by Cheryl Mendelson, 1999
What an amazing book! Everything you could ever want to know about keeping a home in 837 pages! She gives instructions on EVERYTHING – cleaning, what to do in what order and with what products, the actual chemistry behind cleaning products, how to set a table, stock a kitchen, clean anything and everything. She instructs us what to clean daily, weekly, monthly, and seasonally. She talks about fabrics and sheets and comforters and rugs and carpets. She talks about keepsakes, documents to keep and for how long, inventories, insurance, fire safety, general safety in the home, pets, how to shop for meals, how long to keep different types of food, home-made cleaners, a list of basic cleaners, etc. What a complete and thorough book! After reading this book (and I didn’t read every page), I bought a bottle of Fabuloso which is an all purpose cleaner, and stopped using ammonia. She also includes several pages of home-made cleaners, the most basic of which is 3/4 cup of bleach, 1 gallon of warm water, 1 tablespoon of powdered laundry detergent. Somewhere in this book, I read about Fabuloso, vinegar, and water as a good all purpose cleaner. I can’t find it in the book but I mixed up a spray bottle of it and am starting to use it to clean the bathroom, etc. Fabulous book!