Why Do People Need Labels?

I felt a bit sad last week when several young girls that I met at a tea party told me about their must-have bags, shoes, jeans, sunglasses, and I don't know what else. These girls were barely 10 years old. They showed me some of the wares that cost their parents fifty to a hundred dollars. These mothers are trying to stay at home and homeschool their daughters, but I saw there something that made my heart sink.

Living Beautifully With the New Frugality

Morning by the Sea by Susan Rios from Allposters.com

There is a beautiful side to frugality going on all around us. Women who are coming home are discovering the beautiful life by what I call "creative resourcefulness."

Our basic needs are food and clothing, and even at that, we only really need enough to sustain us, not an abundance to indulge in or feel entertained by.

Here are some things that you do not need:

- You do not need to have your hair streaked and you don't need to pay for a tanning session. Even if you have your sister, friend or mother do it from a home-kit, that product is not a necessary expense. Instead, do as we did in the old days: if you are blond, rinse your hair in lemon juice and water, and if you are brunette, try vinegar, and go out in the sun and let the sun streak it naturally. Without all this trouble, it will streak in the sun and you will get your tan, especially if you are gardening and trying to grow some vegetables for your family table.

-You don't need posts in your skin. This costs money and is a health issue. Ask any dentist or doctor. The people who make money off naive young women who do this, ought to be locked up. Look at the photographs of the women of the 19Th century, shortly after the camera was invented. Without modern makeup, tattoos and skin-piercing posts, they had a fresh bloom in their faces and sweet smiles, highlighted by bright eyes. This kind of beauty is free. While cutting down on expenses, consider learning to cut your family's hair, and learning how to trim your own. You can now get videos and books that show you how. Doing your own hair at home will save you money, and the cost of driving to and from the hair clinics many times. I am not saying that everyone must do this, but if you are seriously trying to redeem your family finances so that you can stay home, this is one expense that is not necessary. Long-haired ladies do not have to have maintenance cuts as often, and can often get a friend to trim their locks.

-You don't need fizzy drinks, or coffee by the cup, which can add up to $45.00 a week. You do not need to eat out or buy prepared food. You can make the same things at home, and enjoy it with your own choice of company and music. Home made fries taste much better. The cost of food is considerably less when you only buy raw ingredients that have to be peeled, sliced, or cooked. It costs a lot more to get any kind of prepared food, because you are paying for the extra services of peeling and chopping, putting it into containers with a label, and shipping it somewhere.

-Women at home do not need to drink,smoke, gamble, or go to parties. The amount of money spent on these things could buy things of lasting value: a new couch, a new rug, or fresh paint for the house.

-You don't need to go to the movies or an expensive vacation. You can improvise and substitute things that are free. You do not need to buy seasons tickets or any tickets to ball games and concerts. They are pleasures but not necessarily needs. There may be nothing wrong with having any of the above-listed items, but if you are cutting down on expenses so that you can secure your position as full-time homemaker, they are not necessary. The Victorian women were entertained by reading, writing, doing puppet shows for their children with socks and handmade dolls, and they knew how to make up stories. In those days it was quite common for families, even those not rich, to have a piano in their house. The young people enjoyed exchanging sheet music and playing new tunes while others gathered around and sang. Even without instruments, families learned to sing in harmony and entertain themselves. The hub of life was the home, and to be invited to someones house for the evening would be a memorable event consisting of happiness and warmth. People used to make up their own jokes and invent their own games. Every family can do this today.

The Picket Fence, by Dwayne Warwick from Allposters.

You can plan day trips that are interesting vacation locations, and still be in your own bed at night. You can learn to relax at home, even while you are working. You can provide a place in your own back yard to have quiet moments. When your home is cared for and put in order the way you really like it, you won't want to leave it for long, anyway. With all the lovely corners you create in your house, being home will become a lot like a vacation, without the cost. Consider using the cost of a vacation for home improvement: a new stove (or even a new kitchen) new sheets and bedding, and new bath towels and things for your bathroom.

-Don't get in the car to go to the store for every little thing. Save up a list and make one trip, or ask your husband to get something on the way home from work.

-You, or your children, do not need 40 shirts and 20 pair of shoes. Try to wear out all your clothes and shoes before buying more, and when you buy more, think of ways to get them without spending a lot. If you sew, you do not have to buy expensive buttons or trims. Instead, clip them off the garments you are going to discard, and use them again. The 6-inch ruffle on Lillibeth's dress, was a cotton eyelet curtain valance we had kept in a drawer with laces because we had no use for it but thought it might be useful for some stitchery item some day. She did not have to do any cutting or unpicking or altering; she just sewed it around the hemline of her dress. Our grandmothers kept jars of buttons they clipped off old shirts before using the shirts to crochet into colorful rag-rugs. Sewers can use up their stashes of fabric, and scrapbookers can use up all their papers and embellishments.

When you are finished using up available materials in the home, challenge yourself to find a substitute before buying more. When you have a new attitude toward spending, you begin to look at things a little differently: an empty jar, a box, an old piece of furniture--even if broken, can take on new life when you look at it as a valuable raw material. Originally, materials do not come in labelled packages: you can make almost anything you are interested in. Before you go out and buy something, think of how the item came to be made in the first place, and you might possibly be able to make it yourself. I'm not suggesting that you waste a lot of valuable home-keeping time trying to make something like your own leather for shoes, but there are some things you really do not need to buy that can be substituted quite easily.

Many women are really good at decorating rich. When they do not have money for lavish furnishings, they manage to take something and make it look like the expensive item they want. It is a matter of style and taste, not money, that makes a home look beautiful, as many people are finding out.

