"How to Decorate Your Small Bath"

One of the lovely gifts that Santa left here when he called on his way back to the North Pole the other night is a set of bath linens for two in a shade that could probably best be described as a deep robin's egg blue. Happily, it matches the blue in my shower curtain to a tee. (Good job, Santa!) This is the first time in the three years that I've lived in this apartment that my bathroom has actually sported some hand towels. Let's hear it for meeting the very bottom-most standards of etiquette - no more asking my guests to dry their hands on a bath towel or wash cloth! So it's a start. And since I've been trapped at home nursing this cold for the last couple days I've had lots of time to look 'round and take stock of my bathroom decor. I clearly need some additional bath linens, but what more can I do to improve the look of my bathroom...

Where better to find some inspiration than the past? Here's an article called "How to Decorate Your Small Bath" which appeared in Wilmington, Delaware's Sunday Morning Star on September 5, 1948:

Small spaces require more care in their planning and decoration than large, and the bathroom is no exception to that rule.

Plenty of color may be fine in the rest of the home, but the bath should be kept simple and done in one or two carefully selected shades, says a Tile Council report.

Best idea, it suggests, is to plan the bathroom walls and floor as a background rather than as the dominant room element. Major color interest can come from towels, shower curtain and bath mat. A change of shade in these will give the effect of a redecorating job.

Gray-blues and blue-greens add to the apparent size of a room and are therefore particularly suited to the small bath. Red, red-orange and yellow-green are too intense and seem to hem in the room. Bathroom design can be kept simple by finishing the ceramic tile wainscot with a cap of the same color rather than black or a contrasting shade. This plan helps make the room appear larger and more restful, says the report.

Woodwork in the small bath should be painted the same color as the walls. If there is a window over the tub, its sill can be finished in the same color tile as the wainscot, thus fitting it into the color scheme and waterproofing it at the same time.

When two colors are used in the bath, the lighter should be for the walls and the darker for the floor. A dark floor seems more restful underfoot.

My bathroom at present is finished in three shades of what I like to call Apartment Beige. The paint on the walls and the tub/shower surround are finished in Apartment Beige No. 1 - a creamy, off-white color. The mottled beige vinyl flooring is accompanied by a vinyl toe kick in Apartment Beige No. 2 - a tan. The bathroom sink is laid in a countertop in Apartment Beige No. 3 - a grainy tan with a yellow undertone. (Those of you who have lived in rentals can probably relate to the feeling of being surrounded by beige!) There's not a whole lot I can do to remedy the beige situation, but it certainly works with the article's recommendation that I treat the bathroom walls and floor as a "background" rather than as a "dominant element." What woodwork there is in the bathroom is indeed painted the same beige as the walls, and the flooring is ever so slightly darker in color than the walls.



So I guess I'll need to rely on bath towels, shower curtain, and bath mat to supply my small bathroom with any "color interest." Popular towel colors during the 1940s were dusty rose, seafoam green, maize, wedgwood blue, coral, navy, white, yellow, peach, and jade green. Patterned towels were hot, as were striped towels, plaid towels, gingham towels, and towels finished with a different color hem. The towels Santa gave me are in just the kind of shade that is supposed to "add to the apparent size of a room" according to this article. My shower curtain is in good shape. It's an opaque white curtain covered with rows and rows of tiny ovals in robin's egg blue and pistachio green. (I have a small plastic wastebasket in that shade of green on the floor beside the sink.) If I could find more of these bath linens in the green shade or even in another contrasting color - maybe a raspberry or a rosy peach? --- all that's left would be a bathmat. I've avoided bathmats for years because they always seem to pick up every piece of hair or lint in the house, but it is awfully nice when I'm visiting someone else's house to step out of the shower onto a warm bathmat. Have any of you had luck with a particular type of bathmat that easy to keep vacuumed and hair-free?

