Domestic life

Dairy, Vaucluse House

The coolest room in the house

What practical techniques can we learn from historical building design to minimise heat and energy consumption in our homes today?

Still from the film Milk - the white river of life

Milk - The White River of Life, 1946

Milk and its health and nutritional benefits, demonstrated through a domestic science class on milk and milk-based products and their use in cooking

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Cook & Curator

Translating tastes: the Rose Seidler recipe collection

Recently translated from the original German, recipes kept by Rose Seidler provide valuable insight into her culinary heritage and Austrian identity

Still from My Handy Kitchen

My Handy Kitchen, c.1950-55

In this film a woman discusses and demonstrates the features of her up-to-date kitchen

Ellen Marshall’s kitchen dresser

(Re)making a home

An evocative collection of household items belonging to the last tenants of Susannah Place

Illustration of two women dancing in large dresses at a ball

Eat, pray, decorate

Advice manuals – the self-help books of the 19th century – provide a rich source of information about domestic and social life in the era

Watercolour of Warrawang
Songs of home

The Odyssey of an Early Australian Piano

Imagine for a moment if all the old pianos lying around Australia could speak. One can only guess at the stories they would tell

View of a bedroom with faded and torn wallpaper with an old map of the world on one wall, a single bed, dressing table and view through a door to the top of a staircase, with faded and damaged paintwork.

A House In The Making

After 162 years of being continuously occupied 62 Gloucester Street was opened to the public for the first time in 2006