April 1946

News! In Upholstered Chairs

News! Fluorescent Valance

THE DIARY of a Plain Dirt Gardener

April 1 Brother, we've just gone thru the warmest March in history. Flowers are out, shrubs are in leaf, trees are leafing out. Seedlings come on apace in hotbed. First vegetables are in ground.

The Man Next Door

A 6-year-old may question some of his dad's suggestions and commands, but he seldom has any doubts that, when Dad lies down on the living-room carpet, his stomach offers a firm and enchanting spot to stand or kneel on.

Want Them to Be Like You?

AN OLD friend said to me the other day: "Among my more disagreeable memories is one of an event which took place when I was 7 years old-- that of being forced to return to the store a leaden, spread-eagle pin I had purchased with a penny secretly taken from my mother's dressing table. Stealing has ever since been difficult for me. Perhaps that was the effect my parents sought!"

SHOP TALK

Take a desk to bed? Of course, and use it comfortably for playing or working. Good medicine for invalids, big or little. Top unit, with roomy side trays, lifts off folding legs. Kids like to use top on floor, too. Desk is 21" high at front, chair seat 11" high.

Vacation 1946

"IT'S victory-vacation year-- you've earned it, now enjoy it." With this their carefree slogan, millions of Americans are planning to travel this summer, and hotels, resorts, and transportation companies are frantically preparing for a rush of business that may double that of any prewar year.

Home With a Southern Accent

A COOL, classic beauty, traditional in Southern architecture, lends restful grace and dignity to this home, the fourth selected for the new series of Better Homes & Gardens Five Star Plans.

How to Get Your Household Help Back

MRS. JONES can once more boast a perfect gem of a girl, who comes in regularly to wash and clean, helps out when Mrs. Jones entertains, is available to stand guard over the second generation when the first takes an evening out. But Mrs. Smith, meanwhile, and Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Bates and a dozen others, are still frantically calling agencies, advertising in the paper, and asking Mrs. Jones, doesn't her Mary have a sister, or even a cousin?

A Dozen Good Gates

Let Your Bathroom Sing with Color

COLOR can revive any room. With that idea in mind and the new colors in hand, we decorated this one bathroom four ways, each time starting with a single color note. In one case it was the shade of a towel, in another the tint of a shower curtain that inspired us. You might key your color scheme to the wall, the floor, the blue of your baby's eyes, or just your fondness for a certain hue. But whatever your basis for color selection, be as bold about it as we've been. Choose definite contrasts that make your bathroom sparkle.

Much Bloom in Little Space

Rescued Real Estate

THOUSANDS of American families are searching week after week for modern, livable homes, ready for occupancy. Few are finding them.

Do You Know These Pests?

New Slipcovers Refresh Old Rooms

New Borders for Old

IT'S a tossup as to whether remodeling an old flower border takes more brain cudgeling than laying out a new one.

1946 Kitchen Cabinets

HERE'S good news if you need one new cabinet or a kitchen full of them! Today's cabinets, both wood and steel, are simpler to install, easier to clean, handsomer than ever. You can buy them by easy stages, a unit at a time, as a complete grouping, or custom-built for your new or remodeled kitchen.

Here Are the 1946 Irons and Ironers

WHAT improvements will you find when you shop for new home ironing equipment? You'll find familiar models redesigned for easier handling and better looks; with mechanical refinements to give you smoother, faster, more efficient performance. You'll find newcomers, too, with special assets all their own.

Scented-Leaved Geraniums

WHENEVER a certain flower-loving lady, who shares my joy in geraniums, comes for a visit, she is likely to find on her bedside table a pink satin-glass bowl of roses frilled with leaves of sweet-scented geraniums. This green encirclement in the language of flowers offers a subtle welcome, since to her the Oak-leaved geranium signifies true friendship, the Rose, preference, and the Nutmeg. expected meeting.

Spring House-Cleaning Short Cuts

Do you have all the cleaning equipment you'll need-- all those brushes, stains, cleaning fluids and powders, paint removers, pails, soap, tacks, and screws? Do you have them placed and organized for handiest use, fewest steps? Do you have a way to tote all you'll need for one job or one room?

Gilded Stencils

A MYSTERY for nearly a hundred years, the techniques which produced the lovely gilded patterns distinguishing some of our more cherished antiques has today been rediscovered. Actually it's a comparatively simple process anyone can follow.

Try Honey for Spring Sweets

IF YOU'RE looking for a way to perk up appetites, if you want to lend a different flavor to spring meals-- use honey.

Playhouse, Easily Built

Young Mothers' Exchange

A NEW food, a first trip to the dentist, any of the strange experiences encountered by children while growing up may bring forth a stubborn "No!" that results in displays of temper. Exasperated parents often try various forms of coaxing or threats with no success.

There's a Time to Say "Yes"

WHEN Bill wants permission to do something, how does he approach you? Does he say, "Mother, I want to go to the ball game Saturday out in Highview. It'll cost 75 cents for the ticket and 40 cents for the fare. May I go?"