I've also noticed that there are houseplants in most of the bathrooms featured in vintage ads. This may be just a whim of the part of the illustrator, but plants would probably give a bit of life to a bathroom without any windows. I'll have to find a variety that does well with humid air and no natural light. Any ideas?

Soap Opera

What on earth did people do when there were shortages of soap during the war?

If there's one thing that's become absolutely clear to me with these nightly baths, it's that I'm going thru a lot more soap than I was in the shower. One bar lasts me about ten baths before it breaks into pieces and has to be recycled to the soap dish beside my sink. Now imagine if I had a family of six (considered average in the '40s). My household would probably be going thru a bar of soap every other day. Unless I had a passel of little boys, that is! I know there are tricks to making a bar stretch. Like turning the little bits and pieces into a jellied soap. But even a few tricks like that won't keep your family squeaky clean. The only thing I can figure is that folks just got used to being a little less clean than they'd like to be...

Another thing I've noticed about my baths is the bathtub gets grimier and in need of a cleaning much more quickly than it used to. It no longer surprises me that the authors of America's Housekeeping Book (1945) recommended that the tub be thoroughly cleaned each and every day. Here in a single-person household, mine could probably use a good scrubbing twice a week.

Though the vintage articles on bathing I quoted from last week were split on whether a woman should soak in the hot water before - or after - doing her washing and exfoliating, I've fallen firmly into the before camp. The water is at its hottest and most likely to take the knots out of your shoulders. And it's not all cloudy with soap scum and, well, probably dead skin cells. If I waited to lie back and relax until after I got myself all cleaned up, I'd be soaking in my own grime! Definitely, definitely a before kinda girl.

All told, my nightly baths take me about 40 minutes. That's counting from the time I begin drawing the water until I'm drying off after my brief post-bath shower (for shaving and for washing my hair). It's more time consuming than a single shower in the morning, but I love the feeling of being super clean when I climb under the covers. Even better, it's a ritual that's actually getting me to bed earlier at night. It used to be I could easily stay up until 10:30 or 11:00 puttering about, surfing the net. These days, I'm into the tub by 8:30 or 9:00 and ready to turn out the lights and go to sleep by 9:30 or 10:00. I'm all mellowed out, I guess, by the time I get out of the tub. Don't feel like watching TV or even reading. I just want to call it a day. And you can't beat a little extra beauty sleep!

One of my vintage beauty missions this week is to be very mindful of giving myself a vigorous dry with the towel after my bath. It's also made me more mindful of my towels! So I'm going to go thru them in the next few days --- thinning out the linen closet, so to speak. If it's threadbare in spots - if it's not something I'd put out for a guest - then it's time to hit the rag bag. (The ratty towels will make great cleaning rags once they're cut up.) If I spy any loose threads, I'll trim 'em off with my sewing scissors. This will clear up some room for a few new towels in vintage colors.

Absolutely Absorbent

Straighten towels and wash cloths. Put out clean linen when needed (fresh linen for all on Wednesdays and Saturdays).

I think it's time to take stock of my bath linens. As I was folding my clean laundry last night, I found myself shaking my head at the condition of my towels and washcloths. And I don't even own any hand towels these days! In fact, it's high time that most of these unfortunate dregs of toweldom were recycled right on into my rag bag. (They'd still make great dusting cloths.) What kind of condition are your bath linens in? I think the problem with mine is quite simply that they were cheap. I didn't invest in bath towels and washcloths the way a woman of the '40s - who might even have monogrammed them - might have done. I didn't pay for the kind of quality that could be expected to be serviceable for a generation. But it is a shame to spend as much time and energy as I do on Saturdays cleaning my bathroom and not have beautiful linens for my guests --- and for me!

I'd better consult Lily Haxworth Wallace's New American Etiquette (1941) before making up my wish list...

Bath towels - There has been a trend toward solid color bath towels ranging from deep pastels to very dark colors. However, the demand for these is slowly decreasing and, today, the fastidious bride is choosing fine white towels with her monogram in color to match or harmonize with the bath.

