From the Vault: Lists, Guides and Downloads
As I wrote in the previous column, after a year of living bicoastally, John and I have entered the next phase in relocation to the west coast. This is going to mean a final push of travel between our two hometowns, and for Urban Home Blog, it is going to mean that, for the remainder of February, I will be publishing the columns I tag as From the Vault. In the earliest days of the blog, I used this tag for short columns that referred to content I had published previously but that seemed to merit a second (or third or tenth) click. As Urban Home Blog developed, the Vault that these columns came From grew, and the FTV columns became aggregations of areas of content, presented in context.
A lifestyle writer’s expertise depends on a life of experience as a homekeeper, written about, catalogued, and made available so that anyone who wants to can share it. It becomes a library about homekeeping. In that spirit, I have written – continue to write – and presented Urban Home Blog as an online library of content relevant to homekeepers, as filtered through my twenty plus years and counting as a homekeeper and lifestyle writer. Areas of content include food and drink, decorating, homekeeping, crafts and projects, gardening, holidays, even travel and health. I try to write content that is targeted and timed to what homekeepers are thinking of, and to organize it so that anyone seeking information either by area or topic can easily locate what they are seeking, from recipes to cleaning, from planting to canning, from crafts to book reviews.
As Urban Home Blog developed along the library approach, it happened naturally that some content was best presented as lists and guides. Households run on these simple devices –witness the humble, but vital, grocery store list – and, frankly, there are many areas of homekeeping about which there is no better way to present the information. And so I began publishing lists and guides as the need for that content presented itself through the yearly, seasonal, monthly, weekly and daily rhythms of homekeeping.
Among the earliest and most obvious of these was spring cleaning. Spring cleaning is the very definition of the rhythm of homekeeping being fundamentally linked to the rhythm of life. Spring itself is about reawakening, as all of creation shakes off winter’s deep rest to re-emerge, sleepy to be sure but ready to be reinvigorated. For my understanding of this as for so much, I have to credit my grandmother. Spring cleaning on her Oklahoma homestead was a week-long affair, timed to occur as soon as the hours of daylight equaled the hours of darkness. I have spent many happy hours in the memories of those weeks, and written extensively about them. To access the Urban Home Blog Guide to Spring Cleaning, click here, and for Urban Home Blog’s Guide to Cleaning Products, click here.
As I was writing the guide to spring cleaning, it became evident that it would be of benefit for this content to be available as a printable guide. So the Urban Home Guide to Spring Cleaning has the distinction of being Urban Home’s first free printable guide, though at the time the blog was new enough that I didn’t yet have access to printability. At the time I published the spring cleaning guide, I made it available by email to anyone who asked. Now the problem of printability has been solved, and readers can print or save any column from Urban Home Blog by clicking the PRINT or PDF buttons that are at the bottom of every column. People did ask for the spring cleaning guide – they still do; thank you – and so I have converted many popular lists and guides to free printable downloads. To locate these, click the tab across the top of the blog tagged Lists, Guides and Downloads. (This phrase is also a tag down the right-hand side of the blog). In the tabbed page, free printable downloads are identified and linked to savable and printable documents.
I offer these homekeeping lists, guides and downloads from my experience and expertise as a homekeeper and lifestyle writer, and they are very popular. Among my favorites of the guides are those for learning about and managing household mold and mildew, caring for cut flowers, and building and caring for a terrarium. Among my favorites of the free printable downloads are those for outfitting a home tool kit and hosting a cocktail party. I am always proud of the craft projects, and both the headless horseman softie and official Urban Home Blog bookmark are popular with readers. Among readers, the most popular lists are last January’s columns on home electronics, and the most popular free printable download is that guide to spring cleaning. I’ll also note that lists and guides don’t have to be how-to’s – three very popular areas at Urban Home, whose content is self-evident, are Homekeeper’s Library, Urban Bar and Field Trip.
Lists and guides are fundamental homekeeping tools, every bit as much so as the broom, the spice rack, the sewing machine. Not only are lists and guides important to how we first learn to manage our home, we rely on them as we progress in living in our homes. I cannot fathom planning a trip, decorating for the holidays, doing my taxes without consulting a guide or making a list. I always note that if I write about it, I live it, and for a lifestyle writer, the reverse is also true. Putting myself through grad school by working in a costume shop led to columns on setting up a sewing kit and instructions for hemming pants. But no time recently has the written guide been more directly influenced by what I was experiencing in my own urban homes. Last year, setting up a second household inspired guides to kitchen electrics and kitchen tools, as it did over the winter holidays with the guide to home electronics. Once our relocation is stabilized, I will return to generating content based on my skills and experience as a homekeeper. Perhaps the next guide should be one for moving cross-country!
