"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?

From the Top Down

When I began giving my bedroom a weekly cleaning last February, my round of chores was pretty bare bones. I've been fleshing it out ever since and have finally come up against the last of the bunch - the one I was avoiding. This chore was recommended by The Manual on a weekly basis. For me, it's going to be a monthly chore:

Brush ceilings and walls when necessary.

I've been puzzling over this one for awhile now. Standing in the brooms-and-mops aisle of every store I've been into - gazing at all the tools and trying to decide which would do the job. Luckily, The Manual devoted a chapter to "Walls, Ceilings and Woodwork" - so back to the book I went. Time to study...

It is extremely important that walls be dusted regularly and often if more difficult cleaning tasks are to be avoided. Walls that are neglected in this respect soon acquire a film of greasy dust that attracts and holds still more dust and which inevitably becomes embedded and difficult to remove.

The only exception to this rule occurs in the case of papered walls. In soft coal regions or industrial sections dusting papered walls is not advised, because soot will be grimed into the paper no matter what method of dusting is used. An annual cleaning with a dough-type cleaner is recommended.

In other regions where dust and cobwebs are the only problem, papered walls may be dusted with the suction attachment of the vacuum cleaner.

There are three tools for dusting walls:

1. A soft wall brush of hair, nylon, lamb's wool, yarn or sponge rubber, with a long handle.
2. A fiber or corn broom covered with an "apron" of soft clean cloth, such as cotton flannel.
3. The dusting attachment of the vacuum cleaner. If you have this attachment use it, by all means, because it eliminates any scattering of dust.

Work from the top down, giving special attention to high mouldings. There is one exception to this rule: if cobwebs are present, whether they are spider webs or dust cobwebs, remove them with an upward lifting stroke to avoid streaking the walls. Cobwebs of any sort are sticky, and if they are pulled down against the wall they will leave a trail of dirt that is hard to remove.

The hose on my little bag-less vacuum works just fine when I'm using attachments to clean something near or along the floor, but I certainly can't stretch it high enough to reach the upper parts of my walls. There were some lovely extension dusting tools in the stores - complete with pictures of happy people dusting their ceiling fans on the packaging - but I hate bringing home another one of those tools with plastic handles. And that's practically all you can find these days. I didn't mind purchasing a new mop or broom back when they all had wooden handles. You know that's going to break down someday at a dump somewhere and return to the earth. But all those plastic handles... Eek! They'll be here long after the human race has run its course. Alien scientists will spend their summers doing digs on the third planet from the sun and have to presume that Swiffer was the name of some ancient god - and that ancient peoples were performing some sort of religious ritual in waving these brightly colored sticks about.

I've kind of settled on option #2, laying a flannel dusting cloth over the top of my broom and using that to dust the walls. It's not terribly efficient, though, as I keep having to readjust the cloth. (And how to dust "from the top down" when you get down to about the height of your waist? I find myself having to dust from side to side at that point.) What kinds of tools and methods do y'all use when dusting your walls? Should I be using a larger piece of flannel - something big enough that I can literally tie it up around the top of my broom? Maybe that's what the authors of The Manual meant in calling that an "apron." I see this chore popping up on the list for my bathroom as well as my living room, so I want to get it right.

Any ideas for brushing the ceiling? My ceiling has a pebbly kind of finish, so my improvised tool doesn't work at all on this part of the job... And is the tool in the foreground of the photo below the one this Illinois housewife was using in 1941 to dust the ceiling and walls of her living room?



Well, it's time to fly. One more push in cleaning the bathroom and I can have all my drudgiest chores out of the way in time for the Sabbath. (My Saturday hasn't been all work! I spent the afternoon having a lovely picnic in the mountains with my sister and nieces.) Here's my newly revised weekly housekeeping routine for the bathroom:

Open windows top and bottom for free circulation of air.

Pick up and replace small articles belonging in bathroom.