How to know good, absorbent bath towels - There are many grades of bath towels, but there is only one grade to invest in - a soft, spongy towel that is absolutely absorbent. Look closely at the individual looped threads that go into the weaving. Be sure they are long, and firmly and closely woven. Crush the towel in your fingers. If it feels soft, then all these attributes mean that the towel is absorbent and will give long service. And most important of all - when buying bath towels, place yourself in the hands of a store that has rightly earned a reputation for integrity.

Size of bath towels - Sizes vary according to the preference of the individual. Most men, however, like a large, generous-size towel. Women prefer a smaller towel of the same absorbent quality.

Wash cloths -Should be as fine in quality as the bath towels. It is best to have each cloth match a bath towel for identification purposes. [The Manual recommends that each member of the family have a unique color for bath linens.]

Hand towels - Come in medium and large sizes. Irish huck of fine quality is still the most popular choice. [For those of you as mystified as me, Irish huck is a type of textured linen.] On white hand towels, colored monograms to match your bath towels are in good taste.

Bath mats - Should be absorbent, good quality to withstand hard and frequent washing.

Bath rugs - Many housewives use bath rugs that are not washable. Today, however, there are many extremely good-looking ones that have a heavy pile and wash like handkerchief. The colors, too, are lovely.

Following are the bath towels needed in every home:

Two dozen Irish huck hand towels.
Four dozen Irish huck face towels.
One dozen bath towels - medium size for women.
One dozen bath towels - large size for men.
One dozen wash cloths.
Two bath mats.
Two bath rugs.

Top Ten Tips for Ironing

'Tis a sweet, solemn, beautiful day here in the United States of America...



As I listened to President Obama's motorcade making its way to the parade review stands, I fired up the iron and got started on my ironing. After doing some research with my trusty ruler, I decided to position my tabletop ironing board on top of my kitchen table. It's about 35 inches off the floor, so just a smidge higher than recommended by The Good Housekeeping Housekeeping Book (1947). There's an outlet to the right of the table, so I can plug the iron in without having the cord all twisted about. And plenty of light.

Here's a list of Top Ten Tips for Ironing, courtesy of the manual:

1. Remember that the amount of heat in the iron or ironer does not change the instant you turn the switch from one position to another. For this reason, it is best to start with fabrics needing low temperatures and work up to heavy damp linens which need high temperatures. (Check. I usually iron from hot to cold, so this was a whole new way of doing business for me. I also reorganized the stack of clothes in the basket so the items to be ironed first were on top of the pile.)

2. When you straighten material on the ironing board or roll of a rotary ironer, use the palms of your hands and smooth from the center out. Your fingers are apt to stretch the fabrics and pull them out of shape.

3. Iron with straight strokes, with the thread of the fabric. (I didn't do either of these two things. I was concentrating so hard on some of the easier tips that I forgot the others!)

4. Iron each section perfectly dry before you start on the next. (A reminder of just how damp clothes were after having been "sprinkled" and - in some cases - refrigerated overnight.)

5. Collars, cuffs, sleeves, belts and trimmings are ironed first, then the flat sections of the garment. (I forgot to do this. Not as many of my clothes, though, even have these features. There will be plenty of sleeves in the pile on Tuesdays. I'll try to remember this one next week.)

6. White and light-colored cottons and linens are ironed on the right side, dark cottons and linens on the wrong side; silks and rayons on the wrong side; damask on the right side, then on the wrong side. (Before plugging in the iron, I sat down with my basket of clothes and went through them one by one to decide which category they fell in. I ended up turning several items inside out again so I could iron the "wrong side." Thankfully, I didn't have any damask in my basket this week!)