When trying to be careful of extra expenses, entertainment and social life can be more enjoyable than ever. Just because you cannot afford to give an expensive dinner, does not mean you have to live in isolation. You can still have company and share some little thing. I used to know someone who would clean her house, bake some muffins, and then call us over for a cup of tea. That is all she had, but oh, did we enjoy sitting at her table and looking at her wonderful setting. Her hand made centerpiece was nothing more than a candle with some cranberries around the edge of it on a plate, but the atmosphere was complete joy. If you do not have flowers, you can always pick something from outside, put it in a vase, and tie with a colorful ribbon. An inexpensive meal prepared carefully and arranged beautifully on the platter is very elegant and hardly distinguishable from something expensive.

To live beautifully while being frugal, you can still be a good housekeeper. I have noticed some people who claim to be poor will also have smelly, musty, dirty houses with soil everywhere and the stench of dirty laundry. Children run around in diapers that have not been changed for two days, drinking out of cups that haven't been washed in a week. There is simply no excuse for this, as most poor women are still able-bodied enough to wash a dish. I know of single mothers who have a very low income that still manage to have a very beautiful home and clean children!

Painting by Consuelo Gamboa, from Allposters. (Enjoy a vacation in your own area, using simple things like picnics and tea parties.)

It does not take money to clean a dish and put things away. It does not take money to have some pride in your existence in the home. If you have no washing machine, some things can be washed by hand, and if you have no water, you can catch rain water with a bucket. People of the past could be poor, for sure, but many of them had a pride about them that required them to be clean, to have a tidy appearance, and to keep their houses neat, and they were resourceful enough to know how to wash their clothes and bathe themselves and their children. Other people who have a sense of dignity, will so live that you can't even guess that they are enduring hard times. Cleanliness and neatness, home cooking, and upright living, will go a long way to making life at home beautiful even if you do not have money to spend.

Here are some ideas for using less, so that the products you buy last longer.

-You can probably use less detergent. Too much detergent makes it harder to rinse off the clothes, which then can make people have quite itchy skin.

-Eat fruit instead of drinking fruit juice. The fruit has a lot more properties in it that are good for you. Buying juice means you are paying someone to squeeze it and bottle it.

-Buy fresh vegetables and cut them yourself, and learn to cook them so that they taste good, instead of buying frozen. If your electricity, for any reason, gets knocked out, the frozen things will spoil anyway. Cooking with fresh ingredients is like gourmet cooking, which is what a lot of the popular television shows feature. You can do this at home and experience the satisfaction of eating something that is very good for you in an atmosphere that is better than a fine restaurant.

-Read the ingredients on packages of your favorite foods and figure out how to make them yourself. Often a flavoring is only garlic and salt. Italian season consists of oregano, basil and a few other ingredients, all which you can use yourself to make your favorite salad dressing or sauce. Just about everything you buy can be made by using basic ingredients at home.

-Get out your stack of magazines that you have saved from years gone by. Pick the current month and display them on one of the tables. Read them when you need to sit down and rest. They are very refreshing! Sometimes when I tell people that I do that with old issues of Country Woman or Romantic Homes, they "feel sorry" for me, but now, I do not do it because of poverty. I enjoy it! I see things in a different way when I have not seen them for a year. It is like taking out a box of old letters and reading them again. After all, many magazines cost as much as a book these days. Why not get them out and make use of them, even if it is for clip art for scrapbooks.

-Consider growing a garden. It does not have to be an ordeal. Just put some seeds in some soil and water them. I knew of one woman who was not in good health one year, so she just pulled up some weeds and grass, and put seeds in the loose soil and covered them up. Her children watered them, and she had a harvest. She did not have a tiller or a shovel, but she still grew some tomatoes and cucumbers. If you only have a tomato plant, your yield will be good enough to save you some money at the grocery store. During the World Wars, Americans and British had "Victory Gardens." Each family was encouraged to plant seeds and make themselves independent. They would then share what they could, with others. I think whether there is a war or not, everyone can have a victory garden, even if it is a bean plant in a pot on the front porch. Declare it victory over financial burdens and poverty, victory over helplessness, or victory over going to the store for every bite you eat, and independence from having to spend your entire income on food.

Now here are some things you do need:

-You do need to pay your monthly house rent or payment. Therefore, it will be necessary to eliminate the above "do-not-needs" in order to protect the money for that payment.

- You do need your electricity. There are many ways of cutting back on it so that rooms are not left with lights or fans on, and things are not left running all day long.

- You do need your water. If you don't spend money on unnecessary things, you assure yourself of the availability of money to pay for your household water supply. Sometimes young women who have quit work to be homemakers, do not realize the cost of water and electricity. They have worked in places where it seemed to be all paid for, and did not realize how it could be conserved. If you can look at your electric meter and watch the numbers roll by, you can understand how the things you turn on or plug in can make your energy costs rise. The more you spend on things you "want," the more likely you are to lose the things you need: light, water, rent, fuel. Keep these at the top of your list as priorities, and you will be able to find many substitutes for other things.

-Learn the many uses of age-old, basic, natural ingredients like vinegar, olive oil, hydrogen peroxide, Epsom salts (I think I read somewhere that this was good for the garden)soda bicarbonate, corn starch and many other common kitchen items. You will not have to spend on expensive medicines and cleaners.

I can tell you from living both ways--both well off and poorer, that I enjoyed the creativity of the frugal times much better. I quite liked my fringed muslin curtains, and didn't miss the expensive drapery and the accompanying complicated hardware. I enjoyed stenciling the walls and didn't miss expensive wall paper that was hard to remove and couldn't be painted over. I liked doing without a car. It gave me hours and hours of freedom to complete jobs and to cook dinner early and have it ready by evening. I was not rushed.