Where to Get It

Page 80. Picture 1, Serta Associates, Inc., 666 Lake Shore Drive, Chicago; picture 2, Burton-Dixie Corporation, 2024 South Racine Ave., Chicago 8; picture 3, Simmons Company, Merchandise Mart, Chicago; picture 4, Phoenix Chair Company, Sheboygan, Wis.

Easter Beauty Two Weeks Long

FLOWERS that will remain lovely for two weeks can be yours this Easter. Bermuda, back at its peacetime pursuit of lily-growing, will be sending bundles of the sturdy-stemmed, waxen-white blooms to our markets. The distinctive, flower-laden stalks, often with six or more blossoms on a stem, will last at least a week, then can be clipped and arranged anew for another week.

The Things You'll Eat!

Little Luxuries. Food is back from the war. It's your privilege to add new taste thrills to your daily diet. Spice your meals and your snacks with a variety of good things from small packages. You'll find they're amazingly reasonable. For canapes and hors d'oeuvres worthy of a master chef, try turkey sandwich spread or paté of smoked rainbow trout.

It's NEWS to Me!

Soft speaker keeps radio programs I purely private. Flat plastic circle slips under pillow-- sound carries thru feathers with no fluffing. Listen to a late program while others sleep. Ideal for invalids. It's a dandy tie-up with an automatic radio-timer: you and you alone will wake up when you want.

Wildflowers for Early Gardens

Protects Plants All Year

HAMMER, saw, and ruler are the only tools needed to build a coldframe. Two hours' work builds the frame, installs the sash, and sets the coldframe up as a going business. And then you can protect plants thruout the year-- seedlings in spring, house plants in summer and fall, perennials and cuttings in winter.

Kitchens With a View

A Storage Cabinet Built With Salvaged Flooring

SALVAGED ¾- by 3½-inch softwood flooring, often available when buildings are razed, can be put to good use in construction of a basement storage cabinet. Here's how, with exact dimensions to be determined by the space you have available.

Appetizers Are My Hobby

APPETIZERS are something you eat to make you hungry. Personally, I'd thoroly enjoy sharing a tray of refreshing, appetite-piquing tidbits every night before one of my wife's good dinners. They've a trick of making one ravenous for more substantial food and making that food taste even better than you'd expected when you sat down at the table.

Plant Tomatoes Now

APRIL is the time to plan for your 1946 crop of earlier, larger, and better tomatoes. Seeds should be sown indoors 6 weeks before the plants can be planted outside safely. April 15 is a good date for sowing if the last killing frost in your locality occurs about May 25.

Big Prize Recipe Contest

WHAT'S that delectable Double-Crust Pie or luscious Way With Pork that rates the big ovation at your house? They're the recipes we're after in our Cooks' Contest this month, with a $10 check ready for the first place winner and a sheaf of $3 checks for the 20 runners-up.

Tree-Bark Damage

AN APRIL inspection of your trees may reveal that hungry rabbits and mice have stripped off great patches of bark during the winter. Often damage is less spectacular-- merely a band of bark eaten away from the trunk. Look sharply at the base of every tree.

WHEN NEW Shrubs AND Trees Arrive

SUCCESS with new plants depends upon the care you give during those important hours following delivery at your door. In theory, you can plant immediately, but often this is impossible -- rains, darkness, or muddy soil effectively postpone many planting days.

Ordinary Life: When It's Best

WHEN held many years, ordinary life insurance is the cheapest you can buy. It even becomes cheaper than term insurance. And, late in life, the net cost may actually become less than nothing a year!

April Garden Guide

APRIL keeps gardeners on their toes-- to get every job done early so it won't be in the way next month when the rush of planting and cultivating comes. And yet, we should not be too impatient and cause damage to the plants or soil. Cultivating before the ground is dry enough may result in poor soil condition for the rest of the year. Rolling lawns while the soil is too wet packs sou and prevents good grass growth.

Don't throw away

Edging Walks the Easy Way

WALKS can't tug at your sleeve to remind you that the lawn grasses have spread into walk territory. Yes, lawns which are trimmed regularly with a lawn mower need to have the lawn barber finish the job by edging along the walks. And edging isn't a hard job if done regularly with a sharp cutter of proper design.

Hints for the Handy Man

If you have an electric fan that has' outlived its usefulness, it can be converted into a useful tool for applying a high polish to small metal objects. After removing wire guard and fan blades, substitute the rubber disc of a typewriter eraser as a polishing head.

It's NEWS to Me!

Box-pleated edging. Sheer and filmy plastic in delectable colors dances perkily on shelf edges, trims aprons, shower curtains, lamps. Choose dove-gray for petal-pink bedroom shelves, exotic black and yellow for a modern kitchen or bathroom. It's nonflammable, dirt-and mildew-resistant, whisks clean with a damp cloth.