7. If folds in flatwork are always made in the same place, the wear on the fabric from creasing will cause the fibers to break. Sometimes fold in thirds and sometimes in fourths to avoid this strain. (According to the manual, flatwork = "table cloths," sheets, embroidered pieces, and round doilies. Whoops! I just realized that the decorative kitchen towel I ironed was embroidered. I'll have to be mindful of folding this in a different fashion whenever I wash and iron it.)

8. Hang all ironed pieces on a rack where they may dry thoroughly before putting them away. (In the '40s, many items would still be damp from all that re-wetting! Thank goodness for steam. I was able to hang my pieces as soon as they came off the ironing board.)

9. Save labor in folding and improve the appearance of garments by using coat hangers for blouses, dresses and shirts. (Rats. I only own one coat hanger. Plastic hangers will have to be good enough for my blouses, dresses and shirts. For now.)

10. Do not use too hot an iron or shoe. Most hand irons are thermostatically controlled. Ironers are also equipped with thermostatic controls so that you can select the proper heat for the fabric.

Cotton and linen - relatively hot
Wool and silk - moderate heat
Rayon - low heat
Acetate rayon - very low heat
Combinations of fibers - adjust heat to fiber needing lowest temperature. (My iron is marked with similar temperature settings for each of type of fabric - with additional settings for nylon, acrylic, and polyester. I wish I'd remembered that last bit of advice about blends. Next Tuesday.)

My iron did give off a mysterious sweetish smell towards the end of my ironing that I haven't been able to place yet. There is a bit of scorch on the surface that may have come from having the heat set too high once for a synthetic. I'll have to look for some recommendations for cleaning the iron.

Rinso White, Rinso Bright

Rinso white, Rinso bright,

Happy little washday song!

Did you know the Rinso label has been sold by its longtime owners, and you can buy Rinso bleach now in 99 Cents Only stores? Of course, Rinso used to be a detergent rather than a bleach, but it's awful neat to see the power of 1940s marketing still in play.

I'm taking a sick day today because of my cold, so had lots of extra time to do my wash - including my handwashing. Not exactly a true test based on a typical Monday schedule, but I guess it's a good chance to work up getting the wash done on a regular weekly workday. I did three loads at the laundromat this morning. The whites went in with a dash of Rinso bleach. I was mistaken when I said yesterday that the washers in my laundromat don't have a delicates cycle. They do, but I think it'd probably take me two months just to accumulate a load of delicates!

I pulled the two rayon items after washing them at the laundromat and followed the instructions in my manual for drying rayons (as best I can understand, "turkish towels" are terry bath towels):

Roll garments in turkish towels to remove excess moisture, then unroll immediately and iron when ready... It is safer to allow prints and spun rayons to dry until barely damp, before ironing.

I did my handwashables this afternoon and was surprised by how much water I ended up using... which here, in the desert, is very uncool. It took four rinses to get the suds out of my nylon top, two rinses to get the suds out of my bras, and, well, I gave up after four rinses in trying to get the suds out of my acrylic sweater. Now it could be that the soap I used - a "gentle" gel hand soap - created a richer suds than the soaps recommended for handwashing in the '40s. I'm not sure. The authors of the manual fully expected their readers to have to rinse any handwashables "several times" until they could get a nice suds-free water. I think in the future that I'll follow the modern instructions on the label for garments like these and wash them in a machine with the rest of my laundry if at all possible. My bathroom sink may have gotten a great cleansing along the way, but the water usage was super guilt inducing. And my hands are so dry and raw.

It wasn't such a "happy little washday" here at the Jitterbug residence, but it was educational!

Hanging the Clothes out to Dry

After running her laundry through the wringer, Mrs. Ferguson hauls it upstairs and out to the backyard, where she hangs it to dry in the sun. The long clothesline is fitted into a notch on a wooden prop so that the wet, heavy clothing won't cause it to sag. Mustn' have those clean towels dragging about in the dirt!

Dry clothes must be brought indoors and folded before starting dinner. Bob will be home any moment...