The mystical movement of energy, Vaastu Shastra from India and Feng Shui from China are looked at through 'house dressing' and creating a healthy home from the ancient secrets of these sacred studies for the modern age. Over the last sixty years these olde mysteries have found worldwide application in all aspects of architecture and interior design with the aim to create healthier environments and homes by balancing the flow of positive and negative energies.

This book is a collection of gardening memories, some humorous, some poignant, and some philosophical. They are recollections by a columnist who appreciates that gardening is not only about cultivating plants, but about the connection of the earth and insects and animals and people, and the memories nurtured from those relationships.

We each of us strive for domestic bliss, and we may look to Delia and Nigella to give us tips on achieving the unattainable. Kathryn Hughes, acclaimed for her biography of George Eliot, has pulled back the curtains to look at the creator of the ultimate book on keeping house. In Victorian England what did every middle-class housewife need to create the perfect home? 'The Book of Household Management'. 'Oh, but of course!' Mrs Beeton would no doubt declare with brisk authority. But Mrs Beeton is not quite the matronly figure that has kept her name resonating 150 years after the publication of 'The Book of Household Management'. The famous pages of carefully costed recipes, warnings about not gossiping to visitors, and making sure you always keep your hat on in someone else's house were indispensable in the moulding of the Victorian domestic bliss. But there are many myths surrounding the legend of Mrs Beeton. It is very possible that her book was given so much social standing through fear as she was believed to be a bit of an old dragon. It seems though that Mrs Beeton was a series of contradictions. Kathryn Hughes reveals here that Bella Beeton was a million miles away from the stoical, middle-aged matron. She was in fact only 25 years old when she created the guide to successful family living and had only had five years experience of her own to inform her. She lived in a semi-detached house in Pinner with the bare minimum of servants. She bordered on being a workaholic, and certainly wasn't the meek and mild little wife that her book was aimed at - more a highly intelligent and ambitious young woman. After preaching about wholesome and clean living, Bella Beeton died at the age of 28 from (contrary to her parent's belief) bad hygiene. Kathryn Hughes sympathetically explores the irony behind Bella Beeton's public and private image in this highly readable and informative study of Victorian lifestyle.

This first book-length treatment of the life and work of Christine Frederick (1883-1970) reveals an important dilemma that faced educated women of the early twentieth century. Contrary to her professional role as home efficiency expert, advertising consultant, and consumer advocate, Christine Frederick espoused the nineteenth-century ideal of preserving the virtuous home--and a woman's place in it. In an effort to reconcile her desire to succeed in the public sphere of modernization and consumerism with the knowledge that most middle-class Americans still held traditional beliefs about gender roles, Frederick fashioned a career for herself that encouraged other women to remain at home. With the rise of home economics and scientific management, Frederick--college-educated but confined to the drudgery of housework--devised a plan for bringing the public sphere into the domestic. Her home would become her factory. She learned how to standardize tasks by observing labor-saving devices in industry and then applied this knowledge to housework. She standardized dishwashing, for example, by breaking the job into three separate operations: scraping and stacking, washing, and drying and putting away. Determined to train women to become proficient homemakers and efficient managers, Frederick secured a job writing articles for the Ladies' Home Journal. A professional career as home efficiency expert later expanded to include advertising consultant and consumer advocate. Frederick assured male advertisers that she knew women well and promised to help them sell to ""Mrs. Consumer."" While Frederick sought the power and influence available only to men, she promoted a division of labor by gender and therefore served the fall of the early-twentieth-century wave of feminism. Rutherford's engaging account of Christine Frederick's life reflects a dilemma that continues to affect women today--whether to seek professional gratification or adhere to traditional family values.

Feng Shui for your Baby Nursery: A Complete Guide to Preparing Your Baby's Room using Feng Shui to achieve Balance and Harmony You interested in Feng Shui? You know everything there is to know regarding Feng Shui for your home? You need to know Feng Shui for your new baby's room? Want to provide your new baby with the best possible energy when entering this world? Need quick tips on setting up your nursery? Want to know whats important and whats not? Want the best design possible for your nursery? Lets dive right in! Download your copy now!

Mrs Beeton reigned supreme among the writers of domestic manuals in the Victorian era. Much more than just a cookery book, or even a guide to household management, her Book of Household Management is full of historic and literary anecdotes - she aimed to give her readers a thorough education. Today it is more than just a historical curiosity; as well as a great sourcebook for nineteenth century recipes, it also provides a fascinating insight into the lives of the people of its time and is a thoroughly entertaining read. This is a new edition (not a scan) of the 1861 text; it is unabridged and includes all the original illustrations in black and white.