Using a car in the daytime is nice, but it takes a huge chunk of time and can leave a nervous, anxious feeling similar to that of rushing to work and back home. When I didn't have fabric to sew, I enjoyed looking around for unused sheets, table cloths and other fabrics in the house that I could dye, cut and sew for other things. I liked framing scenic pictures from magazines and using them for pictures in the house. A smaller house was easier to take care of an cost less to paint and decorate. It was cheaper to heat. I could hear everything around me. There were many advantages to living a more frugal life.

Being frugal does not mean your house will be unlovely. With the same fabric you make your curtains, you can make a matching tablecloth and napkins and a few runners and doilies, edged in fringe, for other pieces of furniture. You can often coordinate everything much better than if if you were looking for something in a store. Being frugal means you won't have as much clutter and junk as you would if you went to the stores more often. Your house can actually look better. Being frugal means you can make gifts and give them from the heart. It means you will be less wasteful and more mindful of the hard earned money that could be saved.

Daughters at home need to learn how to make do without spending. Even if they are going to have money to spend, there is something sad about not having the inner resources to survive if needed. They need to be able to, if necessary, do without, make things do, or create something out of practically nothing. It uses the creative skills and gives them more interest in life.

I observed girls who had grown up in families where everything was provided for them. They never had a moment's concern about money or about making things do. When these girls got married, they were bored and unhappy. They seemed to have no challenges or goals. I believe frugality is something that the Proverbs 31 woman had in mind when she "looketh well to the ways of her household." She might have been watching for unnecessary waste. Frugality is actually quite fun, for you can start laughing at the world and its insistence that you need to buy everything. It isn't' true. We can get along with merely a shelter and food and adequate clothing to cover our bodies. If we get extremely poor, we can sell our out-grown, torn, faded, threadbare clothes at a high price to famous actresses and call them "Designer Threads."

Is It Too Late?

Spring Daydreams by William Magnum (allposters)

When women realize that they were not taught the natural alternative to the feminist agenda ,they want to be home and do all the nurturing and baking and homemaking things that they missed out on. They see their families getting older and wonder if it is too late for them to do the best thing. Then, they wonder how they can reclaim “the wasted years, which the swarming locusts have eaten.”*

Locusts could so completely destroy whatever food was growing, whether it be fruit trees or crops, that it would not grow again for some time. Yet the Israelites were assured that the years that it would take to recover from that spoiler, the locusts, would be restored, as if they had not occurred. That is like, if you will, a person who has lived carelessly with his money for a long long time, and then upon learning a better way to manage his finances, recovering quickly. In fact, he lives so abundantly that when he tells people, "I was once in debt, had nowhere to live, and job." The way he looks and lives would make it difficult to believe. Since he went in a different direction in his life, he reaped the rewards of a lifetime.

In the same way, a homemaker can live in such a way as to fill in all those gaps she missed while working, so that others will cannot even imagine her ever being away. I met a wonderful woman once who had a lovely home, and although it was modest and she was not rich, she managed to have well behaved children and a good marriage. I asked her what her secret was and she said, "I came home after several years as a lawyer. My life just gets better and better. Before, I had a terrible marriage and couldn't manage my home." I was all astonishment. She was such a natural and her family was obviously so well loved and attended to that she must have been doing it for a lifetime.

Sunlit Path (allposters.com)

When you pack up your things and come home for good, do not worry about how you will catch up. You will find that your decision alone erases a lot of the grief and loss of those "wasted years that the swarming locusts have eaten." Most women find their paycheck is eaten up by the time they get it, anyway. That is certainly like the effect of the locusts on a land.

Secret Garden by Gabriela (allposters)

A parable is told in Matthew** (a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning) about a man who owned a vineyard. At various times throughout the day, he hired laborers. Those who were hired first agreed to the wage they would receive.

In the evening, he paid off the workers. The ones who came first were given the same wage as the ones who came first. The parable of course refers to the fact that even if a person were to wait all his life to do what was right, he would still get the reward.

Please don't get any ideas about being lazy and then wanting the reward at the last minute. This parable was talking about sincere people who were not hired at first because they did not know where the harvest was.

In the same way, sincere women who realize they have missed out on a lot of years with their families at home, will find that they catch on quickly to full-time homemaking and seem to overcome those lost years.

I used to think that children should learn to read by the age of 6 or they would be "behind." When my own children did not read until they were 9 or 10, I discovered that they enjoyed their new skill so much, they quickly caught up with, and surpassed the standard. When others heard them read fluently from the KJV Bible and classic literature, they assumed they had been reading since babyhood. A new homemaker who has not had marriage and homemaking bred into her during her youth, will find she quickly graduates from point to point until no one would believe that she just quit work a few months ago.

Is there anyone who would say upon seeing an autumn rose that it was not as delightful as one that had bloomed early in the season?

Although many people will not become Christians til later in life, God has promised they will still get the reward of Heaven that the lifetime Christians will get. However, let us not make the mistake of thinking, "Well, if the results are going to be the same, I might as well waste my youth, and live my life as I please. It looks like it all comes out even in the end." The fact is, that even though the late-comers will enjoy success in marriage, home and family, coming home early has many more advantages:

Years of getting to know your own children: really looking them in the eyes and learning their moods to discern where correction and encouragement is needed. Children shuffled from daycare to home in their childhood really miss out on the wonderful, quiet moments at home. As I said in my book, "Just Breathing the Air," my mother often said that her childhood, though one in poverty, was "one, long, golden summer." It cannot be like that for children if the mother is not with them.

-Years of learning to manage the home. Some women will work til they have a child and then come home, and find it all very overwhelming. If they would stay home from the very beginning, (see the story, "When Queens Ride By,") they would learn to manage just two people (the husband and wife) and when they became three, they would have a lot of tasks on automatic drive. The baby at home would only be a small adjustment.

