June 1949

Planning makes terrace meals less work

Partial overhangs shelter terraces

How to live through 8 months of miner

Let's be sensible about it. Your best guarantee of a safe, pleasant summer is your own attitude. Unworried? Let's hope so. But let it be unhurried, too.

Cane-type furniture is smart

Garden clinic

Wading pool for $19

You can have a wading pool in your own back yard-- for $19! Here's how to do it: Dig a shallow hole, throw the dirt around the edge of the hole as you dig, rake it smooth, and place a canvas tarpaulin over the hole and piled dirt.

How-to for the handy man

It's NEWS to Me!

K. O. for allergy dust

A simple new method of trapping household dust promises relief for millions suffering from allergy to dust. These millions include persons with asthma, hives, perennial hay fever, gastro-intestinal disturbances, headaches, nervousness, or other symptoms due solely or in part to house dust.

We stacked up logs . . .

We were in the same boat as countless other young families. I say we "were" because we are on our way out now. We looked fruitlessly for a house within our price range that would meet our minimum standards. After losing a down payment on one deal, we bought a lot in Brown's Point, a suburb of Tacoma, Washington. That piece of land was just as Mother Nature had left it-- the forest primeval.

HAVE YOU HEARD?

There's a trick to applying the new crabgrass killers. If you'll apply with a sprinkling can or a coarse spray that drenches the ground, you'll get almost perfect control of this pesky weed. The active ingredient in these newest and best killers is phenyl mercuric acetate. This presumably acts upon the latex in the crabgrass roots. Good permanent grasses do not contain latex, so are not affected by the spray.

How to enjoy being a father

I heard a visitor from Sweden say the other day that the greatest laborsaving device she'd ever seen was the American father. No European male, she pointed out, performs the services we do. European fathers don't run errands, sit with the children, hang out the laundry, or wash the dishes. In Sweden, at least, a wife organizes her routines around the needs of her husband, provides him with comforts, and rears his children to respect him as head of the house.

10 days in New England

Yes, you can do it-- make a sweeping circuit of New England in 10 days of easy driving. You'll span southern Connecticut, cross Rhode Island, get all around Cape Cod, visit Plymouth, spend two days in Boston, admire the Maine Coast from its beginning to Bar Harbor, take in the best of the White Mountain area, and get elegant eyefuls of the Green Mountains, the Berkshires, and Connecticut's western hills. Mileage, about 1,600 plus not more than 400 extra for side trips.

A house that lets you rest

The little home pictured on these pages deserves close inspection. The fact that it's a remodeled boathouse is unimportant; what is important is that when they were finished, the people who built it had a home that was almost work-free, and as comfortable as an old pair of shoes. It lets them enjoy simple living.

IDEA House that sets a trend

In every community there's a home everyone talks about. Families drive by it slowly, young couples dream of a future home just like it, and visitors are eager to discuss what they've seen inside.

See how to get a better house

When you buy a radio, car, or refrigerator, you rely on the manufacturer's name and reputation to give you a good product. You don't take the machines apart to see how they're made.

Designed for expansion

Double-feature garden on a tiny city lot

If you will center on two hardy perennials, like iris and chrysanthemums, you'll be astonished at what you can do in small space. I know. Our own garden space is relatively small. The over-all size of the entire lot is only 35 by 175 feet and this also accommodates our house and a double garage.

Look what yon can do with potted plants

We remodeled from payday to payday

You know how it is. You scrape the bottom of the barrel to buy an old, overpriced house. Then you decide you'll go crazy if you don't do something to make it look as a house should look.

Check your kitchen

This check list is for you. whether your kitchen is 10 years old or brand new. Stand back and look around. Do you have convenient outlets to plug in your electric appliances? Is the lighting and ventilation adequate? Does your refrigerator door open in the right direction? Are drawers partitioned to fit your equipment? Are your tools in the spot where you use them? Do you have a place near the range for pans, for serving dishes? Do you have enough space between counter tops and cabinets?

Correct hanging means less ironing

Your ironing needn't increase in summer, even though the family washing does. Not if you sing our new words to an old tune, "This is the way you hang your clothes . . . to cut down on your ironing!"

Cash for casseroles and puddings

New recipe contest asks for your best casseroles and baked puddings to publish in Cooks' Round Table next January. Sender of recipe judged best will receive $10; 20 other contributors will get $3 each. All you do is write down your recipe according to the simple rules below and send it before June 30.

How to keep house and like it

Short cuts add up to happier housekeeping. The problem is to find the short cut. Take some time, sit back, and think over your jobs. Where can you cut out time-consuming, tiring steps? Do you let your equipment, big and little, work for you?

Put it on a tray

Can you send Susie to the store?

Vacation days are a good time to teach your girl or boy how to shop at the grocery store. Your youngster will have more time and interest for the project than he would during the school year. And you can time the shopping lessons to suit your convenience.

Freezing's easier with good equipment

Here's a roundup of equipment and containers that will make your freezing an even speedier operation than usual. Watch for these aids in the housewares sections of department stores. Often a locker plant stocks, or will order for you, all kinds of freezing equipment.

