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Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House Paperback – May 17, 2005

by Cheryl Mendelson (Author)

379 customer reviews

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The classic bestselling resource for every American home. Choosing fabrics, cleaning china, keeping the piano in tune, making a good fire, folding a fitted sheet, setting the dining room table, keeping surfaces free of food pathogens, watering plants, removing stains -- Home Comforts addresses the meanings as well as the methods of hands -- on housekeeping to help you manage everyday chores, find creative solutions to modern domestic dilemmas, and enhance the experience of life at home.
Further topics include: Making up a bed with hospital corners, Expert recommendations for safe food storage, Reading care labels (and sometimes carefully disregarding them), Keeping your home free of dust mites and other allergens, Home safety and security, A summary of laws applicable to the home, including privacy, accident liability, contracts, and domestic employees and more in this practical, good-humored, historic, philosophical, even romantic, guidebook to the art of household management.

Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House

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Product Details

Paperback: 896 pages
Publisher: Scribner; Reprint edition (May 17, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0743272862
ISBN-13: 978-0743272865
Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 1.7 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (379 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #38,607 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #17 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Home Improvement & Design > How-to & Home Improvements > Home Repair
- #60 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Home Improvement & Design > How-to & Home Improvements > Cleaning, Caretaking & Relocating

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Customer Reviews

379

4.4 out of 5 stars

5 star		72%
4 star		12%
3 star		8%
2 star		2%
1 star		6%

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Top Customer Reviews

What you get out of it depends on what you read into it

ByJ. Greelyon August 17, 2000

Format: Hardcover

I bought this book without knowing anything about it. As a thirtysomething single man who just bought his first house, I've been looking for the practical information that I never got growing up (more my fault than mom's), and after idly flipping through this book in the store, I was convinced that I'd found it. The amount of venom contained in many of the reviews here was frankly astonishing to me, and for a moment I wondered if I'd wandered onto the wrong page by mistake.
Home Comforts is not "the fascists guide to spotless houses at the expense of friends, family, career, and joy". Indeed, the author repeatedly stresses that her methods and schedules are suggestions, nothing more, and goes to great lengths to explain why each task should be done in the first place, and how to balance the effort against the benefits. I found nothing in it to suggest that I, living alone in my brand-new house, should be forced into hours of weekly drudgery in order to meet an irrational white-glove standard; what I found was a set of clear explanations that would allow me to make informed choices on how to set my own standards and keep up with them in a reasonable and realistic way.
Attempting to read it from cover to cover in one sitting is indeed overwhelming, and I can see why it left some people feeling inadequate or with the false impression that the author was looking down her nose at the readers. I didn't know most of those things either, and much of what I thought I knew was wrong.
Some aspects that others find off-putting added to the charm for me. Who but a lawyer would, when faced with the complications of laundry care labels, reach immediately for the federal regulations governing them? The book gets a bit chatty, but if I didn't know what sort of person the author was, how would I know what motivated her advice in a particular area? I don't think I'd reached page seven before I was wondering "if there were any more at home like her", and not because I wanted to hire one as a full-time housekeeper; Mendelson is a "rational romantic", mixing equal parts of enthusiasm and sensibility into her writing.
As for omissions, I'm hard-pressed to find any significant ones. Doesn't say anything about doing your own plumbing or electrical work? Why should it? The information it does supply is geared to living in a home, not repairing or renovating one. For those who choose to do more in that area, she makes a point of recommending other sources. Personally, the only thing I've noticed so far that it doesn't say anything specific about is getting stains out of concrete floors, something I'm willing to research on my own, since she's saved me the trouble for pretty much every other kind of floor and wall covering I'm likely to encounter.
Oh, and I bought Mom a copy. Hopefully she'll take it the right way...
-j

77 comments 691 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

An essential reference

ByA customeron February 11, 2000

Format: Hardcover

"Home Comforts" is a massive guide to the fundamentals of keeping house. An engaging writer (on a subject I NEVER would have thought I would care about), Ms. Mendelson provides a thorough reference to caring for one's home and possessions, from the proper way to clean wood floors to how to lower one's dry-cleaning expenses to safety matters. For someone like me who never really learned how to keep house, this is an essential reference.

