Open House - A behind-the-scenes view of Manage My Home

Things My Mother Taught Me

As the baby of the family, I had the privilege of having my mother to myself while my siblings were off at that mysterious, wondrous place called school. But because there were eight children in my family, it's not like my mother had time to play Candy Land all day. And because television had yet to become the universal babysitter, my only option was to follow my mother around, helping with the housework that no doubt would have gone much faster had she stuck me in front of the TV.

Most things she taught me about housework have been absorbed into the vast amorphous blob of Things I Just Know, but a few moments are crystallized in my memory like sugared violets. For example, I remember when she first taught me how to make a square corner on the tucked edge of the flat sheet, a lesson she had to repeat numerous times. Here are a few other lessons from those crystallized memories:

• Face the folded edge of towels and sheets towards the door of the linen closet, so the closet looks tidier when you open the door.
  
• When folding sheets, sandwich the fitted sheet and pillowcases into the crease of the flat sheet, making a thick tidy bundle. That way, you have everything you need when you pull it from the linen closet, and the closet looks tidier.
  
• Open the boxes of soap stored in the linen closet (which apparently was a very important place). Not only do they scent the closet and its contents in a way that you'll remember long after your mother is gone, but they dry out a little, which makes them last longer.
  
• When washing windows, dry the outer edges first, deep into the corners. The middle then pretty much takes care of itself. The same principle applies to buttering toast. I was able to figure out on my own that the next step is to pile on cinnamon sugar, a principle that applies only to the toast. 
  
• Make the bed, and whole bedroom looks neater.
  
• Eat a sugar cube when you have the hiccups. Granted, that's not a housekeeping task, but because that was the only time we were allowed one of those magical cubes in the yellow box hidden at the back of an upper kitchen cabinet, it merits mention.
  
• Just because the cat eats cat food doesn't mean cat food tastes good. Oh, wait, that's something I learned on my own.

It wasn't until I was older – 10 or so – that she taught me how to mix a perfect Manhattan for her as she cooked dinner. After all she did have eight children.

Tell me, what do you remember learning from your parents about taking care of a home?

-Erin, Managing Editor

It's Payback Time

I hired a new writer (who, for the sake of confusion, is also named Erin), and one of her projects is to rewrite articles in the Home Handbook to make them easier to read and more useful. To that end, we reviewed a paragraph about how high-efficiency washers and dryers are more expensive than conventional models, but over time the water and energy they save offsets the extra up-front expense.

The idea of payback crossed my mind this evening as I reversed the door of my high-efficiency Kenmore dryer. For two years, I've awkwardly reached around the door, which opened towards the washer, to toss in the wet laundry.

I'd not given the matter any thought until the other day, when a mechanically inclined friend pointed out that the door could be reversed, so that it would swing away from the washer, out of my path from the washer to the dyer's drum. So this evening, having had a productive day all around, I thought, "hey, I'll just take a few minutes right now to knock off that little task," which pretty much required just removing the hinges, attaching them to the other side of the door, and attaching the door to the other side of the opening.

As it turns out, the door is heavy enough that having four hands instead of two would have come in, well, handy. And having two heads instead of one might have saved me from attaching the hinges the wrong way the first time. Then there was the matter of the dropped screw I had to fish out from under the dryer (found a sock!) and the drill bits I had to pick up after I knocked the box to the floor while putting away the screwdriver.

All told, I estimate the job took 30 minutes. And while I'm rather pleased with myself, I wonder how long it will be before the time I save transferring wet wash to the dryer offsets those 30 minutes.  Assuming I save 15 seconds per load, and do two loads a week, it comes out to about 60 weeks.

Not figuring in the time I just spent figuring.

-Erin, Managing Editor

The Housing Mess in My Life: To Refinance or Not

Last year, when we bought our house, I finally achieved that all important milestone - my parents could officially say I was an adult.  It was the last checkmark I needed for my Mom to think that I could have a solid, stable adult life and confront the big decisions ahead easily - I mean, I navigated real estate and mortgages - I can handle anything!  Or so I thought.

