Our love for mid-century ephemera is what initially lead us to pick up this 1948 pamphlet of household hints at a garage sale, but we were surprised by how useful, practical, thrifty and green some of the advice was. Here are ten of our favorite tips for cleaning and saving some pennies around the house.
1. Make homemade room or closet deodorizer by mixing some diluted ammonia with fresh water and letting it sit out in a bowl overnight.
2. To erase fingerprints and spots from wallpaper, rub stale, soft chunks of bread in even vertical strokes.
3. Remove paper stuck to a wood surface by allowing a few drops of oil to soak into it and then rubbing it gently with a clean cloth.
4. Clean varnished surfaces with a cloth dipped in cool, weak tea. Tea also makes a good fertilizer for house plants and acts as an insecticide.
5. When you crack a dish, put it in a pan of milk and boil it for 45 minutes. The crack will usually disappear and the dish will actually become stronger.
6. Deodorize jars and bottles by pouring a solution of water and dry mustard into them and let them stand for several hours.
7. Pour hot salt water down your sink and tub drains once or twice a week to keep them free of grease and odors.
8. Sharpen scissors by cutting a piece of sandpaper once or twice with them.
9. Chill candles in the refrigerator for 24 hours before using them so the will burn evenly and not drip.
10. If a pot lid loses its knob, put a pointed screw through the hole and twist a cork (which is heatproof) onto it.
Have you tried any of these or other time-tested home hacks?
Tips found in A Treasury of Household Hints to Help You Beat the High Cost of Living, Edited by Michael Gore, 1948
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Comments (18)
Would be very interested to know if (and why) #5 works.
I was thinking the exact same thing. Also, how does a pot ever lose its knob? Wouldn't you notice it getting loose?
Would REALLY love to know about #5 too.
#5 seems very mid-century. Milk could cure everything back then!
@viviangrrrl: I inherited a set of pots from my parents, and one of the lids is missing a knob. I don't know if I'd want to stick a cork on there, though...
#7 needs to be boiling water and it does work.
My best bet would be that by boiling the plate in milk the plate absorbs the calcium and other minerals from the milk. Just an idea...
Yeah, but considering how milk boils (over, how would one successfully do that for 45 min?
I don't understand how #5 would work. I have a mug that's cracked, but I don't know if milk will magically reseal ceramic and glaze.
I am going to try the cork as a pot lid knob replacement. My pot lost its knob after a bounce off the tile floor.
#7 definitely does work ... but it also cracks the glazing in a reglazed tub. Sigh.
love these! i have a c.1950s Hints from Heloise book that i refer to often.
Milk is a really good glue; that's about the only way I can see #5 working. Not that I recommend it, if you ever spill milk on a book, it will effectively glue all the pages together, ruining your reading experience! It's also handy for permanently pasting posters to walls. There's just something sticky about all the sugars in milk that work wonderfully when dry.
I've actually been told NOT to do #8 because it ruins the cutting surface of scissors. Good for the short-term, I guess, but not long term.
#5 might work if you have vitreous china, but it's a waste of milk for most mass produced stuff made today.
And sandpaper ruins scissors.
Why not try these before posting?
#5 reminds me of that old wives tale about putting a lost tooth in milk while you rush to the dentists office....sounds dubious.
I can attest to #9 though- my mom and grandma did this every time they threw a dinner party. Works well! Be careful with darker tone candles tho- sometimes the color becomes....not so nice. Try a test candle the night before.
i've had luck replacing a lost pot knob with an empty thread spool, screw and nut. I'm not sure how durable a cork would be.
The scissor/sandpaper "tip" doesn't work (people also say steel wool, which doesn't work either)
I've heard that, as a variation of #7, you can pour boiling vinegar water down your kitchen disposal, and it'll help cut grease and unclog it.
to lilbetty:
As a dentist I can asure you that if you lose a tooth you should put it in milk as soon as possible whitout cleaning the tooth. It's the only way to preserve the tooth whitout damage. To put it in a bag, a handkerief or anything like that saves you a trip to the dentist as the tooth will no longer be able to grow attached again. So no old wives tale: a recommodation from a dentist.
P.s. a combination of (still fluid/wet) spit and blood would work well too.
I think it is probably the casein, not the sugar, in milk that makes #5 work (if it works). Casein was a common glue and paint ingredient at the turn of the century.
The dry-mustard-and-hot-water trick works like a charm on tupperware, too. Just don't use prepared mustard, because the oil clings to it and makes it all smell like mustard!