Old-Fashioned Homemaking Essentials I Reach For All Summer

When my kids were growing up, I used to hang the laundry on the line every week. I’d enlist a child to come help me, and I’d enjoy the breeze, the sunlight dappling through the tree leaves, and the quiet. We had to cut the trees down that used to hold my clothesline, and I’m itching to get a new line put up!

There are essential homemaking tools I’ve used for literally 30+ years, and they’ve held up to the wear and tear of a household. Of course, not everything lasts as long as I’d like, but so much of the goods in my home have actually been with me for decades now.

Have you ever noticed how the pieces that actually last in a home tend to be the plainest ones?

That’s really the idea behind these old-fashioned homemaking essentials — the cast iron, the clothespins, the apron I keep tied on a hook in my mudroom. I don’t have a lot of fancy things, and if I’m honest, that’s exactly why I love it. As much as I enjoy looking at perfectly curated homes on the internet, what I actually love in my real life is that the things I use daily serve me – they don’t have to look aesthetic. And there’s a certain sort of charm to a house that is collected over the years versus curated to perfection.

These are the things I reach for on repeat, summer after summer, the same way my grandmother did before me.

I’ve never been a gadget person. I like owning the good basics: cookware that holds up to years of use, sharp knives, a good cutting board, a sturdy apron, etc. I don’t need a bunch of cheap, one-use-only gadgets cluttering up my home.

“She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.” I think about that verse from Proverbs 31 more than you’d guess. There’s dignity in working with your hands. Not drudgery — dignity.

A good cast iron skillet

If you buy one thing off this list, let it be a cast iron skillet. I own quite a lot of cast iron, and some of the ones I’ve cooked in are older than a few of you ladies reading this, haha. Cornbread, fried okra, a Sunday-morning skillet of eggs — it does all of it, and it only gets better the more you use it. Season it, keep it dry, and it’ll be around long after the nonstick pans have gone to the landfill.

Good cast iron will have weight to it. I like Lodge brand cast iron skillets, but you can find good pieces in antique stores as well. Cast iron will last forever if you care for it. And a well-seasoned pan is non-stick, even when cooking eggs.

Clothespins and a clothesline

Line-drying isn’t for everybody, and I’m not here to make anybody feel a way about their dryer. But there is nothing — nothing — like sheets that have dried out in the sun. On a breezy afternoon, it’s the closest thing to free air freshener I’ve found. If you haven’t tried it yet, let me encourage you!

A good apron

An apron is one of those things you don’t realize you’ve been missing until you tie one on. I have a number of aprons but the one I always go back to is a sturdy, red apron that my mama gave me 30-some years ago, and it’s held up. I have other aprons that are vintage from estate sales that I love too. It saves my clothes from more splatters than I care to admit — and it does something harder to put into words, too. Tying it on tells my brain it’s time to work, and I’ve come to like that small ritual.

I like this apron from Williams Sonoma and when I buy aprons for my daughters who are grown now, this is my go to.

A wicker basket

There’s a wicker basket that lives in my kitchen and gets carried all over creation — out to the garden for tomatoes, down the hall with folded towels, out to the car when I’m loading up for church. A good basket is never just one thing and I always say you can’t have too many baskets! I love to pick up good baskets whenever I see them in antique malls or at the thrift store. Here’s a nice lined laundry basket from Amazon.

Beeswax wraps

This is my one quiet rebellion against the plastic drawer. Beeswax wraps do the work that plastic wrap and foil used to, except you rinse them and use them again. I keep a set for covering bowls and a bread bag for my homemade bread. It saves you money in the long run and is better for the environment! This set of beeswax wraps comes with a fun cloth market bag too!

None of this is complicated, and that’s rather the point. A well-run home has never depended on the newest thing. It depends on good tools, used with care, by hands that are willing.

I’ve gathered everything above in one place so you can look through it without hunting. And if you find yourself wanting a little more rhythm behind the pretty things — a real path from chaos to calling, at whatever pace your life allows — that’s exactly what we do together inside The Homemaker’s Society.

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