-All that time as a fulltime homemaker helped her develop patience and understanding. Changing diapers to her was not "a mindless job" as her young friends would claim, because she is helping someone who is helpless and developing a bonding with her child at the same time, a bond that, with proper care, will benefit her later on in life.

-Really learning about things like nutrition and food value, and ways to be frugal. When a woman works for years and years and then comes home, it is harder to adjust. That does not mean that she cannot do it. It just means that she didn't have the time to really develop cooking and homemaking skills that she needed when she quit work. There will be a lot of trial and error to coming home full time. She won't be used to making her husband's salary stretch. She may not have picked up any frugal habits. She may not know how to be resourceful. She may not have taught her children all the reasons they should keep the lights off in rooms not being used. She may not understand how her life at home can make or break her family. This is a good reason to raise up daughters who have a good understanding of home life.

When you come home at the last hour, you miss out on years and years of memories and blessings. That is not to say that a woman cannot come home later and have some reward. Of course she can, but let us not be careless. Let us pass on these values to the younger generation. Teach your daughters not to overlook their child-bearing years. Teach your children that the time to be home having a family and managing a home is in the beginning, not the end.

We have all seen the heartache of those elderly women who, through the influence of feminist talk, believed they shouldn't be "just a homemaker" and went to work most of their lives. Later, they retired, and there was no family to come home to. Not feeling needed, they went back to work. We reap what we sow. If we can be dedicated to the family, even if you have only a husband and no children, or only children and no husband, you will get back that investment in later years.

When home, you can learn as you go, just like a lot of people did. When I first began home schooling my children, I had no clue how to do it, but I knew it was the best thing for my family. I began to teach whatever was needed at the moment, from how to bathe and dress to how to formulate proper words (diction). When starting out, all you need to do is observe what is needed at the moment; what the most important thing is that needs to be done. Is it a meal, an ironed shirt, a made bed, the organization of paperwork?

Once you begin to see how a day goes, you will fall into your own routine. Your husband may come home at 4 p.m. and you will find yourself busy preparing a meal in anticipation of that. Maybe he leaves for an appointment at 9 a.m. In preparation you will need to see that he has clean clothes available.

Eventually, instead of doing things at the very last minute, you'll find it necessary to prepare hours and even days ahead. That gives you more free time to do creative things, write to your mother, show hospitality to someone, or do essential shopping.

One of the best examples I ever watched was a woman from Britain whose mother was an excellent homemaker. This daughter had developed habits without knowing it, just from the home life she had, observing her mother. When I stayed in her home I noticed that she had plenty of leisure time. She rarely had huge jobs to do or had to "climb out" of a pile of work. She managed this by never making a wasted motion in her house.

Once, she and I were going to watch a movie in her sitting room. As I was being seated in a comfortable chair, I noticed that on her way to her own chair, she straightened up a stack of books, removed some old papers, and put away a sweater that someone had left. Later in her kitchen, she did the same thing as we were merely walking through. If she were to go to one end of the house, she would surely take something on the way, or find something to put away somewhere else. She never saved up work for a cleaning day, but she was not always cleaning!

In my own home, I've had to learn the skill of not creating more work for myself. Instead of getting out an entire set of pots and pans I sometimes cook in one pan, beginning with the hardest to cook item, and ending with the food needing only minimal cooking. Instead of using an entire set of measuring cups and spoons, I measure out the dry ingredients in one big cup and then the liquid ingredients. One cup to wash is better than 4. Mixing and patting baked goods in one pan is also a time saver. It is not necessary to always do this, but it is good to know when you are creating more work for yourself than necessary.

The homemaker also needs to enlist the help of the other members of the family, as she is not there to do everything, but to guard and guide the home and to see that it gets done. Even if she cannot manage it altogether, and is not a particularly good cook or a brilliant teacher, just her very presence, and her attempt to be on her throne as manager of the home, will make a big, big difference in her own life and the lives of those around her.

*Joel 2:25

**Matthew 20:1-15

Another Altered Gift Bag

I have been on a fun, frugality kick at my house. Today I have a unique gift bag tutorial. While it is true that you can find gift bags for only a dollar, and some times even two or three for a dollar at the dollar store, we are teaching our children to be resourceful for those times in their lives when they may not have money or may not have access to a store. It is good for children to learn the quality of resourcefulness.

If you do not have enough empty food boxes, all you need is a sheet of poster paper, which will cost about 50 cents, and will make anywhere from 4 to 12 boxes. Just trace around a box you like onto the poster paper. Here, we are using an empty cereal box.

The ingredients for this are: scrapbook papers you already have, glitter glue, white glue, scissors, pen, brush and pan for glue. You will also need the blank side of a piece of junk mail for a pattern.

Cut off the top flaps of the box.

Trace one side of the box onto the scrap of paper.

Cut out the traced square from the scrap paper.

Then, fold it in half and with some kind of straight edge or ruler, draw an opening for a handle.

This is what it looks like when you unfold it.

Temporarily anchor it down onto the front of the cereal box with tape and trace inside the handle space you made.

You can see the outline of the handle here. Cut in from the top of the box to the hole and cut it out.

Tape the cut back together. Don't forget to do the same on the other side of the box.

Take two pieces of square scrapbook paper.

Trace the handle on them, using the piece of scrap paper pattern. Leave a little at the top to fold under.

Cut out the handles.

Turn the paper over and brush glue liberally on the under side of it.

Press the paper on to the box, matching up the handle area. Press down the sides. Do the same on the other side. You will need to place this project on a brown paper bag to protect your surface.

Don't worry if it wrinkles up.

Be sure to trace and cut a piece for the end of the box.

Sign it if you like.

