Blanco

Hello Students: Welcome to Home Economics 2011 style.

I'm going to take you on a tour of my home and describe things that I have in white that ease my household chores.  First, when you walk into my home you will be lovingly greeted by my dogs who will probably lick you, and jump on you repeatedly. Then we will walk into my kitchen where my hand towels are all white, this is because of food, spills, raw meat etc. end up on these towels and so they should be bleached.  I only have five white kitchen towels and a few white pot holders and glove. This way they can all be bleached together. 

Next we will walk into my bathroom, that for myself and guest is decorated in all white, except my two small white towels and hand soap dispenser that is also with with a plain black letter P.

Guest I'm sure get a sense of being in a hotel. That is a good thing, as guest do not want to get to know about you and your life in a bathroom.  This is a community restroom, as such it should be kept very clean all the time! Keep your personal items in another bathroom (if you have one.)  If you have one bathroom, then keep the counters free of your personal clutter. You should be safe to assume that most people will take a peek into your medicine cabinet or drawers. This is very normal, not weird, so just keep your personal items in a personal part of your home.  Now if you have other bathrooms such as a master bathroom only you see, still keep it clean and organized but this is your personal room. Do as you please.  In every bathroom in my house all towels are white.  For guest this color shows cleanliness, which a guest will expect from you. This is not why I do it though! If every towel you own in every room kitchen included is white, then how much easier is doing the laundry.  Now let's extend this to all bed sheets. Same rules apply for guest.  Guest enjoy a crisp white clean sheet. I enjoy that too. So keep all sheets white in every room including children's. How much easier would doing laundry be if all your towels and all your sheets were white, would you be sorting less?  Now another reason using white is beneficial is for replacement purchases. If a towel, or sheet starts to look old, or worn out, then you can easily replace one white towel with another. Unless the towels are being displayed (and if they are they shouldn't be used) then nobody will notice the difference between one white towel and another.  This concept is even more important with sheets. I think you know were I'm going with this.  If you are grabbing sheets based on bed size; twin in a child's room, then you do not have to find pairs or sets, you just grab a fitted and loose sheet and pillow case and call it a day. White is white, it doesn't matter.  Now I'm not against using one color scheme for the ease of laundry such as all yellow, all beige, all black, but the problem with colors is the ability to bleach out germs.  Heard of bed-bugs?  *Tip when your washing your white sheets with bleach, make sure to use hot-water.  This system helps with allergies too.  I'm not preferential to fabric softener on sheets, it does make them soft and smell good, but the softness isn't good for skin, and the smell is artificial + it takes the crispness out of them.  ~Hang dry, if you live in an area that it's feasible. That is a trend that should stay. 

I also purposely use the color white in my bathroom's for decoration. I explained above that white is a good color for community bathrooms that guest use. But for style and decoration purposes it can save you money.  How often do you feel the need to re-decorate your bathroom? There is nothing wrong with this, but the whole bathroom set including the shower curtain, mats, and soap counter items really add up, and you haven't even added pictures or candles etc.  So why not use white and add accessories as you see fit. For example:

These above "Paris themed" bathrooms set's are cute, but don't appeal to the masses. The cost of set's like those are expensive too. Since the above set its a trend that a person will likely get tired of quickly because there is so much going on, then it will also get thrown out for another "themed" set.  The set above is also kind of tacky. Obviously not at all how Paris really is. If you like Paris so much, then try to show that through photography of Paris and keep the rest of the bathroom more simple to make re-decorating less of a need. 

Plus most bathrooms in Paris look like this:

Also consider a natural approach to decorating.  The idea of using white doesn't have to be modern, but also antique. 

Let's play a game called what do you like better this or this?

This?

or....

This?

 or...

This?

This one is my favorite and it expresses my point the most about changing the wall art to change the theme instead of buying cheap plastic bathroom sets that are actually pretty expensive when purchased multiple times.

Please read the next post to learn about why bleach is no bueno! And how Vinegar may be a safter option and equally as effective.

~Love...Monique