Yes, the author is often obssessive--and she freely admits to that charge. (Has Martha Stewart ever done so?) In fact, she details which chores she believes are essential and which tasks are obssessive. But her advice seems to be generally sound and thoroughly researched, especially when it comes to explaining the scientific & medical reasons of why certain tasks should be done in certain ways. (The chapter on dust mites is, frankly, slightly terrifying.)

This isn't a book about decorating or crafts for the home or time management (though there is some advice about organizing). There are dozens of other sources for those subjects--take this for what it is. It's fantastic, and it's changed the way my husband and I keep our house. I wish more books--fiction and non-fiction--could be so well-written.

0Comment 495 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

I wish I'd had this years ago....

ByJanice Campbellon June 1, 2000

Format: Hardcover

Mendelson's lucid prose transforms the hot-button subject of homemaking (which is more than just housekeeping) into an activity worthy of time and attention. Without the slightest preachiness, she covers everything you need to know to run a home efficiently. Her gentle, practical tone eliminates any need for defensiveness, so it is possible to glimpse her vision of the pleasantness of order.
The book is more like a detailed, well-organized textbook than a "helpful hints" manual. For example, the "Cloth" section begins with descriptions of modern fabrics, and thoroughly discusses everything relevant to choosing, laundering, ironing, folding, removing stains, sanitizing (for contagious diseases, lice, or poison ivy), and troubleshooting fabric difficulties. And she manages to make it interesting!
My mother, whose home was perfectly maintained, used many of Mendelson's techniques and scheduling ideas, but never passed them on to me (she preferred to do it herself so that it would be done "right") so I grew up feeling that housework was something I couldn't successfully do.Since there are few things more depressing than feeling incompetant, I've tried to learn homemaking through trial and error. This book would have eliminated much of the error, and provided a much shorter and more pleasant learning curve.
I recommend this book to anyone who has a home or wants to be prepared to maintain one. It's well worth the price.

0Comment 274 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

A Comfortable Home and Week-ends Too!

ByA customeron November 27, 1999

Format: Hardcover

One of the highlights of the Cheryl Mendelson's book is the suggestion for schedules - what should be done daily, weekly, monthly, etc.
In the past, the only cleaning I did during the week was wash the dishes, clean the counters and take out the garbage. That left weekends as the only time to launder, dust, vacuum, and on and on.
Needless to say, weekends were not a lot of fun and the feeling of peace that you feel when you're in a clean home only existed for one or two days.
Thank you, Ms Mendelson, for helping me find a way to have a comfortable home 7 days a week and time to enjoy my week-ends!

0Comment 175 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Most Recent Customer Reviews

Great read!

Great read! Lots of room for improvement at my house! Very comprehensive.

Published 17 days ago by Amazon Customer

The perfect handbook for the housewife

The perfect handbook for the housewife, carpenter, electrician, washerwoman, gardener and farmer. Interesting but not to read in one sitting, but to search for the solution of...Read more

Published 1 month ago by Gonza

This book is awesome. The author takes technical blah blah and actually ...

This book is awesome. The author takes technical blah blah and actually writes in such a way that it invites us to keep house, to take pride in keeping house, to embrace that...Read more

Published 1 month ago by SunnyD

Five Stars

Very useful. Take what you can from it and leave the rest. I really like this book!

Published 2 months ago by a. n.

Thank you, Ms. Mendelson

i am not a good housekeeper. I own it, am not proud of it, and would like to improve.

This book has made me pay more attention to the details that make up a well...Read more

Published 2 months ago by Jody

Awesome text book...

THE consummate home keeping text book. In fact, I lost the original copy I bought in 2000, and was delighted to find it again.

Published 4 months ago by Bernice Woodson

Wonderfully written and organized

Wonderfully written and organized, this book is about more than cleaning house.

I wish she would write revisions because of technological changes, e.g.Read more

Published 5 months ago by Kathleen

Five Stars

I love this book. Great ideas very practical.

Published 6 months ago by Amazon Customer

Very poor formatting on the kindle

I do not recommend buying the kindle version of this book. There are missing images, words, and links. There are semi-random line breaks.Read more

Published 7 months ago by DAVID M JONES

One Star

Verbose, preachy, not very helpful, unless you miss your bossy big sister.

Published 8 months ago by TrufflesEater

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Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House Paperback – May 17, 2005

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