You can outline the rough edges of the handle area to give it a nice finish by using Polymer, Scribbles, or Dimensions tee-shirt paint. Allow to dry the required amount of time. Glitter glue with a tip will also work.

For a different sort of bag, try using a glossy calender picture, like this:

It seems to glue better and does not wrinkle as much as scrapbook paper. Cover the front and sides of the box with one picture, and use a different kind of paper on the back.

Then, cut spaces in the sides to thread a wide wired ribbon for a handle. Just cut along the seam and into the side. Then tape it back up again for a finished look.

This is what the box looks like when finished. Tie bows on each side if you like.

Use paper doilies or tissue paper to line the bags, like this:

I am really enjoying using up bits and pieces that I have, and freeing up space.

These bags are tall enough to hold a coloring book and crayons for a child, or a special magazine and gifts for a friend. The boxes will not last long, but they will be thrown away anyway. If you do not have a wired ribbon you can use anything that will substitute. Just look around and you may find something in your home that will be creative and unique.

The Effect of Architecture on Home Living

Lakefront Home

by T.C. Chiu

Americans wonder why their houses lack charm...charm is dependent on connectedness, on continuities, on the relation of one thing to another.."
"Houses have become utterly charmless, lacking in the capacity to inspire..."
"The finest Gothic dwellings were sheer enchantments, passports to another place and time." (The above quotes are also included in the next to last chapter of Linda Lichter's book on Victorian life, "Simple Social Graces" or "The Benevolence of Manners." Both titles are the same text)

Read about the strange designs of one modernist, here http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_4_otbie-le-corbusier.html



This British writer has something to say about the effect of modern architecture on our cities.




House Design by Alexander Jackson Davis, architect(1815-52)




American Homestead
Framed Art Print
Landry, Paul
Buy at AllPosters.com

I will begin by saying that I never felt as isolated, restless, trapped or jailed in the log home built by my father and mother in the wilderness (you can see photographs of it in my book, "Just Breathing the Air.") My parents, with no architectural training, knew what they wanted in a house that would be a home and they managed to put it there using their instincts. I never felt so lonely, and I never felt overwhelmed with housework and storage space (even in a family of 9) in that simple two storey house, as I did thereafter when I began living in the modern neighborhoods.  After a bit of reading and serious research on the changes in architecture and the various teaching involved in architecture courses in schools, I saw some of the reasons for the acute discomfort in some modern buildings.

Two Story Cottage
Art Print
Jaye, Merryl
Buy at AllPosters.com
The homestead, as isolated and primitive as it was, was humming with activity and life. It was a real home, with windows overlooking the scenery. We slept upstairs where the heat collected from the wood stove, and where we felt safe from intrusion. You can see diagrams of the floor plan in my book. It had no matching appliances but there was always a feeling in it that I could never produce in the modern tract home. There was always someone coming down the home road to see us, whether it was the mail delivery with a package, or a neighbor. Even a bill collector got invited in for a cup of coffee. There seemed to be never a dull moment and even the quiet times were fulfilling.

Lakefront Home
Art Print
Chiu, T. C.
Buy at AllPosters.com
In comparison, my experience in modern housing was quite the opposite. At first I was excited, after so far away for so long. I thought I would be around people and that there would be more interaction, but I did not see people. Instead, I saw the back of their cars as they left their houses. If I did have company, I had to be careful that visitors did not park in neighbor areas and that we did not disturb the neighborhood in any way. Neighbors were not neighborly and everything was impersonal. I woke up to bleakness I'd never known before, and many other homemakers said the same thing. Part of this was due to the modern architectural planning of houses and neighborhoods. The homemakers eventually went to work, as the isolation of these neighborhoods was just too much for them. The neighborhoods and houses seemed to be designed to make people want to leave home.

Autumn Breeze
Art Print
Humphries,...
Buy at AllPosters.com







Together Tonight
Art Print
Lewan, Dennis...
Buy at AllPosters.com
I want to congratulate the 20th and 21st century homemakers who really made homes and conducted good family lives inside these limited houses. They overcame the worst odds and embellished them, sometimes adding gates, dormers, porches, columns, window boxes, shutters, gardens and windows, and other architectural salvage, in order to transform them with life and beauty. They created doorways and arches and all kinds of things to make the house memorable, and even inspire artists. All over the web I see these make-overs and I have to say to the modern architect who embraced these (what I call "prison designs") styles, that these women overcame the limitations and did a greater job than the Victorian women even had to, in order to make the homes livable. The women who make these "shabby shacks," which had no architectural advantages, into livable homes are to be congratulated. In this respect, they had more fortitude and determination than any Victorian woman ever had to have.

Spring Patio I
Stretched Canvas Print
Kim, Sung
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The 20th century "progressives" (often referred to as modernists) sought to throw off authority and restraint and basic principles in just about everything. They rebelled against the manners and the sensibilities of their Victorian parents and grandparents, and attempted to make it fashionable to strip everything of its outer facade. They ended up with buildings minus entry ways and embellishments, clothing without structure, art without beauty, music and poetry without rhythm, meter or even sense, literature laced with despair, and religion without good foundations.

One such person happened to be the granddaughter of Catherine Beecher. Catherine herself, of whom I have previously written of in this blog, was a Victorian, who thought homes should be light and airy and friendly to the home maker. Her granddaughter, a twentieth century modernist, wrote in her rebellion, " We are, after all, just animals. All we need is stalls to live in."
She advocated plain houses with no view and no furniture and no embellishments or color. Her rebellious writings made me wonder if she was just trying to get out of keeping house.

