Martha Stewart's Laundry Room

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Thanks for the post, it was a nice read.  I always liked Martha and felt she was "made an example of".  I would agree with you about many of items being present on her arrival.  Laundress,  Happy Holidays alr
 
Those Vintage Cast Iron

Ironing boards/stations pop up on eBay and else where often enough. However they are quite heavy and IIRC some models require bolting to be steady. It looks like the ones at Ms. Stewarts manse simply have balanced (but heavy) bases to keep them in place.

That drying cabinet is very unique and doubt there are more than a few left in the United States and even fewer in operation. There is one at the Vanderbilt mansion in North Carolina, but that is the only other I know about.

Several of my vintage laundry manuals show heavy porcelain laundry/ultility sinks as show in the snaps. Those probably are easier to find but may require work. So many people rip them out and chuck them away when remodeling an older home.

Guess Ms. Stewart is draws the line at a wringer and uses the extractor only for getting water out of hand washables. The Monex unit spins at 1700rpms which is fine for sturdy items, but I wouldn't put fragile or fine linens in there for long.

Cannot believe some people would move out of a home, no matter how great and leave tons of vintage linens behind, not to mention all that fabulous equipment. Then again at that time they were tearing down and or breaking up the great East cost estates by the dozens and no one was really into "vintage" linens much less appliances. Then came Martha Stewart!

Amazing she had commercial gas powered flatwork ironers installed. What the heck is Madame ironing up there?
 
Prison laundry - LOL!

There is an apartment building close to downtown that a couple of friends of mine lived in back in the 80's. Coolest laundry room I've ever seen. Had a cabinet dryer with roll-out racks, eight concrete sinks in the middle of the room back-to-back for washing. There were small closets around the perimeter of the large room for storing your washer and supplies and long, deep counters along one wall for folding, etc. We went on several basement exploration adventures over the years and saw some very cool, ancient things around the downtown area. Giant coal-fired boilers no longer used with fireboxes that you could literally walk into they were so so big. Hadn't thought about that for a long time!

I'll bet Martha is rather difficult to work for.
 
I'm sure they made an example of Ms. Stewart.

I'm sure that Martha Stewart was simply 'made an example of' when they sent her to prison. Given all that has happened in the country in the last 40 years of scandals, thievery, corruption, and everything else her actions - at least the ones we knew about - were minor.

What I found interesting is that she had to testify before Congress. Did the folks from Enron have to do that? Solyndra? Not that I know of, because while these may have been federal cases, they are tried in federal COURT not before the Congress. That in and of itself told me that there was 'example making' in the cards.

Not that the woman is some saint - she started out on Wall Street and we all know what kind of corruption is there. And she's a hard, hard business woman that has built a huge empire. But being a domineering, difficult, hard business person is not a crime. Whether there are other criminal actions there, I have no idea.

Having said all this, do any of you feel that MS is being a parody of herself? I mean, given the requirements on her time, can you really think that she actually ever does ANYTHING domestic herself anymore?
 
Martha's house in Maine

Her estate is not that far from where I live and from what I understand is not very well liked by the locals. Have heard some interesting stories, one in particular involved her barging her way in front of customers at a local grocer. She was confronted by a gentleman in the front of the line to return to the back of the line and she exclaimed "Dont you know who I am?" The gentleman replied that she apparently didnt know who he was either. It was Mr Rockefeller who I have been told is one of the nicest,most down to earth people you could imagine. I heard she was quite horrified and embarrassed and quickly left the store.
 
as she should have.

Nobody would have objected if - say - she was a mom with an asthmatic child who was rushing in to buy an inhaler because her kid was having an attack.

But that kind of behavior is just wrong. And another symptom of what is wrong with our country. Well, maybe it is 'what is wrong with humans!'
 
I too have always liked Martha, at least the public persona Martha  presents.  Funny, I've always been a Martha person, my brother a Rachel Ray.  I doubt all the stories ascribed to her are true, the last one sounds more like a got-cha.

 

Say what you will at least she is saving some of these properties from the wrecking ball.  Interesting rooms(s) in true Martha fashion.  Only thing that seems un-Martha like is the steam exhaust pipes through those great windows.
 
