Why Do Houses Have Baseboards?
I think about baseboards all the time, but mostly because of cleaning. They collect dust. They get scuffed. Vacuums bang into them. A room can look clean until you notice…
Whatever Happened to Potpourri?
There was a time when a perfectly respectable bowl in a perfectly respectable living room might contain pinecones, wood shavings, dried rosebuds, curls of orange peel and several other things…
Bleach Makes Things Disappear
By Robin Murphy Bleach has a reputation. I’ve had plenty of people ask whether we use it, and the question usually comes up when they’re talking about something they consider…
Your Bathroom Gets Dirty Because You Get Clean
Soap and water went into the shower to get you clean. Together they made something that wasn't there before. A lot of bathroom dirt isn't tracked in. It's manufactured on site.
How Lemon Became the Smell of Clean
Clean didn’t always smell like lemons. So how did a fruit become shorthand for a freshly cleaned house? The answer is hiding in the cleaning aisle.
Why Clean Sheets Feel So Good
The room looks almost exactly the same. But getting into a bed with freshly washed sheets feels completely different. Few household jobs deliver so much pleasure for something nobody else can even see.
Natural Isn’t a Safety Rating
Green claims took over the cleaning aisle in the early 1990s. Regulators wrote rules for a dozen words. Natural wasn't one of them.
Your House Has Desire Lines
Urban planners have a name for the paths people wear across the grass instead of using the sidewalk. Your house has them too.
Who Decided the Toilet Should Be White?
A white toilet has no secrets. Which makes it a strange color to have chosen — unless the point was never to hide anything.
The Color of the Year Is a Feeling
By Robin Murphy On August 26, Behr announced its 2027 Color of the Year. It’s green. More precisely, it’s an earthy olive green that can move toward moss depending on…