New freezing packages

1. Is it moistureproof-vaporproof? This means that no air or vapors from inside the package can get out, and vice versa. If the package doesn't meet this requirement, there may be off-odors, lack of flavor, and the food may dry out. The best materials are glass; aluminum foil; tin or other metals; moistureproof cellophane, rubber, or plastic; heavily waxed paperboard; and heavily coated vegetable parchment paper.

Home furnishings answers

When you have only each other

The confetti was gone. Jim and I had used the vacuum cleaner everywhere we could and the broom where we couldn't. We had used dusters and damp cloths and mops, upstairs and down. And, when the rake left sparkling trails of confetti behind it, we took the vacuum cleaner out on the grass.

New fans keep you cooler

Today's electric fans have come a long way from the models that used to cool only at the cost of clatter. The principle is still the same, but the fan has changed.

at your service

Families everywhere are now busily engaged in gardening and building activities. So this month your service column answers questions on these two timely subjects. The responses below are taken from the pages of Better Homes & Gardens Gardening Guide and Home Building Ideas.

The home YOU want

You can't buy a ready-made builder's house and expect it to look like a lived-in house-- to look like you and your family. The house needs colors you picked out, flowers your husband planted, furniture your children have climbed over. All those familiar books, and easy chairs, and matted prints that make your house a home give it your personality, too.

How to prepare your house for paint

Is one of her major interests decorating?

Home furnishings answers

Should Dad do the disciplining?

"Should my wife leave all the discipline to me? I get home late and I'm tired. I used to look forward to playing with the baby. But now that he's growing up, as soon as I get in the door my wife says, 'I want you to talk to Jimmy.' Whatever he does wrong all day, it's 'Wait till your father comes home'."

How to butcher a good house

You don't have to make a number of changes to ruin a good house; one small change can be enough.

Send us your handy-man ideas

The handy man

How to visit a baby

How many times have you seen it? A brand-new grandmother turning hurt, puzzled eyes to a brand-new mother. "I was only trying to help. After all, I raised three children and this is only your first..." Grandma trailing off tearfully. The first visit eagerly planned by mother and daughter, off to a disappointing start...

Planting in sand

If sandy soil is your problem, you may find a solution among the list of plants which grow on sandy ground in New York City. Most of the sprawling area of Brooklyn and Queens lies on sandy subsoil, while the wind-swept Atlantic coast of Long Island is almost pure sand.

Grow plants that can take it

Dry, rocky soil?

Hillsides and slopes

Visitors to New York are always impressed by the miles of beautiful plantings along the magnificent parkways that cut through the city's traffic knot.

Barbecue makes entertaining easy

Shelter barbecue for use all season

Indoor barbecue is fun rain or shine

Are you really giving yourself to your children?

"I think I'd faint, if you ever really looked when I asked you to," my young son said in obvious despair. Shocked, I dropped what I was doing and really looked at the boat Jack had been trying to show me. He had been working on that boat for weeks. Here he was, honoring me with a first look at it. I had given it one glance, a cursory, "Fine, Jack," and had turned away.

How to make strawberry preserves

Home furnishings answers

How to replace a broken window pane

Handy baskets for fresh-air meals

Keep your range like new

Will that shining new range of yours still look bright and new 2, 5, and 10 years from now? The answer depends almost entirely on how you take care of it; how you treat its finish. Good care assures longer wear, better cooking results, and eliminates unnecessary service calls.

Your tires

This is about things you've got to watch yourself because nobody else is going to watch them for you.

Place your dining table in front of the window

Your dog and mine

Cure is difficult and requires much vigilance, because all misdeeds must be corrected when they happen. Best results have been obtained by tying up the dog in the chicken house for a week to 10 days, feeding him scant rations (to make his confinement as unhappy as possible.)

Removable canvas roof

Salvage that old rug with dye

JUNE GARDEN GUIDE

Keep rose blossoms cut; cultivate after each shower or use ample mulch to conserve moisture. Spray or dust weekly, and, in Middle and Upper South, give a light feeding (2 pounds to 100 square feet of bed).

The diary of a plain dirt gardener

June 1 Business matters will require me to do a good bit of traveling by spells this summer and a long trip is just ahead. So the next few days are to be devoted to catching up on all work that must be done and to getting the place in such shape that only maintenance chores will be necessary while I'm gone.

It's how you cultivate--not how much

On Following directions

Corncobs help grow better gardens

Here's the latest prescription for roses, shrubs, vegetables, and flowers: "Apply ground corncobs and let alone." Results? Fewer weeds with less cultivation, more moisture and less watering, cooler roots and more bloom.

Try drapery camouflage

Games to play on a trip

If you've ever taken your children on a trip during which pauses for sight-seeing weren't possible, you know how monotonous an all-day journey can get. Boys and girls grow restless when they tire of watching the scenery. Here are some games both grownups and youngsters will enjoy.

Home furnishings answers

Make your old kitchen look like new

Make those doors work

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

For 10 minutes after I see a movie with Bob Montgomery or Doug Fairbanks, Jr., I seem reborn with aplomb and suavity.... Even my wife notices a weird difference in me.... But after one red traffic light, I'm my old half-irked self again.