A Butler's Guide to Managing Your Household

The Art of Manliness

Society & Culture, Education, Philosophy

4.7 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2024

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It's a tough job to manage a household. Things need to be regularly fixed, maintained, and cleaned. How do you stay on top of these tasks in order to keep your home in tip-top shape? My guest knows his way all around this issue and has some field-tested, insider advice to offer. Charles MacPherson spent two decades as the major-domo or chief butler of a grand household. He's also the founder of North America's only registered school for butlers and household managers and the author of several books drawn from his butlering experience, including The Butler Speaks: A Return to Proper Etiquette, Stylish Entertaining, and the Art of Good Housekeeping. In the first part of our conversation, Charles charts the history of domestic service and describes why the practice of having servants like a butler and maid ebbed in the mid-20th century but has made a comeback today. We then turn to what average folks who don't have a household staff can do to better manage their homes. Charles recommends keeping something called a "butler's book" to stay on top of household schedules and maintenance checklists. We then discuss how to clean your home more logically and efficiently. Charles shares his golden rules of house cleaning, the cleaning task you've probably neglected (hint: go take a look at the side of the door on your dishwasher), his surprising choice for the best product to use to clean your shower, how often you should change your bedsheets, and much more.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness
0:10.2	Podcast it's a tough job to manage a household. Things need to be regularly fixed,
0:15.1	maintained and clean. How do you stay on top of these tasks in order to keep your home in
0:18.9	tip-top shape? My guest knows his way all around this issue and has some field-tested insider advice to offer.
0:25.0	Charles McPherson spent two decades as the Major Domo, or Chief Butler, of a grand household.
0:30.0	He's also the founder of North America's only registered school for Butler's and household managers, and the author of several books drawn from his Butlering experience, including The Butler Speaks, Return to Proper Eticate, Stylish entertaining, and the art of good housekeeping.
0:44.0	In the first part of our conversation, Charles charts the history of domestic service and describes
0:47.9	why the practice of having servants like a butler and made ebbed in the mid-20th century,
0:51.6	but has made a comeback
0:52.5	come back today.
0:53.0	We then turn to what average folks who don't have a household staff
0:56.3	can do to better manage their homes.
0:58.0	Charles recommends keeping something called a butler's book
1:00.7	to stay on top of household schedules and maintenance checklist.
1:03.7	We then discuss how to clean your home more logically and efficiently.
1:07.1	Charles shares his golden rules of house cleaning, the cleaning task you've probably neglected,
1:11.3	hint, go take a look at the side of the door of your dishwasher.
1:14.3	A surprising choice for best product to use to clean your shower, how often you should change
1:18.0	your bed sheets, and much more. After the show is over, check at our show notes at Awim.
1:22.1	I.S. slash Butler. All right, Charles McPherson, welcome to the show.
1:37.0	Thank you very much.
1:40.6	It's a pleasure to be here.
	...

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