A lifestyle writer’s expertise depends on a life of experience as a homekeeper, written about, catalogued, and made available so that anyone who wants to can share it. It becomes a library about homekeeping. In that spirit, I have written – continue to write – and presented Urban Home Blog as an online library of content relevant to homekeepers, as filtered through my twenty plus years and counting as a homekeeper and lifestyle writer. Areas of content include food and drink, decorating, homekeeping, crafts and projects, gardening, holidays, even travel and health. I try to write content that is targeted and timed to what homekeepers are thinking of, and to organize it so that anyone seeking information either by area or topic can easily locate what they are seeking, from recipes to cleaning, from planting to canning, from crafts to book reviews.
As Urban Home Blog developed along the library approach, it happened naturally that some content was best presented as lists and guides. Households run on these simple devices –witness the humble, but vital, grocery store list – and, frankly, there are many areas of homekeeping about which there is no better way to present the information. And so I began publishing lists and guides as the need for that content presented itself through the yearly, seasonal, monthly, weekly and daily rhythms of homekeeping.
Among the earliest and most obvious of these was spring cleaning. Spring cleaning is the very definition of the rhythm of homekeeping being fundamentally linked to the rhythm of life. Spring itself is about reawakening, as all of creation shakes off winter’s deep rest to re-emerge, sleepy to be sure but ready to be reinvigorated. For my understanding of this as for so much, I have to credit my grandmother. Spring cleaning on her Oklahoma homestead was a week-long affair, timed to occur as soon as the hours of daylight equaled the hours of darkness. I have spent many happy hours in the memories of those weeks, and written extensively about them. To access the Urban Home Blog Guide to Spring Cleaning, click here, and for Urban Home Blog’s Guide to Cleaning Products, click here.
As I was writing the guide to spring cleaning, it became evident that it would be of benefit for this content to be available as a printable guide. So the Urban Home Guide to Spring Cleaning has the distinction of being Urban Home’s first free printable guide, though at the time the blog was new enough that I didn’t yet have access to printability. At the time I published the spring cleaning guide, I made it available by email to anyone who asked. Now the problem of printability has been solved, and readers can print or save any column from Urban Home Blog by clicking the PRINT or PDF buttons that are at the bottom of every column. People did ask for the spring cleaning guide – they still do; thank you – and so I have converted many popular lists and guides to free printable downloads. To locate these, click the tab across the top of the blog tagged Lists, Guides and Downloads. (This phrase is also a tag down the right-hand side of the blog). In the tabbed page, free printable downloads are identified and linked to savable and printable documents.
I offer these homekeeping lists, guides and downloads from my experience and expertise as a homekeeper and lifestyle writer, and they are very popular. Among my favorites of the guides are those for learning about and managing household mold and mildew, caring for cut flowers, and building and caring for a terrarium. Among my favorites of the free printable downloads are those for outfitting a home tool kit and hosting a cocktail party. I am always proud of the craft projects, and both the headless horseman softie and official Urban Home Blog bookmark are popular with readers. Among readers, the most popular lists are last January’s columns on home electronics, and the most popular free printable download is that guide to spring cleaning. I’ll also note that lists and guides don’t have to be how-to’s – three very popular areas at Urban Home, whose content is self-evident, are Homekeeper’s Library, Urban Bar and Field Trip.
Lists and guides are fundamental homekeeping tools, every bit as much so as the broom, the spice rack, the sewing machine. Not only are lists and guides important to how we first learn to manage our home, we rely on them as we progress in living in our homes. I cannot fathom planning a trip, decorating for the holidays, doing my taxes without consulting a guide or making a list. I always note that if I write about it, I live it, and for a lifestyle writer, the reverse is also true. Putting myself through grad school by working in a costume shop led to columns on setting up a sewing kit and instructions for hemming pants. But no time recently has the written guide been more directly influenced by what I was experiencing in my own urban homes. Last year, setting up a second household inspired guides to kitchen electrics and kitchen tools, as it did over the winter holidays with the guide to home electronics. Once our relocation is stabilized, I will return to generating content based on my skills and experience as a homekeeper. Perhaps the next guide should be one for moving cross-country!
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