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Summary: Home Comforts - a required household reference
Review: It's been a very long time since I have been both charmed and informed simultaneously. Home Comforts is now a required reference in my home. I learned how to wash polypropylene, how to take care of my dishes, and how to create a space that encourages comfort, peace and health. This is everything I wish I had known 18 years ago when I moved into my first apartment. The every day tasks of life that most people these days treat with scorn, Cheryl treats with style, grace and knowledge. Even my daughter couldn't put it down!
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Summary: A great reference - and interesting too!
Review: I found this to be a very interesting and informative book. It's a little laborious to just sit down and read it through, but it is a great reference book and has some very good information on basic home-keeping jobs. My only criticism is that the "standard" it sets for housekeeping is unrealistic in today's world (vacuum the upholstered furniture every week? empty the kitchen wastebaskets daily?), but fortunately the book does not make the reader feel slovenly for being a little more laid-back than that. As long as the reader remembers that our homes exist for us and our families, and not the other way around, the book is a real treat.
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Summary: Martha Stewart likes it!!!!!
Review: I read a great review of this book in Canada's National Post,and immediately went out and purchased it.I LOVE it!!!!.It does remind one of "The Joy of Cooking" in it's comprehensiveness.In the review,the notation is made that "Martha" thinks it is a great book.That will bode well for the author,....now all we need is for Oprah to endorse it and Cheryl will be set for life!!!I also have an old "Good Housekeeping" guide to housework,that I like to thumb through.Ms. Mendelson has provided an excellent compendium that I can imagine referring to forever,and I will certainly be keeping it in mind as a gift for wedding showers and the like.As I said,I LOVE it,now if I can just put some of her ideas to work!
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Summary: GREAT BOOK!
Review: I really enjoyed this book and found it to be very informative. I learned alot.
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Summary: All-inclusive, very up-to-date!
Review: This book can be used for relaxing reading or as a reference book. The author presents a great deal of knowledge, on what could be a boring subject, in a way that holds the reader's attention. This would be excellent as a gift to someone just setting up a home or to anyone interested in making their house a home. I have learned and re-learned quite a number of things in this forgotten art. Thank you, Cheryl Mendleson.
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Summary: just what I needed, and more
Review: I needed to know how to iron my clothes and starch my collars. I got that, plus a lot more great information about doing laundry.Plus great information about shopping, preparing a meal and so on. And great information about germs, dust mites, allergies, and so on. It inspired me to become quite a bit more diligent about dealing with mildew, changing my sheets, doing dishes and sorting laundry. As a bachelor, I recommend it to other bachelors.
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Summary: Thorough and well-written
Review: This is the best book I've found for how to keep house. In addition to being helpful, it's a good read. It's not just a long, dictionary-type list of how to remove stains as so many cleaning books seem to be. It talks about setting up routines, about the science behind cleaning products (so you will always know what to use when), how to fold laundry, and so much more. It is perfect for anyone who feels clueless about the very basics of homemaking.
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Summary: Salvation from my destiny of pink penguin loungepants
Review: I got this book when I got married, and was overwhelmed with the information within, so I put it away and thought about reading it every once in awhile. Housekeeping doesn't rank in my top 500 things of favorite things to do. I grew up in a household where my mother who, bless her soul was spectacular in every other way, vacuumed once a year or so, and that was about as often as we had company over. Our fridge was always full of rotting food, and our garage was a gigantic storage shed.
Well, I was determined not to let these habits overflow into my marriage, but I had not the slightest clue how to clean a rutabaga, what a rutabaga was, or how it should be stored. The same might be said of my laundering skills. And cleaning...etc. etc. My husband, poor soul, was beginning to regret taking me in. I was discouraged and extremely unhappy.
I started to read this book, read it cover to cover, and as another reviewer suggested, have gone back again and again to it as a reference. That and the book Sink Reflections, by Flylady Marla Cilley, have rescued my home and my marriage from the disaster that I was, rescued me from my pity party pink penguin pants, and helped me take babysteps toward being a successful homemaker.
This is the best and only homemaking book I'll ever keep.
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Summary: Answers any question you'd ever have!
Review: As a newlywed and new home owner I realized that there was a lot I needed to know about keeping house. This book is incredible - it is well written and covers any question you might have related to keeping house. I refer to it often. The neatest part is that she gives a background on why we do things the way we do - she adds a sociological perspective.
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Summary: Questionable information about what you already know
Review: Even though I'm just "a guy" I got this book because I'm always curious about any techniques I can use at home to keep things under control. Since my wife and I both are very busy things tend to get untiday here.
I started flipping through the chapters and, more or less, got the same feel from this book as I do from "The Joy of Cooking", a book that can help with every day cooking but with a sense of style. "Home Comforts", though, speaks of every day things you probably already know like how to do your laundry and what temperature to run the washer at; but since you already know these things, why do you need this book?
I, too, question some statements the author makes. She makes me wonder if she's "germophobic" or watches too much television. She's concerned about "cat saliva" from a pet cleaning themselves. She also claims washing laundry in hot water kills germs which is not a true statement at all.
Such statements stop me dead in my tracks and make me question what else is wrong throughout the book. I am, however, hanging on to it long enough to learn the chapter on sewing. I just hope I don't stab my finger with the pin.
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