Gather up to take out soiled linen (to hamper, if dry), and articles belonging in other rooms. Collect trash in waste basket. Roll up bath mat or rug.

Wipe mirror.

Wipe tile behind washbowl and tub.

Clean bathtub and metal fixtures (be sure to wipe shower fixtures and clean soap holder).

Clean toilet bowl with brush. Wipe outside of bowl and closet with cloth used for that purpose only.

Clean washbowl (be sure to wipe base as well as top; also clean soap holder).

Straighten towels and wash cloths. Put out fresh linen.

Sweep floor. Gather up dust in pan.

Floor should be washed.

Replace bath mat or rug. Close windows in cold or damp weather.

Spreading Out

America's Housekeeping Book (1945) recommends that after cleaning up breakfast, the housewife straighten up the living room, give each of the bedrooms its daily cleaning, then head to the bathroom. The family had finished washing up and it was time for Mother to put the bathroom back to rights for the day.

There is a kind of rationale emerging behind the "skeleton housekeeping schedule" promoted by the authors of The Manual. They seem to feel that while a quick tidying of the first floor is useful in case of unexpected callers, the housewife ought to repair to the second floor as soon as possible and put those rooms in order. It was only then that she was advised to return to the first floor and give some attention to the living room, dining room, and - lastly - the kitchen. Did the bedrooms and bathroom get such early attention in case Dad or one of the children came home sick? (A comfy, clean bed and bath are awful nice when you feel like garbage!) Or were second-floor rooms hit early so that they'd be taken care of before the house really warmed up in hot weather?

Whatever the reason, here are the first few orders of business for daily care of the bathroom:

Open windows top and bottom for free circulation of air.

I don't have any windows in my bathroom. This has never actually been an asset until now. (One less thing to clean!) My only tool for air circulation in the bathroom is a ventilating fan set on the ceiling. Fresh air has got to come in especially handy in the bathroom and kitchen for all the water that's used in cleaning.

Pick up and replace small articles belonging in bathroom.

Our modern bathroom sink cabinetry lends itself to holding all kinds of the odds and ends we reach for most often. Here's a list of the items I picked up off the countertop that surrounds my own bathroom sink two days ago: blow dryer, roll of toilet paper, nail polish, cold cream, toothbrush, toothpaste, three elastics, nail clippers. A far cry from the washbowls of days gone by! If you tried to balance something on the edge of the sink in those days, you'd probably have lost it down the drain. I'm making a conscious effort this week to put things away where they belong. To get used to retrieving and returning even the items I use everyday. It makes a world of difference just to see all that counter space cleared off...

Medicine cabinets have never provided much in the way of storage space - they were even smaller then! - and the sinks of the 1940s had none of the storage space underneath 'em as do our modern bathrooms. While folks in the '40s may have had to have been more careful about stowing things in the vanity or linen closet, there were still a few items that were truly indispensable at the washbowl. This was the era when a wire soap dish was often affixed to the wall above the sink, when toothbrushes and a glass found a home in their own wall-mounted holder, when a tube of Dixie cups was screwed right into the side of the nearest wooden surface, and the most up-to-date sinks could be purchased with chrome-finished towel bars on either side of the basin. If the size of a vintage medicine cabinet ever has you scratching your head and wondering how on earth a family got by, just picture it surrounded by little holders for this or that.

A Little Bit of Everything...

I'm still slogging away at the bathroom. Ran out of Comet partway through the job yesterday and decided to head on out and do my marketing, then finish the bathroom later. Sadly enough, now it's "later." The Comet has been replenished, I've had a good night's rest, my morning walk is finished. I'll patch off some breakfast and then get back to that miserable room.

My mantra while cleaning the bathroom this week: "It will never again be as hard to clean as it is today." "It will never again be as hard to clean as it is today." "It will never again be as hard to clean as it is today." That's true, I know. As grimy as it is right now, if I'm cleaning it every week - it will never again be anywhere near this bad. Each week, I'll get it even a little shinier. I'm holding on to that! More on bathroom cleaning in another post...

