On "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House": A Book Review

Title: Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House

Author: Eric Hodgins

Genre: Fiction, Comedy

About the book…

Originally written as the article, “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream Castle”, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, published as a full length novel in 1946, is a comical story of everything going as wrong as it possibly can. When Jim and Muriel Blandings discover they can afford to move out of the city their search for houses leads them to the Old Hackett Property, which has all the trimmings of a proper country space. Falling in love with a house that has rustic and historical charm, though, has its down side, in fact, so much so that they’re told they “should ought to tear it down”. Thus, the Blandings embark into the world of house building and all its troubles from well digging to water softeners. 

This book is the basis for the 1948 movie starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy, as well as an episode on Lux Radio Theatre in 1949.   

What I think… 

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House is one of my most favorite movies and this book is a great favorite of mine as well. 

For those familiar with the movie it is a fairly close match to the book plot wise. A lot more time is spent building up how badly the Blandings want the house, which I think makes all the problems they end up facing even funnier. There is also a charming episode in the book not in the movie where Mr. Blandings becomes enraged with a neighbor for building something that ruins his view. 

Hodgins was supposedly inspired by his own house building troubles when writing the original story and I feel like it really carries over to the book, as it’s quite detailed when it comes to some of the problems they face. 

Accompanying my edition of this book are illustrations by William Steig (of Sylvester and the Magic Pebble and Shrek! fame). These whimsy little sketches add to Hodgins delightful prose. 

To sum it all up… 

As amusing as can be, this book is at the top of my list when it comes to comedic 40’s fiction!  ♥

On Making Room for Crosby and Clooney: A Photo Post

Clearing out some record albums this week, which can be difficult when one of your relatives was a secretary for a record company in the 60's and had lots of promotional ones (hence, an unusual assortment that merits listening to). So far two out of the five I listened to are going...now I have room for this Crosby and Clooney one I bought a few weeks ago!

 

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On My Picnic Skirt

Also known as the “I’m not sewing anything else for the rest of the year, two days after Christmas skirt” from 2012.

For some reason despite this being one of my most oft worn skirts during the summer months I realized a photo had never made it up on the blog. I'm considering this the first effort in to starting to get some other things up here as well.

This was the first circle skirt I made and it’s still my favorite. The print which you can't really see in the other photos is a gingham with slightly raised daisies on it. 

I love how many ways I can style it! This time I paired it with a vintage peasant blouse given to me by a neighbor ages ago, a simple wooden bead bracelet a relative brought me from Italy, and my vintage woven purse.

For my hair I decided to go with a couple rolls about midway (Which are actually staying in quite well today! Yay for cooperative hair!) and then because I spent 15 minutes looking for it this morning decided to add the matching bow as well. Usually I just wear my hair in a bun with this or with a white snood type bun holder, but I’m really liking this look. 

 Happy start of summer!

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