Do you know who I am?

I read an interesting account of a customer pulling this on a gate attendant at an airport, after breaking in at the front of the line. The gate attendant calmly picked up the public address microphone and paged security claiming there was a man at her counter who did not know who he was. It was like pouring water on a small fire--instantly extinquished.

Her behavior, as reported, does not surprise me. I'll bet she is a terror to work for, but it would probably exhaust a person of normal energy levels just to watch her.
 
Saving Estates

Don't think MS was doing the world any huge favours. I mean as one said all over country great estates were beign liquadated, broken up and or sold off for not tht much money. Well the home and contents that is, it was the land everyone would want for other uses such as housing, golf courses, etc.

Miss. Stewart probably got herself a good deal on the property even more so that it included all those goodies she mentioned and probably more.

As for barging ahead of Mr. Rockerfeller, can believe it. That part of the US has always been one of the last bastions of *WASP* territory,even the Bush family has a compound up there.

Don't think MS was made an example of, just that she of all persons ought to have known better and to have lied was foolish on her part. If anything because she has such a "my way or the highway" attitude and tried to fanagle her way out of the situation it probably lead to the kid gloves coming off. Had she simply showed some humility and told the truth things may have ended differently.

It must really hurt however when being denied entry into other countries. Poor Miss. Stewart recently wasn't allowed into the UK (or was it France) because of her conviction just as Paris Hilton (another blonde female with attitude problems) was kept out another foregin country after her conviction.
 
"fireboxes that you could literally walk into "

And people did!

Someone had to go in there now and then to chip off/remove clinkers from inside the firebox and for through cleaning. Same thing with steam locomotives. There were even special suits sold made from asbestos so workmen could go in without having to wait for the thing to cool entirely down to cold.

In so many cases equipment such as we've been discussing was either brought into the building then assembled and or the former was built around it. Thus much if it's not going anywhere unless it's broken apart and carted out, and or the the building is demolished.
 
Drying Cabinets

Were a boon to "line drying" laundry when weather outdoors wasn't ideal. This was in an era before tumble dryers were sold for home use. They could be had for commercial laundries starting around the early part of last century but that was about it.

The alternative was to hang laundry in a room with a small fire or heater (an AGA range would do), especially if the washing was raised up to the ceiling area.
 
People walked into the fireboxes on ships boilers,too.And they climbed into the engine cylinders of VERY large Deisel engines on the ships-At work out here there are some guys who used to be in the Navy or Coast Guard.And one of them-who was short and thin-he's retired now,but so handy to get into those tight transmitter places----he used to clean the barrels of 16" guns on a battleship.they would tie a line to him---after the gun made SAFE of course---he would climb down the barrel and do his cleaning,inspection.If a gun like that could launch a 1 ton shell at 2,700FPS-imagine what would happen to a person!
 
Drying cabinets and asbestos

One of the less desirable effects of drying cabinets is that there was not a breeze to move things as they dried, just heat and stuff tended to dry stiff. This was not so bad for flatwork, but it was not so great for other things like terry towels.

Asbestos suits for cleaning boilers & guns, as well as all of the other asbestos-related aspects of ship building--no wonder the mesothelioma ads on TV mention service in the navy and ship building industry as some of the fields which exposed workers to asbestos.

Theaters, the kind with a real stage, not just a screen, were required by fire laws to have an asbestos panel that hung above the prosceneum opening so that if a fire broke out backstage, the panel could be dropped rapidly to confine the fire to the backstage area and protect the audience. It dropped with such speed that when the bottom rail that held the panel rigid hit the stage, the whole thing would sort of ripple from bottom to top and, unless it was decorative and painted like in more deluxe theaters, it had "ASBESTOS" printed in large letters on it. Old cartoons of the 30s and 40s, such as Popeye and related offerings from other animation studios would often show this at the end of an animation skit when it was set in a theater. They would show all of the various layers of stage curtains closing, some closing from side to side and some dropping from the fly space, and the final one would be the asbestos panel descending. It signified finality and my brother and I adopted it as a code word for the final end of something that had usually gone badly. The fire laws stated that the curtain had to be tested or operated at least once daily.