The recent turmoil in the housing market (yes, an understatement I know) has left us as new homeowners a little confused.  Should we worry that our home value has dropped?  I mean, how does it really affect us if we weren't planning on selling next month.    Should we look at that bigger house down the street that would let us have a dog and a backyard because the prices are low?  Well, not sure we could sell our house even if we wanted to.  Should we think about refinancing to get a lower interest rate?  Um, let someone yet again crawl into my credit score, make my palms all sweaty, comment on my college credit card payment history all to save a percentage point - I don't think so. 

Perhaps I said that too quickly.  Refinancing is one activity that we thought might apply to us - and considering I live with a very active micro-manager of finances and it might save us money, I was told to pursue.  So I did. 

After a little research, I found help from a place I would not have expected - Microsoft.  MSN Money had a great article to confirm what I hoped - that I wouldn't have to go through the pain of refinancing.  We aren't sure we are going to stay in our house long enough to make it worth the effort.  In addition, we are also pretty comfortable with our current payment so the extra effort might not really "save" us money. 

Now - that is not the case with all, or even most, homeowners.  I'm hoping that we can quickly help homeowners know what help they can get and if they need it at all.  A proclamation that hits the New York Times front page or the opening segment on Fox News doesn't mean I know what to do for my own decisions as a new homeowner.   

-Jim, Chief Home Manager

Tell Me: Is It Really Possible to Catch Up?

I'm working from home today so I don't share my sniffles and possibly imminent death with the rest of the Manage My Home team. And as I drag the sickly shell of my former self from room to room, I'm aware that 1) I seldom see my house in daylight and 2) daylight is as unflattering to my house as it is to Blanche Dubois. Here's the short list of things I really should do at this very moment:

1. Dust the stovetop (says something about how often I cook, doesn't it?).
2. Clean the crumbs out of the refrigerator cheese drawer (which is devoid of cheese but does have a tub of tofu).
3. Vacuum.
4. Start a load of laundry.
5. Spackle concealer over the bags under my eyes.
6. Finish reading Groundswell, which our big boss suggested we all read. I borrowed it from the library 6 weeks ago and am on page 44.
7. Renew Groundswell. Again.
8. Renew my passport.
9. File a stack of papers.
10. Go through my filed papers and get rid of old ones.
11. Throw the two empty 24-oz bottles of Diet Mountain Dew into the recycling bin.
12. Find the receipt for the shampoo to return to Ulta (note to self: always smell hair products before buying).
13. Reply to a Christmas letter from a friend who lives in a 150-year-old cabin without running water or electricity (who obviously will never read this posting).
14. Finish the 5 crossword puzzles set aside in various rooms.
15. Clean the basement.

I'd keep going, but at this moment I'm feeling a lil bit creeped out, especially about the cheese drawer.

I estimate that if I added nothing new to my to-do list and devoted 8 hours a day to catching up, I could be caught up in, say, 5 days. Mayyybeeee 10. That doesn't sound too bad, except that the to-do list expands daily (often when the mail arrives), and I'm lucky to have 8 hours a week to spend catching up.

So tell me: is it really possible to catch up? And if you were to add nothing new to your list and spend 8 hours a day catching up, how long would it take you?

-Erin, Managing Editor

Almost Famous Houses

I just found out that Cindy, who blogged awhile back about her recent home-buying experience, bought the house where Bob Newhart lived as a child — never even told us all about it! I mean, that's kinda like knowing someone who kinda knows someone famous. Lincoln slept here, and all that.

I, on the other hand, am never too shy to tell people that my mother grew up in a house famous for surviving the Chicago fire. It's known as the Bellinger Cottage, at 2121 N Hudson Avenue in the Lincoln Park neighborhood — although back then the street was called Lincoln Park Place. It's hardly a cottage by today's standards, and given its now-posh location no longer sells for cottage-like prices when it goes on the market.  

On the topic of famous houses, check out our article about the old house in It's a Wonderful Life, and the one about Tara in Gone with the Wind, (by freelancers Jacqueline Gilvard and Faith Trinkl, respectively). I'm tempted to add to our library an article about Dorothy's house in The Wizard of Oz, especially since this year is the film's 70^th anniversary.

-Erin, Managing Editor