Lazy Afternoon
Art Print
Sakhavarz, Alan
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I have discussed at length in previous articles at the Lady Lydia Speaks column at LAF, the effect of the rejection of responsible moral principles on art, showing an example of art from the 19th century which was easily recognizable, and comparing it to a piece from the 20th century with only black scribbles on it. Today I would like to compare the 20th century architecture that we had to live in, with the homes of our Victorian parents and grandparents.

Grandmother's Doorway
Art Print
Graves, Abbott...
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Have a look at the old Victorian neighborhoods. You can take a drive around the streets of almost any town and see the years go by: Victorian, 1920's bungalows, 1930's and 40's wartime homes, 1950's homes, and then the 60's and 70's....you can identify them by their style. Usually there are several streets that begin in the 1800's and then after a few blocks you can see the next century. One thing that stands out supreme in the Victorian neighborhoods, even in the crowded row houses of some towns, is that each "Victorian" is different in style and color, making it very interesting. As I said, Victorian wasn't really a style of its own. It borrowed from many different styles, has many different roofs, porches, gables, pillars and columns, verandas and porches, steps. Each house is different. This explains somewhat why letters could just be addressed to the family, with no number on the street. You could find the house because you knew the Jones or the Smiths lived in the blue Queen Anne next to the yellow Georgian. Compare this to the modern tract homes (the homes built by contractors, squeezed onto a plot of land), are so similar in color and style that it is not easy to identify your friend's house. I have old post cards that have only the name of the person and the town they live in. I realize the population has grown, which entails a new address system with numbers on the houses, but I do think the tract homes lack that identifying charm that says "this is our HOME. I think it really shows spunk in the 21st century men and women to paint these houses they are stuck with, an identifying color, and add trim and porches to them.

Home Sweet Home
Giclee Print
Currier & Ives
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The Victorians architects were people like Alexander Jackson Davis, and Andrew Jackson Downing. You can tell their mothers admired one of the presidents of the time, Andrew Jackson. I will mention other architects of the time, later on, but these are two that I want to focus on, who had in their minds, cozy homes for families of the 19th century.

You can read about Alexander Jackson Davis and see some of his designs here
http://www.fredericklawolmsted.com/ajdowning.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Jackson_Davis


http://www.amazon.com/Apostle-Taste-1815-1852-Creating-Landscape/dp/0801862574
A few months ago I found a free online printable book by Davis and Downing, full of lovely family homes, in which he describes how they can be lived in, adding remarks like, "Just plant an apple tree on the side...etc." I cannot find that book at this time, but it is there, somewhere.

A.J. Downing, with whom Davis collaborated on a book of houses for common people, said, "There must be nooks and crannies about it, where one would love to linger...cozy rooms where all domestic fireside joys are invited to dwell." I felt this on the homestead in various corners of the "big house" as we called it. I did not feel it in the modern tract houses.

The Victorians built up, instead of out. The modernist created the ranch or the "rambler," which was aptly named, for in it, the homemaker finds herself walking what seems like the length of a ranch, and literally "rambling" all day from one end of the house to the other. What she needs is usually at the end of the house where she is not, and once she gets there she has to walk all the way back, to use it. These houses, though they have ample expanse, have never had the kind of storage spaces women needed in order to keep their homes uncluttered.



Fairy Tale Time
Art Print
Jaye, Merryl
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Building out also meant that bedrooms were on the ground level. In my opinion this invited prowlers, and then fear of prowlers caused us to install extra precautions, such as bars on the windows and hedges to block out all scenery. On the ground level, people in bedrooms hear every single noise, from the door rattling in the wind, to a creak in a window at night. In order to escape this uneasy feeling at night, children in those kinds of homes will often forgoe the "privilege" of having a room of their own apiece, and choose their parents' room to sleep in at night.



Reminiscing
Art Print
Saunders, Bill
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The Victorian (which consisted of several popular styles, including Greek Revival, Gothic, Italiante, Farmhouse, Cottage, and more) custom of building UP, did a lot for the property. We complain about there being only breathing space between houses in modern neighborhoods, and that they are little more than glorified apartments when they are so close to the next house. The Victorian homes being built UP meant more out-lying property surrounding the house. In other words, they were not "rambling" all over the place. This meant they were able to use their imagination to create wonderful gardens, like extra "rooms" to sit in, walk in, muse in, pray in, and look on with appreciation.



Together Tonight
Art Print
Lewan, Dennis...
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Victorian homes were built by husbands and fathers or hired to be built by them, for their beloved wives and daughters and family members. These homes were so loved and valued that they were often handed down throught the generations until they literally wore out. It takes a lot of living and a lot of abuse and a century to ruin the Victorian houses, but the modern tract home takes only a few months to destroy with careless living. That is something to think about.

The modern home was built for quick access. The gardens were not emphasized because the property was created to accomodate what I call in this fast-food era, "fast families," which will enable them to drive up quickly in their car, alight into the kitchen from the garage, eat, take a shower, and then get ready to go "somewhere else," paying little attention to the layout and the gardens or anything else in the home. They wouldn't need to spend much time in it so they wouldn't notice that there were no architectural interest. After all, it was just for resale value, not a home to be passed to the next generation.

Lacking porches or balconies, families have no special places to go, so they just want to get out and go somewhere else. It keeps society moving around daily, nightly and yearly, looking for some place they can feel comfortable. Many modern houses are poorly lit, and inadequately heated or cooled. Sometimes they feel more like institutional buildings than homes.


