Homemaking 101

I didn't always know how to make a house look beautiful. My mother always kept our home clean but she wasn't into "decorating". I worked full time many years so there wasn't time or energy left. Our place was clean, our furniture was nice enough, there wasn't much...warmth. I had become an excellent cook since cooking was my hobby (I'm sure my mother's generation didn't think of cooking as a hobby!). It wasn't like I was a bad homemaker. I just hadn't discovered homemaking as a career. It was something I had to do when I got off work. Homemaking was quickly fixing dinner, catching up on laundry, running to the grocery store on the way home at 5:00, stress when birthdays and Holidays were approaching...something else on the already overextended "to do" list.

It was a statement in one of Edith Schaeffer's books, one I'd already read many times, that started it all. She said for a house to be a real home, someone needs to have it as their career. There has to be someone who is thinking of that home, how to make it beautiful, what food to purchase and serve, how to raise children to serve God, how to use the home for hospitality to our family and to others...a godly haven in an ungodly world. It took awhile, years to be exact. I eventually did learn to make a home beautiful.

So, what do I think is the first homemaking skill to share? Where to start if you need to start from the beginning? Become a student of making a home, that's what I did. I'd already been taking cooking classes and collecting recipe books. I had a lot of recipes given to me from my late mother-in-law (the casserole queen). I have lots of ideas to share about cooking and recipes later.

However, for me it was in the area of decorating I needed help and a lot of it. I began to read books and watch decorating shows on TV. Emilie Barnes books were amazingly helpful and practical. Alexandra Stoddard's books were good, I still like to read hers now and then. (She can be just a wee bit New Age but not so much it's distracting.) There were many others and I'll collect some names for another time but those two authors are easily available, even at the library.

There was one thing I learned to do that was perhaps the biggest help and what I would recommend doing first. That is to start collecting pictures of rooms I loved. It was something recommended by every decorating and design book/article I read (so you begin to realize they may be on to something, even for slow learners like me!). I learned to go through magazines and cut out (tear out if they are easy to tear) pictures that I liked without spending any time analyzing them. I later began to keep pictures of gardens and landscapes, too. I have kept many of them, enough that I have a few large file folders of pictures.

Why do you not analyze them until you have a stack of pictures? Although some things are obvious (color preferences), some may come as a surprise and not be evident until you begin to see the same objects, color, styles, etc. showing up over and over. For me, one of the things I began to see in many pictures was the use of greenery (real and silk). I never realized how much I liked the look of lots of plants until it jumped out at me when I was going through the pictures. Through the years, I've saved myself a lot of money began to see what I liked before buying anything. I learned through looking at what I tore out of magazines that the style I like is English Country (with a touch of Romantic thrown in). I educated myself in how to achieve the look I like with as little spent as possible. That way, I have known exactly what to look for when I go to thrift stores, Goodwill, garage sales, flea markets, etc.

I realize magazines are expensive but there are two ways of looking at this. First, see if your library has a free magazine rack. Both libraries near me have such racks and just in the past week, I've brought home a stack of Better Homes & Gardens. I also found a sack of my all time favorite magazine, Victoria (yipppeee!)...free. I still cut out and file pictures and articles.

Second, if at all possible, begin to budget for your homemaking education. I just paid $150.00 for books for one class that my son is taking...one class. I figure I can spend at least a fraction of that for my career. I have a very tight budget but I get a few magazines because I'm still learning (even if I have passed 50). When I go to Goodwill or library sales, I check the cookbooks and decorating books. When I go to garage sales, I first look for tea cups (cheap) and then I look for books. Today I found a cookbook I've been wanting for $1.00, one that sells for $25.00 (I had just checked the price recently).

Here's what I hope to get across. Homemaking is a skill to be learned, just like any skill. These are skills you will be adding all your life. Homemaking should never be boring. There is so much to learn. You never learn all there is to know about raising kids, cooking, decorating, cleaning, gardening, home maintenance, being a good wife, hospitality, etc. I hope to provide information here that will help along the way. Most of my links are about making a home and these women offer great advice. It really is a fun adventure and very fulfilling....honest. If you are already a good homemaker, study more. There's always something else around the corner to learn. As for me, I'm trying to become a gardener. It's never to late to start learning.