Book excerpt: This classic volume—now available in a new, smaller format and at a reduced price—provides time-tested advice and old-fashioned wisdom for maintaining a lovely and inviting home. The frantic quality of modern life and our increasing reliance on technology and on manufactured goods has submerged our awareness of the inherited and seasonal patterns of effective domestic household management. A Well-Kept Home revives the more natural methods used by our forebears to run their homes, reflecting on the traditional way that earlier generations cooked, cleaned, decorated, groomed, and gardened. In this exquisitely illustrated book, Laura Fronty draws on her own grandmother’s life experiences in the home and the garden, providing helpful tips and natural solutions for effective food preparation, cleaning methods for clothes and the interior, restorative beauty treatments, and basic approaches to gardening. She emphasizes the satisfaction gained from even the most mundane of tasks and offers indispensable tips for activities that cover a variety of domestic themes, such as making bitter orange marmalade or instant shortcrust pastry, lighting a wood fire, treating wooden floors with wax, mixing ivy water for cleaning delicate fabrics, and preparing lily oil as a face moisturizer. A Well-Kept Home transforms our approach to the daily chores surrounding the upkeep of a home. The practical advice and natural recipes make it possible to take real pleasure in essential household duties, while at the same time evoking the atmosphere and spirit of a time gone by.