A nugget of knowledge for youngsters who might not have been taught this in school: Skene is the Greek word for the building or structure forming the background for dramatic performances. Pro + skene meant in front of that or on the stage. Ob + skene meant off or behind the stage because it was too horrible to show the audience, like when Oedipus blinds himself by poking out his eyes after realizing he is married to his mother and from that we get the word obscene.
 
Seems like the nouveau riche always become WASP wannabes, she being no exception apparently trying to "rise above" her origins as a poor girl of Polish extraction from the questionable side of the tracks. I've always found her unsufferable myself. She's not a bad lookin' old bat for 70 yrs old, however ...I'm sure all those personal trainers, personal chefs and unlimited domestic help didn't exactly hurt.
 
Asbestos

Like so many other things was deemed a miracle substance at the time. One could find the stuff everywhere there was heat or flame. From ironing pads and covers to pot holders, wire insulation, and so forth. By the time word got out scores of thousands were exposed to the stuff and faced or had health problems.

The breath of the problem is the reason the court actions continue after going on for generations now and show no signs of slowing down.

One problem is the stuff is literally everywhere. Despite warnings you have no idea how many persons purchase an older home and start ripping out asbestos insulation without proper precautions. Scrappers and others working on old boilers same thing.
 
Johns-Manville

<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Johns-Manville, to name only one company knee-deep into the production of asbestos (it was "The Miracle Mineral" at the 1939 NY World's Fair, after all) knew quite well, as early as the 1930's the scourge of both asbestosis and mesothelioma.  The fact Johns-Manville and other corporations carried-on for decades, claiming to "know-nothing" about the deadly side-effects only begins to touch upon the great lengths corporations will go to protect their profitable self interests.</span>

<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span>

<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">And as for the Maven of Domesticity - at the very least she appears uncomfortable in her own skin, while she obsessives over one bit of minutae, only to have it eclipsed by the next object of her obsessive desire. Whether it be her odd pronunciations of 'knife'; 'herbs'; or 'potato', to name but a few, or her singular-pinpoint focus on folding a slip of paper.  (Sure hasn't interfered with her business savvy, though).  If she hasn't Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, I don't know who does.</span>
 
What One Wants To Know

Is what poor soul or souls is charged with keeping that laundry room spic and span. I mean everything shines from top down and all in between. Given how must dust and such laundry generates not to mention just general household dirt it must be a treat having to keep that place clean.
 
Too bad Martha gives such short shrift to the washers that might have been there.

But I did spot a Neptune 7500 front loading washer in one of the photos. And a non-descript top loader next to it.

I would have thought there should be some institutional size 40 lb or bigger front loaders in that basement. With all that linen, they'd be needed for sure.

Or maybe she makes all her help wash everything by hand with a washtub and a washboard?
 
Am Going Out On A Limb To Suggest

That grand laundry room is where Miss. Stewart has her linens and finer household laundry done. There has to be something else for every day laundry.

For one thing one does not see a tumble dryer, and given the climate during much of the year laundry isn't going out on the lines, nor will everything dry well in that cabinet dryer.

Also refuse to believe that Martha Stewart settles for one Maytag Neptune and a top loader for her regular laundry. Trust me there's a Miele or other equally high end W&D set stashed somewhere on that estate. *LOL*
 
Yes, Martha probably has a secret laundry room with the latest modern Miele or Electrolux offerings. Probably four of each.

I like some of her product ideas. The little alarm clock I picked up at K-mart some while ago is simple and great. The gardening tools were good too. All that seems to have gone now, I guess she's a publishing maven or something now.

But I've read enough stories about her mean and domineering personality not to like the woman personally. It is impressive how she's worked a slim amount of talent and training into an empire, though.
 
Just So You Know

Skylands was the "summer" home of the late Edsel Ford (Henry Ford's son), and his family. Located in Seal Harbor, the "cottage" was one of many where the rich, wealthy and powerful American families spent their summers. Think of it as Newport in the woods.

The "cottage" was sold in the 1970's to another family and recently to Miss. Stewart. Yes, tons of linens, china, furniture and other goodies were left by the previous owners but not sure if they belonged to the Fords and or Leedes.

http://habituallychic.blogspot.com/2011/03/little-china-girl.html
 

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