My very first housekeeping experiences were in college. My first two years I lived in tiny dorm rooms and ate in the cafeteria, but my last semester (I got through school in two and a half years) I had a room in a house with several other girls. It was an older house, right off the edge of campus. Built in the 1920's, in classic foursquare style. I wasn't there when the rooms were divvied up, so I got last choice, and smallest, but I wanted it to be as nice as possible for several reasons.
First, I was depressed, and knew that living in squalor was only going to make things worse. Second, I had a very light class load and had lots of time to spend hanging out in my little space. So, clean, tidy, and appealing were very important to me. The first thing I did was winnow the furniture down to a bed, a table, and a bookcase. I kept the bed beautifully made every day, with some giant throw pillows to lean on. I used the table for a desk, and kept it cleared off except for my calendar with Impressionist painters, and a glass paperweight. In the bookcase I stacked all the pretty hand-knitted sweaters my mother had made me, folded tidily. I kept all my clothes in the closet, and out in the room I had a stack of primitive wooden fruit crates for a little storage. They had come from the little homestead down the back of this mountain, from when it used to be a peach and pear orchard.
I made and hung up white muslin curtains at both my windows that looked out into treetops, and set out my little lamp and one or two pictures, and had a basket with my embroidery project in it. That last semester I embroidered a huge elaborate quilt-top that ended up on my bed when I got married. I spent many homesick hours between classes working on it while listening to Chicago's country music station.
And I kept my room *clean*. Dusted, vacuumed, aired, and immaculate. It was a therapeutic nest for me during a hard time, and the beginning of my learning that housekeeping is something that pays you back.