Tea at Glenbrook
Art Print
Colclough, Susan...
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The architecture of the homes of the 19th century inspires tours of these great houses that have been saved and restored. I wonder how much touring the next generation will do of the modern tract home. I can just hear the guide, saying, "Notice the easy access to this house. They didn't have to walk down a walkway, and there were no gardens to bother with. The 20th century citizen had all these embellishments removed, including porches and gazebos, so he could concentrate on intellectual things, making money, climbing the career ladder... the doors were hollow, in order to save expense, the roofs were not pitched, because that was an unnecessary affectation. Of course, there was some leakage from the ceiling, but modern water-proofing took care of that. You could just spray it on and eliminate the holes." Again, I say, with the obviously quick access to the entry of these new houses, I wonder that the architect even bothered with a door. Perhaps it would have been more "efficient" to have the passenger suctioned from the car down a tube straight into a chair in the kitchen, where food would be automatically served.

Sunny Monday
Art Print
Blish, Carolyn
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Windows of the modern homes I've lived in were, more often than not, too high to look out of. Many children grew up without window seats or the pleasure of sitting near a window and just looking outside. The huge plate-glass windows often used in the living rooms, were sometimes a magnate for hot sun, making it impossible to sit in that room in the summer. Breaks in plate glass entails expensive replacements. They paned windows of the Victorian designs were easy to replace, and should one pane be cracked, you could at least tape it up or put a piece of paper in that one pane until it could be replaced. Modern homes do not have enough over-hang of the roofs to create the shade that is needed to shield the home from intense heat and light.

Shades of Spring
Art Print
Masters, Sherry
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I once lived in an older home and noticed how thoughtful the design seemed to be. It was as though the architect said, "I know the lady of the house will be writing letters in the morning, and reading her mail, therefore, her desk will go with this window to capture the morning light," or "if there is an artist in the house, this northern room will be perfect for a little studio." In the kitchen, a woman could easily step out a door into a little garden to get fresh herbs and vegetables for a soup. In a modern tract home, we often have to walk around to an awkward area and don't even get there in time to chase away the neighbor's cat.


Yarmouth
Art Print
Brown, Betsy
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Kitchens in modern homes seem to be merely alley-ways between two points in the house. Someone is always walking through with laundry to put in the laundry room, or coming in from the side door on their way to some other room. This kind of traffic creates more housekeeping, and also more traffic jams. The so-called "efficiency kitchen," which was designed to reach over and open the fridge, use the stove, and turn on the faucet, in one or two steps, are not efficient when it comes to serving a meal, or working together as a family. The farmhouse kitchens were also the eating areas and provided much more room and made much more sense. Homemakers will understand, I am sure!

Fruhling
Art Print
Weber, Max
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There is much more I can say about the modern home and I will briefly cover some of the other problems. For one, the children's bedrooms are on the outer areas of the house, which I do not believe is safe. Sometimes they even face the street, and have a street light pouring into the room at night. The Victorian bedrooms were usually upstairs. In upper rooms, it would be more difficult for passers-by to be seen in the window, or for anyone to peek in unless they took a great deal of trouble to get a ladder and risk their neck doing so. Upstairs will collect more heat in winter, as heat rises, and keep the children's room warmer. Upstairs, you hear fewer noises than when you sleep downstairs, and can rest better. Bathrooms are often put in even stranger areas with no windows for fresh air. Pity the poor person in the tub when the electric current goes off, in one of those modern bathrooms.


Morning Glory
Art Print
Strubel, Klaus
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Now let me move on to the neighborhoods that these poor homes were relegated to. It is interesting to see the diabolical design behind "suburbia." I don't know if anyone ever has felt, especially if you were born in the 40's or 50's, that they don't feel like they belong to their town, or that their town or neighborhood is no longer like home, or that they just don't feel it is even their country anymore...well, you are not going crazy. It has something to do with the way houses and neighborhods of the 20th century were designed.

Little Piece of Heaven
Art Print
Strubel, Klaus
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First of all, houses had no porches, verandas, steps, walkways, court yards entry ways, parlors,
or over-hang from the roofs. You arrived at the house and you were suddenly "in." You have no breathing space, no time for thought, no time for recollection. You are transported rapidly from the train or the car to the inside of the house. Without an entry way to even cause a pause in your breath, there you are, right in the living room, with nowhere to put your hat or coat or bag. I wonder that the architects even took the trouble to put a front door on these houses, since no one uses it. They usually come in through the side door from within the garage. Is it any wonder that people suffer from claustrophobia, panic attacks, depression, and general disturbance of the heart?


Working on Chores
Art Print
Coleman
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Some of the older homes of the 19th century may look a little bleak at first, but you can imagine that they were once busy places where children had something to do, with spaces that meant something to them. The modern tract home seems to lack this feeling of belonging. At least, many of the homes of the previous generations were actually owned by the occupants. Today, many women express this common sentiment: I would rather have a run down old house and own it outright than have all these modern things and have to pay so much interest and never get out of debt.


Spennymoor Manor
Art Print
Mock, Barbara
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I learned that these neighborhoods were deliberately designed to shut out your neighbors. Without front porches, we no longer sat on the them and observed the comings and goings and the behavior our our own and the neighbor's children. We were unable to see when a crime was committed. We could not observe anything that was going on. With the windows facing our neighbor's house, we could not look out without our neighbor thinking we were peering into his house, so we shut the drapes and retreated to the privacy of the back yard.


If one attempts to go for a walk in their neighborhood, they must pass within very close proximity of their neighbor's front windows, and feel self-conscious that they are intruding on private property. Even the barrier of a side walk does not remove that feeling. The whole design makes us all more suspicious of our neighbor rather than loving of our neighbor.

Cape Cod Cottage
Art Print
Landry, Paul
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There is much more behind the scenes scheming in the devlopment of modern architecture. Whereas most architects of the past felt responsible to lift up mankind to acknowledge the presence of God, and to ennoble his soul through beauty and design that glorified God, the moderns of the 20th century stripped archecture of any embellishment or beauty, reasoning that it was "primitive, " or " conceited," and lacking in "meaning." They substituted it with their own "interpretation," which involved the belief that man had evolved and was more closely related to animals. He only needed a stall to live in and a place to eat. He could live without ornaments of beauty or gardens or flowers or windows to look out of.

