March 1957

Open a room to four view!

Build these kites for your kids

Give your paving a sand base

HERE'S YOUR Decorating preview

Plump floor cushions of rubber or plastic foam make floor sitters feel pampered as a prince. Sitting on the floor goes along with new, lower coffee and lamp tables as part of the Oriental influence in decorating and our more informal ways of entertaining. Be exotic or practical. Try a stack of glamorous, button-tufted poufs in shocking Persian accents of pink, red, and orange. Or, pile up some zip-off corduroy-covered pillows for televiewing.

A house for a family with young ideas

THE FAMILY CAR

If you-- like most people-- make a serious effort to stay within the posted speed limits, you must depend on the accuracy of your speedometer. Speedometer accuracy is especially important when traffic officers may be checking you with radar or electronic tapes. Experts say many speedometers in cars now on the road are not doing an accurate job of telling speed.

Latest Garden News

Nitrogen, the most expensive part of plant food, may someday be produced cheaper because of nuclear fission.

THE IDEAS in your house set THE VALUE

Heating: Developments in heating have kept pace with those in planning, design, and construction we show on these pages. From the perimeter system that diffuses warm air from grills (low on outside walls) to the heat pump that pulls heat from outside air, all have this standard in common: even distribution of heat to areas that need it most (the exterior walls).

Nature gets a chance in Hartford

Two plans with one purpose: Unbroken space for living

It's a house planned to grow with the family

To enclose space needed by his family of four, Architect Robert Schaefer designed a house they'd like to have, then sliced space here and there until it matched the budget and the area they could get by with. But, areas he eliminated weren't erased and forgotten. He left them drawn in (see plan above) and designed a very complete three-bedroom house as if the extras were already there.

Choose now the very garden you want

Get hep to today's vacuum cleaner

The modern vacuum cleaner keeps pace in styling and color with other appliances in this design-conscious age. It's also engineered to do multiple jobs and to keep up with the changes in today's living and cleaning.

Money for your recipes

TRY FOR A PRIZE in this month's contest. Your favorite recipe for apple salad or dessert, or your best baked-bean fix-up may be voted tops! Two Cooks-of-the- Month will receive $20 each. Nineteen other winners will receive $5 each. Selected winning recipes will be pictured in the Prize Tested Recipes pages next October. The winners of these 21 prizes will receive the Better Homes & Gardens Certificate of Endorsement and six copies of the endorsed recipe.

How is your family quiz game?

Has your daughter ever asked you if Pilgrims differed from Puritans? Or wondered just where in Africa Kenya might be?

Design with your sewing machine

Playing with fire

You read about people smelling smoke and then discovering a fire in the basement. But you think it will never happen to you.

Tapestry your machine can make

Design can be any subject that is easily expressed in simple lines. Choose recognizable objects like trees, animals; or a composition of shapes and forms. Tapestry's dimensions depend on its wall space. Plan size and shape first, since it affects both size and placement of design.

Should homework be abolished?

"YES!" says Oren Arnold who has four daughters, ranging in age from a junior-high-schooler to the mother of his first grandchild.

To move or improve, that was the question

Discover the new Grand Bahama

As long as my wife and I were in Miami, my friend said, we certainly ought to go over to Grand Bahama. He was sure we'd never seen anything quite like the island, third largest and northernmost of the Bahamian archipelago-- and close to the United States. He said it was about two-thirds the size of Long Island; that while more than 4,700,000 people lived on Long Island, only 4,700 people lived on Grand Bahama, and that until a few years ago some of the natives never had seen an off-islander.

Workshop math problems

Secrets of success with accessories

RIT

When a child has make-believe friends

Considering the fact that he became rather a humorous character, "Hookah's" birth was unbecomingly grim.

Personal help in home building, remodeling, and decorating

When you're looking for ways to make your home more comfortable and attractive, look for this seal. It identifies the Better Homes & Gardens Home Planning Center, where you can get personal counsel on your home-planning problems.

Now men can't call yon a "woman driver"

There's a new look to women drivers these days. And the fellows who have been making the jokes about them may soon be out of subject matter.

Here's how

Take a walk around your house

How to know when your wiring's wrong

Chances are four to one your home is not wired to take any real advantage of all that's new in electrical living. By today's standards, at least 80 percent of our houses are inadequately wired. And that goes for new homes as well as old. We've added new electrical equipment so fast during the past 20 years that we've completely outgrown our wiring systems.

Write your own pruning rules

The diary of a Plain dirt gardener

March 1 My outdoor recreation was to put plant food on the lawn. This is exactly the right time in these parts to do it. The garden store had delivered the bags of it several days ago.

Plant foods

MARCH GARDEN REMINDERS

Lawns: Rake lawns to clean out dead leaves and last year's dried grass. Clean off twigs and other trash which may harbor slugs or insects-- burn litter as a precaution against disease spread.

Can your house plan pass this test?

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

Our Rosie and some of her pals came in from a movie last night after the rest of us had gone to bed, and we heard them go into the kitchen, their favorite hangout. Their teen-age lingo was over my head, but I understood the two minutes of silence perfectly. It was that half of our blueberry pie disappearing.