March 1949

PAINT hides bad lines

MANY old homes were not designed, but were just built. As a result, they often have some good lines, and some bad. Because of their sound structure, heavy timbers, and size, these houses are hard to remodel except at unwarranted expense.

Give your bedroom drama

Let your hot spots grow sedums

Are you overpaying Uncle Sam?

PERFECTLY skilled tax collection has been defined as "The art of plucking from the goose the greatest number of feathers with the least amount of squawking."

Living-room corner redesigned for relaxing

Get a head start--prune in spring

SPRINGTIME is pruning time for most of your trees, shrubs, and vines. Wounds made now, before growth begins, heal much faster. Besides, you can check branch patterns and locate bad spots without foliage to hide them.

Your front walk

YOUR front path or walk is the part of your home on which a visitor first sets foot. It should provide an attractive first impression, but instead a path or walk often mars the entire appearance of a home and may even be a safety hazard. We present several problem paths, together with a landscape architect's suggestions for making them respectable again.

Does it really matter?

"DOES it really matter?" "Will it make much difference one way or the other?" These are the questions to ask yourself when your children want to do something unusual.

Garden clinic

It's NEWS to Me!

Disposable nursing bottles are pliable plastic film, come already sterilized in rolls of 100, heat-sealed in sections to hold 4 or 8 ounces of formula. Bottle collapses as baby nurses so there's no air for him to swallow. Natural-action nipples allow baby to nurse easily.

Dogs, kids, husbands

THEY cut that into the cold gray stone more than a hundred years ago, in England. But many a wife today, with love in her heart, suds on her hands, and a scold on her tongue, would find it a fitting last line to her own end. Ad men won't admit it, and the movies won't look at a woman in suds unless she's in a bathtub, but that doesn't fool Mother; there's mud on the floor and butter on the wall, and she well knows who's in the scrub bucket.

You can have a summer border packed with color

WHEN you plan an informal mixed border for summer, you're adopting America's most popular way of growing flowers. You can fill all your space with longlived perennials such as peonies, iris, phlox, and daylilies. Or you can use these as the backbone of your planting and get still more color by filling in between them with bright annuals-- zinnias, marigolds, asters, mallows, and cosmos.

Four bedrooms, but still small houses

YOU can get along with two bedrooms, you say, but it means living in cramped quarters. Three bedrooms are a lot better than two, you add, but they leave you no room for expansion.

Your lawn--feed, seed, and repair now

WINTERS are hard on lawns, and your grass can use a lot of help in early spring. Correct its shortcomings now and you won't worry during the hot, dry days of summer.

Your house can grow gracefully

FEW families have houses that can grow with them with convenience and economy. The Seattle home of Mr. and Mrs. G. Herbert Johnston demonstrates how planning can let a house expand without growing pains.

What wallpaper can do for you

AS A result of many requests for information on the use of wallpaper, we asked Helen Aves to answer your principal questions. And we asked Decorator Harry Richardson to supply the nine sketches (right) that illustrate these answers from Mrs. Aves.

Color-style your home

Grow begonias

TUBEROUS begonias belong in television. They're peacock flowers-- brilliant and showy. They're big and bold and handsome. Yet no flowers are more exquisitely formed and colored.

Washington, D.C.

A GROUP of high-school graduates from a small town in the East-- typical youngsters, who might have come from any part of the country-- tiptoed into a drab, brick building in downtown Washington one June day last year.

Fit your lot to your needs

WHERE do you want your home? Do you want to live in the open country, with privacy, a long view, and room for out-of-door activities? Or do you prefer a location near transportation, friends, or schools?

It's magic your sewing machine can do

Smart cook!

The story of a house

Know your crackers and how to use them?

Keep your rugs from sliding

EVERY rug which skids underfoot, turns up its corners, or buckles ahead of your vacuum cleaner is a daily annoyance-- and may be a threat to life and limb. But it is possible to have scatter rugs and safety, too. Today there are rug pads, antislip powders, and rubber composition liquids to make rugs hold still.

Radio repairs you can make

IF YOU own a table-model radio, sooner or later it will need repair. Have you ever thought of the fun you could have-- and the dollars you could save-- by making minor repairs yourself?

How this room grew

AS A boy, Klaus Pfeffer, a Berkeley, California, designer, had an unusual room. When his parents built their home, they gave him a free hand. He chose pine- paneled walls, a beamed ceiling, lots of shelves for books and all the assorted junk that a 12-year-old accumulates.

Home furnishings answers

Trade old shelves for new

Should yon shield your boy or girl from sorrow?

"WE DON'T discuss tragic happenings around Roger and Ruthie. When they are older they will be better able to handle suffering and sorrow."

Do you want a fireplace?

I WOULDN'T build a house without a fireplace. Suppose it does cost $500, or even $800. You can't put a price tag on the things a fireplace stands for.