Alas, the coleus I adopted for a houseplant a couple months ago did not survive. It did okay as long as I was taking it outdoors to my landing on weekends. But once it started getting really hot, I worried about leaving it in the intense heat and kept it inside. The colors faded, it shed some leaves, and one day just crumpled up and died. *sigh* My grape ivy is doing well, although one side isn't very perky looking. (That's the side that doesn't even get much artificial light in the corner of the kitchen where I've kept it.) So out it goes! Maybe the fresh air and sunshine will do it some good. I don't want to lose the grape ivy, too!

A co-worker offered me some bell pepper plants last week. Determined to press on in my quest for some great plants about the house - inside and out - I brought home a tiny seedling and a more mature plant, both in pots. I think they might do okay on my landing, but I'll need to water them more often than the succulents. I also picked up a small sansevieria- commonly called a bowstring hemp in the 1940s - to fill the spot near my sink where the coleus used to sit.

Here's one of the things I'm really looking forward to after this interminable summer is over --- my parents will be in town for the winter! They've been doing the snowbird thing and spend a few months most winters at one of the resorts on the edge of the city. I can't claim to be the reason they're here - it's all about the grandbabies - but I love having them so close. And I can't wait to share these vintage dinners with them! (My mother, God bless her, oohs and aahs every time I tell her what I'm up to in the kitchen.) This was last weekend's 1945 dinner menu:

Boiled Rice
Buttered Beet Greens
Orange Salad
Cherry Batter Pudding

I think I've finally got this non-instant rice thing down pat --- now if I could just remember not to make so much. 1/2 cup dry rice is just enough for me + one serving of leftovers. I've always loved Beet Greens - fresh from Mom's garden with a splash of vinegar - yum! The instructions in my cookbook call for you to work with young beets and to chop the roots right up with the greens after they've been boiled. Unfortunately, my supermarket only carries a few raggedy ol' bunches of grown-up beets. So I chopped the tops off these beets - along with the greens - and used those in lieu of young beets. What's great is that the next dinner menu in my cookbook calls for beets, so I may be able to use what's left of 'em in my next homecooked meal.

The Orange Salad was very simple. Chopped orange segments on a bed of greens with a drizzle of viniagrette --- "French dressing" in '40s lingo. I made a substitution for the dessert course. The menu included a Bread Pudding made with Honey. After my last disastrous attempt at Bread Pudding, I just couldn't face it again this soon. So I picked out another recipe in the chapter on puddings and tried to find some way to use up the bottled cherries in my fridge. The Cherry Batter Pudding came out wonderfully - a light, fluffy cake over a layer of fruit - but, between the heat and my unexpected success on the scale Tuesday morning, I haven't had any desire to eat the rest! (Plus I read a horrifying bit of trivia in a magazine the other day. Did you know one cupcake can undo 115 minutes of walking?) I'm not thrilled about wasting food, but I think I should take this as a warning. If I'm going to continue making the desserts for my vintage dinners, I've got to cut the recipe down as small as I would the rice. And I need to invest in some containers for the freezer. There are some things you just can't wrap up in aluminum foil! Speaking of cutting recipes, do any of you know how to cut a one-egg recipe in half?

I've been listening to lots of vintage radio this week, including the second season of The Great Gildersleeve. The second season (1942-1943) is when the program really came into its own. Gildy got a job as Summerfield water commissioner. Leila Ransom, a flirtatious Southern widow, moved into the house next door and stole Gildy's heart. They became engaged and planned a wedding in June - just in time for the season finale and a wild turn of events on the wedding day! Richard LeGrand joined the cast during the second season as Mr. Peavey, the local druggist ("Well, now, I wouldn't say that.") and Floyd Munson, the local barber, pops up every time Gildy heads downtown for a shave. Marjorie got a war job over the winter and began dating a coworker, Ben. At season's end, Ben joined the Navy. Will Marge see other young men while Ben's away?

