New homes 01

Shilling monthlies Home, Homes and Gardens, and The Ideal Home promote modern homes on brand-new suburban estates, and outline purchasing options. Advertisements placed by estate agents highlight suburbia’s amenities, including rural surroundings, sporting facilities, a short commute, and modern conveniences such as gas and electricity. In the example shown here, homes on the Moor Park Estate, just 30 minutes from Baker Street station, boast gas cookers and heaters, hot towel rails, and plugs for electrical appliances.

For those unable or unwilling to buy homes in suburbia, cheap land presented opportunities to self-build. Features discussing the self-build process are supported by advertisements for prefabricated homes. Flats, a labour-saving housing option, also receive coverage.

A more general interest in modern architecture is expressed by articles showcasing modern houses and construction methods. Alongside these features, photo essays explore historic buildings, and (occasionally) tour celebrities’ homes.

Readers wishing to modernise their current homes may draw advice and inspiration from articles discussing the installation of electricity and attic renovations.

Interiors

Interior design features in Home, Homes and Gardens, and The Ideal Home help readers to plan and furnish their homes. Collectively, these magazines review wallpapers, fabrics, furniture, tableware, ornaments, heating and lighting fixtures, kitchen and bathroom fittings, and accessories including drawer handles and door knockers. They also discuss the design and layout of individual rooms, including rooms for children.

These features are supported by advertisements, which often use hire purchase (a down payment followed by instalments) to persuade readers to spend.

In all three magazines, a keen interest in antique furniture and ornaments runs alongside the desire to own the latest commodities. Some articles even suggest disguising modern fittings, to prevent them from destroying the “decorative effect” of the rooms they occupy.

Renovation, repair, and make-it-yourself projects, sometimes submitted by readers, offer a more low-cost approach to interior design.

Housework

Housework articles in Homes and Gardens and The Ideal Home help their readers to manage and maintain their homes. Evidence of the decline in domestic service, most of these articles address housewives who undertake their chores themselves, although columns outlining legal relations between employer and servant indicate that some are believed to have paid help.

In the growing absence of servants, domestic technology is on the rise. Throughout the 1920s, all three magazines recommend and review electrical and gas-powered appliances including vacuum cleaners and floor polishers, washing machines, cookers, irons, and, by the end of the decade, refrigerators. Again, adverts offer further encouragement to spend.

That the more expensive appliances remain largely aspirational, however, is indicated by reviews suggesting cheaper options, and offering guidance for undertaking the work in question by hand.

Cooking is a further key task expected of the women targeted by Homes and Gardens and The Ideal Home. Both magazines print regular recipe pages.

Gardens

Regular gardening features show readers of Homes and Gardens and The Ideal Home how to make the most of their gardens. Supported, as before, by advertisements, these features cover practical tasks such as the cultivation of flowers and vegetables, poultry keeping, and lawn maintenance, along with garden design, sheds, furniture and ornaments, and play equipment for children.

The upkeep of tennis courts is also addressed, although for many readers this would have been aspirational.

Exhibitions

Held annually in the Olympia exhibition centre, London, the Ideal Home Exhibition showcased the very latest domestic innovations. In the March 1925 issue of The Ideal Home, extended feature “The Ideal Home Exhibition” promotes this event, promising that visitors can browse the latest in housing, furnishings, appliances, heating and lighting, food and cookery, gardening, and items for children, recreation, and photography. The page shown here shares some of the items displayed at the event.

Held at Wembley, London, during 1924 and 1925, the British Empire Exhibition displayed the output and resources of Britain’s colonies. This event receives extensive coverage in Homes and Gardens, which promotes exhibits of antique furniture, “’Period’ Rooms” showing two centuries of interior design, and “Domestic Utilities” including gas and electricity.

Budget

Twopenny weekly Woman’s Weekly targets women on lower incomes than those addressed by Homes and Gardens and The Ideal Home. Articles and adverts promoting homes in suburbia are absent from this magazine, along with features discussing domestic electricity, the management of servants, and electrical and gas-powered appliances, although adverts for cheaper labour-savers, such as a spirit iron and an oil stove, do appear. Readers maintain their homes unaided, supported by Cecile’s weekly cookery page, housework and childcare advice, adverts for budget foodstuffs and cleaning products, and – at the start of the 1920s – a weekly gardening column.

Thrift is the keynote of Woman’s Weekly interior design. The homeware advertised in the magazine is cheap; foregrounding budget renovations and repairs, features discussing room layout and furnishings inspire home improvements for minimal costs. This Woman’s Weekly interior design article shows readers who cannot afford a bedroom suite how to furnish their bedrooms without one. Below it, cookery and housework columnist “Cecile” (a pseudonym) responds to queries in relation to ink stain removal, dyeing wool, curing the skin of a hare, and cleaning beaver.

Woman’s Weekly interior design also gives readers opportunities to develop and display their handicraft skills, using knitting, crochet, and sewing patterns to make and embellish items of homeware including mats and doilies, tablecloths, tea cosies, bedlinen, curtains, and cushions.

As though acknowledging how hard readers work to maintain their homes, serialised and complete stories offer escapism from housework.