Turn carpenter yourself

WITH your hammer and saw, you can turn out professional-looking furniture for your own home. Cabinets, desks, bookshelves, simple tables, even straight chairs are furniture-making jobs you can handle. Simplicity is the key to modern furnishings-- and functional, simple-lined furniture is the kind that's easiest for you to make.

Wicked mince

Ten tips on refrigerator care

How to use Candles and flowers on your table

How to wax your floors

WAXING a floor is like any other job-- there's a best way of doing it. Wax forms a protective film which takes the wear and protects the floor, gives it a gleaming polish, and saves you cleanup work.

Give your antiques a future

Checked your gutters and downspouts?

Confessions OF good cooks

Moisten your hands before shaping meat loaf or ground beef patties. The meat won't stick to them. --Mrs. M. F. Winslow, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

How-to for the handy man

Add a banister to your stepladder, to hold onto when washing a ceiling. Run a piece of ⅝-inch pipe about 4 feet long through two large screw eyes, the top one screwed into the ladder's top step, the other screwed into a block of wood nailed to the ladder's side rail. Rest the bottom of the pipe on a small angle brace. One way to hang a pail from the ladder is to crimp a wire hook into a groove filed near the top of the pipe.

We built our house of weekends

WE STARTED building our house before we really owned the lot it was to stand on.

What you'll need for flower arranging

How to teach your boy or girl good manners

WHEN Susie stuffs her mouth full of food and talks through it, do you sigh and hope she'll outgrow it? When teen-age Eddie gets into a quarrel with the girl next door because he's sick of her, and the whole thing ends in coolness between you and her parents-- do you think sadly, "He'll learn"?

Five ways to stay friends with your neighbors

How to butcher a good house

How one kitchen got storage and work space

Good lines make an old house new

How handy man can use plastic fabrics

THE uses you can make of a plastic fabric in your home are limited only by your imagination.

It's the same house...

WHEN my husband, John, came back from service, he rushed up to the front door, and literally sank through the threshold. Our house was ready to fall apart.

Wood, too, can be Bleached to a beautiful blonde

Portfolio of bookshelves

Smoker's table

at your service

THIS month your service column is devoted entirely to answering questions on child care and training. The responses below are taken direct from the pages of the Better Homes & Gardens Baby Book.

How really to see Washington

TO DO Washington in a day is unpardonable; to sample it in three days is perhaps possible; but to feel a part of this great capital city you must plan to stay for a week, if not longer. "It is impossible to know Washington unless you devote seven days to your study," says Harry T. Thompson, Assistant Superintendent of the National Capital Parks.

All kinds of windows and what each will do

THE windows you need in your home depend on the service those windows must perform. No two types of windows operate alike. Some work up and down, some work sideways. Others swing out; still others project out or in.

MARCH GARDEN GUIDE

Start feeding and spraying roses as soon as first growth appears. Feed three times this spring with about 4 pounds of complete plant food per 100 square feet of rose bed at each feeding. Prune right after date of last killing frost in your area. Cut bush roses to 10 inches, but don't prune climbing roses until after they have bloomed.

New ideas for outdoor living

Start seeds now to beat the calendar

The diary of a plain dirt gardener

March 1 As I paddled around this late p.m. putting out feed for the birds, I saw that some narcissi are coming up on the east side of the house, just underneath where the suet rack hangs from a lilac bush. So from now on, I'll have to be careful-like, lest I step on these.

How to live on a slope and like it

YOUR house is probably much newer than ours. Your land may slide only one way downhill. But you can still use several of the devices we found good with a house 150 years old and land that dropped 15 feet just while crossing our house front and fell off almost as rapidly front to back.

Home furnishings answers

Are you really a good listener?

YEARS ago, to be a lively conversationalist was considered the key to social success. Later Dale Carnegie reminded us that it was even more important to be a good listener. After the publication of How to Win Friends and Influence People, it was amusing to watch former conversation monopolizers struggling to practice this alien art.

Your dog and mine

How old should a child be before owning a dog?-- G. M. C., Minnesota.

how-to helps

Handy addition to the bathroom, where minimum drying space is a "must," is a small Clothes Dryer and Towel Rack. You can make it yourself, with an Easi-bild pattern. Just trace, cut, and assemble. Tape the wooden rods to make a snagfree surface for drying your nylons.

Through the Shops

Knitting machine turns out tubes of knitted material in the same fashion as the spool knitting we did as children. You just turn the crank while the machine does the knitting. Sew tubes in circles or ovals for hotplate pads, pan lifters, or chair pads; braid three or more tubes for a rug. Use fine wool yarn or cotton string.

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

Home life is an insidious force that in a few years can transform a grim paratrooper into a man who argues for hours about how long his daughter's bobbed hair should be.