Many women in modern homes with all the ammenities and conveniences and appliances they could wish for, have expressed the most fantastic sentiments, that would make the designers of these neighborhoods cringe. For example,

"I would rather live in a tent and own it outright, and have a great deal more nature to look at."

"I could actually do more with an older, broken down home, to make it livable and beautiful, than in this new house."

"I'd rather live in the house I grew up in...it seemed so much more like a real home."

"I have trouble adjusting to this house. Why should we "adjust" to a house? Shouldn't houses be things we are drawn to and enjoy, without having to agonize over all the problems they have?"

"Drapery is too expensive in these modern homes. That is why I use a blanket over the window."

I can relate to all these problems. The older homes did not seem to have so many things to adjust to. Alexander Jackson Davis, said, "A house should have nooks and crannies about, where one would love to linger..." In a modern home I was always wanting to take out walls and make more space, but in older homes, I loved the little spaces that existed. They seemed to be designed with a purpose and the contentment we felt in those kinds of houses was much more than in a modern structure.




One French architect that my s.i.l. had to study, claimed that all we needed was houses designed as cars. Another architect of dubious character and a questionable home life, claimed all you had to do was ask a brick what it wanted to be. "I said to the brick, 'brick, what do you want to be? It answered me, 'I want to be an arch.' " Today this man's structures sit in modern decay, begging for money to resurrect them. One of these architects created a structure with airplain wings for the roof. The professor proudly told my son-in-law that this designer wanted to make the world a better place, and this piece was an expression of that. My son in law, older now, and more wise to the ways of modernists, said, "Just a minute. Please explain to us how that structure makes the world a better place." The teacher fell over his own words trying to get out of explaining it because the challenge startled him and he was not prepared to explain it.

To emphasize how a home can either be conducive to family life and family love, or be errosive, I found this quote by famed 20th century architect, Frank Lloyd Wright:

"A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines. "

He also knew that architecture had a strong effect on the human mind, for he said that he could design a house that could cause a divorce in a matter of weeks.

Road to Lighthouse
Art Print
Chiu, T. C.
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I believe we should hold designers and architects responsible for what they do. In a free market system, every architect and designer should have to go back to the houses they created and ask the dwellers how they are getting along. It would be interesting to see if there are more family quarrels, more stress, less efficiency, less relaxation, or more family cohesiveness in the homes they live in. If the family expressed dissatisfaction, the designers would get a bad grade. Architecture schools would thrive only based on the reputation of the students they produced with their curriculums--whether or not that person's work was good and lasting, and whether o not the homes were desireable. Surveys would have to be produced that included how much crime was committed in those neighborhoods, divorce, family quarrels, and general discontent. That is not to say that human problems are the the entire fault of architecture, but just to show how bad architecture does contribute to some problems.



Enchanted Garden
Art Print
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For more about Andrew Jackson Downing, check here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Jackson_Downing

http://www.fredericklawolmsted.com/ajdowning.htm










(A design by A.J. Downing in the 1800's)

"Every house musthave something in its aspect which the heart an fasten upon and become attached to..." A.J. Downing

Online book of Alexander Jackson Davis house plans http://books.google.com/books?id=KuWL9UnyEWQC&dq=alexander+jackson+davis&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=iYnm5gk9wO&sig=JocedDS0ePT6QV6oeCABoZignFU
Addition (Oct. 1, 2007): My son in law has asked me to ask readers to post their observations of the effect of architecture on their moods and their daily life for some research he is doing while in architecture school. Things like traffic flow, interference, inconvenience, lack of beauty, isolation, uneasiness, etc....please post your thoughts and I'll send it all to him. Its okay to post anonymously but it also is okay to send pictures to describe the problems.
Also, I want to emphasise a point that one woman brought up in the comments. I commented on it but want to add it here: With any radical change that "they" (those who foist it upon us) want to present, comes the knowledge of just how much we will tolerate. Like bad legislation, they will often tack on an advantage that we just can't live without or that adds to our comfort, whether it be refrigeration or nice formica in the kitchen, to distract us from the other problems that we would object to. Then we end up living in houses that have terrible architecture--architecture that somehow makes us feel nervous or discontent, but we think, "I should be grateful, because I at least have running water and I'm not living in a tent." Well with some of these designs, I could have been happier in a tent or a motor home.The house made you want to scream. I've talked to other women about this and they said the same thing, "I thought it was just me. I thought I was being ungrateful." It isn't just you. There were efforts after major wars to change housing so that people would feel like animals. Modernists were educated to believe in evolution, and evolution plays a part in modern architecture. Christians, especially, will be so polite and so tolerant because they don't want to seem ungrateful, that these elitist designers will change our cities, add things to our water, and create all kinds of problems for us, knowing it will take years for anyone to notice to the point of objecting. Architecture is the same way. They create terrible looking buildings even in the country: barns that look like ammunition storage sheds, etc. taking away the beauty and sentimentality of the farms and creating horrid scenery for us to look at across the field. It is revolting. It took a hundred years to made the old Victorian houses break down and turn into haunted houses, but it only takes a few days to make you feel like screeching in shock at some of the newer places you have to live in, due to the bad architecture.
One major differences in the houses of the 19th century and the Victorian era is this: the houses were almost always built for someone, and rarely were two exactly alike, whereas the homes of the last couple of decades were built for sale. That makes a big difference in their comfort and design. It makes a big difference in their dignity. It makes a big difference in the family relationship.

 Below: a design by Alexander Jackson Davis, early American architect.  These houses were designed to delight a family and glorify God.