Kraft spent much of the second season promoting Pabst-Ett, a product that sounds a heck of a lot like Velveeta. Ads often combined a spot for the product with a public service announcement promoting things that might make marketing on the home front a little easier: menu planning, shopping early in the week, and shopping early in the day. Are you a menu maker? Do you find that planning your meals, say, a week in advance, makes feeding your family easier on the pocketbook - or easier on your waistline? Or do you prefer to stock up on the things you like and wait until mealtime to see what you're in the mood for eating?

Week Twenty-eight: The Mission

It's time to face the music. Or, rather, the bathroom.

There are two areas in my home that I absolutely dread(ed) cleaning: the kitchen and the bathroom. I have to add that little (ed) in there because my kitchen and I are slowly mending fences. The bathroom and I are still on the outs. In fact, I can't honestly remember when I did anything more in there than to clean the toilet. So, while my scale appears to be headed in the right direction again, I'm going to squeeze in a new housekeeping mission.

The Manual lays out both a set of daily chores and a set of weekly chores for the bathroom. Knowing the trouble I had with the kitchen, I'm going to approach this new room the same way. I'll plan on covering all of the daily chores once a week (probably on Saturdays --- moving the kitchen back to Friday nights now that it's a bit more manageable) and splitting the list of weekly bathroom chores between alternating weeks.

Weekly Chores (These were recommended for housewives on a daily basis in 1945!)

1. Open windows top and bottom for free circulation of air.

2. Pick up and replace small articles belonging in bathroom.

3. Gather up to take out soiled linen (to hamper, if dry), and articles belonging in other rooms. Collect trash in waste basket. Roll up bath mat or rug.

4. Wipe mirror.

5. Wipe tile behind washbowl and tub.

6. Clean bathtub and metal fixtures (be sure to wipe shower fixtures and clean soap holder).

7. Clean toilet bowl with brush. Wipe outside of bowl and closet with cloth used for that purpose only.

8. Clean washbowl (be sure to wipe base as well as top; also clean soap holder).

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

10. Sweep floor. Gather up dust in pan. Floor should be washed.

11. Replace bath mat or rug. Close windows in cold or damp weather.

Week A

1. Rug should be cleaned and bathmat changed.

2. Duck shower curtain should be hung out in the sun if weather permits. (Clean curtain should be put up when needed.)

3. Walls should be wiped down with clean cloth or wall brush, washed when necessary.

4. Light fixtures, bulbs and globes should be dusted every week, washed when necessary.

5. Medicine cabinet should be dusted and straightened, washed when necessary.

Week B

1. Mirror should be dusted, washed when necessary.

2. Windows should be dusted inside, washed on both sides when necessary.

3. Curtains should be laundered when necessary.

4. Use special cleanser on toilet bowl.

5. Clothes hamper should be emptied, dried and aired each week, scrubbed and sunned occasionally when weather permits.

A Morning with the Ambergs

A few more pictures of Mrs. Amberg hard at work at home in September 1941. It's interesting that the shoes she's wearing are not the pumps we usually see in vintage ads of women at work; they're just oxfords. And she's wearing cotton socks. So she's dressed for comfort, with her hair tied up in a simple ribbon. Before preparing lunch, she's changed into a striped dress - maybe because Gilbert was coming home. Looks like it's toasted sandwiches and soup on the menu at the Amberg house. Stay tuned tomorrow to see how this 1941 housewife spent the afternoon...


Jane Amberg, housewife & mother, busy straightening up before launching into some heavy cleaning w. dust mop & carpet sweeper in her living room at home.


Jane Amberg scrubbing the bathtub in bathroom at home.


Jane Amberg using pop-up toaster w. slices of bread as she makes sandwiches for her three children at lunchtime in kitchen at home.

Jane Amberg, serving lunch to her husband Gilbert who has come home fr. the office a few minutes away & her ever-present kids at the kitchen table at home.