing assorted tasks. Three are milking cows. One --a tall towhead-- is hammering new shingles onto a shed roof. From a forge comes the clang of iron on iron.

Dry Up That Basement!

Grow Dahlias AND BRAG!

ONCE upon a time, when I was a boy and we lived down in the country valley we called Slabhollow, the greatest dahlia in the world grew each summer in a flower bed on our lawn. It made a plant three to four feet high and had a formal dark red bloom four inches across.

This we are doing for tomorrow

BILL and I have long had the wish for a new home of our own-- but the wish didn't become a plan until we found just the house we wanted in the March, 1941, Better Homes & Gardens.

September Indoor Gardening Guide

September Outdoor Gardening Guide

IN THIS gardening game, just about the time we think we've learned exactly how to do a thing, a season comes along when our pet theories fail us completely.

"Hopeless" House? Not at All!

WHEN the U.S. Gypsum Company invited Better Homes & Gardens to furnish and decorate its Remodel Research House in Park Ridge, Illinois (a modest, homey Chicago suburb), we jumped at the chance to put into practice again the things we preach: blithe colors... bright wallpapers... original window treatments... clever, personal decorating ideas that are tagged with no priority restrictions.

Adventure in "Duration" Living

"NO HONEYMOON cottage for us-- for the duration!" That was that. Tel (that's my husband) and I packed away our blueprints and wedding linens, and with misgivings started looking for "a place to live."

More Heat FROM Less Fuel

IT'S a terrible feeling to have expensive fuel burning merrily in your furnace while upstairs rooms snap with cold. Why, you might just as well be shoveling dollar bills into the maw of that ever-hungry furnace! And even if you should have money to burn, no one has a right to burn fuel wastefully these days.

Our New Home Has a Past!

SO MANY fine old treasures are stuck under glass in a museum, where visitors "oh" and "ah" at them on Sundays and forget them every other day of the week. Certainly no one can accuse us Larkins of being Sunday gazers at antiquity. We spend every day of the week in a four-room home that could have been clipped right out of the history of Colonial New England.

How to Take Care of Your Clothes

A cold curling iron stretches the fingers of washable leather or fabric gloves.-- Mrs. Erma M. Henn, Sauk City, Wis.

Forget That Clean-Plate Bogey!

DOES Susie disdain her "yellow vegetables," Bob shove aside his "glandular meats"? Has your noble effort to help win the war by properly feeding your youngsters been sabotaged already?

Little Linens You'll Love to Make

GIFT for a bride? Bridge prize? Jaunty setting for home meals? Work these little linens and be astonished at your cleverness!

Want a Dollar or Five for Your Food Fund?

HOW about a dandy from the macaroni-spaghetti clan, or a tickling springtime dessert? They're our twosome for this month's Cooks' Contest, with winners taking their bows next April. If you top the judges' list, your check will read $5. If your recipe's one of the next 20 best, you win $1.

Girdles for Hamburgers

GIRDLES they do wear but don't think they're sissies-- these He-Man Hamburgers, bacon-wrapped, concocted by Mrs. Esther C. Klopfenstein of Chicago, Illinois. They make off with $5 first prize in our contest for Steak Stunts and Apple Desserts, cooked up last February, and our men-tasters cheered them to the echo! The next page tells all.

WAX and RELAX

"YOU scour and polish and scrub-- and what thanks do you get? In three shakes the whole house is dirty again!"

Housewives' Wartime Table of House Cleaning Rules

That Goes A Garden Upstairs

THE frowning, austere 1740 house, plumped down squarely on the sidewalk, gives no telltale hint of what is going on behind its back. Marblehead, Massachusetts, houses are like that. So you climb the steep little stairs to the second floor and gasp in astonishment when you are ushered into a lovely outdoor living-room, gay with blossoming borders and beckoning you to relax in lounge chairs.

What to Do for the Shy Child

JOANNE has always been a happy youngster with plenty of friends and her full share of fun, but since she started to high school this seems to have changed.

THE DIARY OF A PLAIN DIRT GARDENER

Nothing has been written down in this DOAPDG for maybe 10 days now. I've been working hard indoors, trying to earn a little extra living. But I've been keeping tab on the new roses. In the Polyantha class, the vivid cherry-red D. T. Poulsen Improved has been mighty fine and I have been enamoured with the new Margo Koster.

This Saucy Kitchen Was a Horror

YOU'LL never be able to make that old kitchen look like anything!" a pessimistic neighbor assured us on one of our early expeditions to the 65-year-old house which U.S. Gypsum Company was remodeling, with Better Homes & Gardens as decorator-in-chief. ...

All This Can Be Yours

GET out the spade, all you folks with the little back yards and the big garden ideas!

How Good A Parent Are You?

YOU began as a rank amateur when your first child was born. How good a parent have you become with practice? This searching quiz will tell you whether you're good, bad, or ought to be jailed.

It's Cottons for Curtains for Smart Little Homes

WE CAN'T get away from it-- little windows in today's small homes are trickier to curtain than were yesterday's big ones. "How in the name of all that's decorative," you've been asking us, "can I curtain my wee windows smartly, yet not make them seem overdressed with the adorable ruffles that are so much used in today's curtains?"

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Pick Fruit Off Your Walls

OUR English laurels had undeniably outgrown their quarters. Planted 14 years ago to break a bare expanse of wall of our new house, they now darkened the basement windows, overcrowded the small terrace in front of them.

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