Household Clcanhn 



213 



Deal boards, if not carpeted, should look 

 white and clean ; they may be improved, if 

 the colour be indifferent, by the use of fullers' 

 earth or pearl ash dissolved in the water. In 

 the use of clean water the housemaid should 

 not be sparing ; whenever it begins to look 

 dark-coloured and becomes thick, she should 

 instantly carry it away, and bring a pail of 

 clean fresh water to her task. If she does 

 not change the water frequently, she ^vill 

 smear and not clean the floor. Scouring, in 

 most houses, is usually done at stated inter- 

 vals ; in nurseries and offices, generally ever}' 

 week ; in bedrooms, every fortnight, or once 

 a month, according to season and situation ; 

 in sitting and eating-rooms, which are car- 

 peted, scouring is not done more than once 

 or twice in the year, nor need dry rubbed 

 oaken boards be scoured more than once in 

 twelve months. 



The effect of scouring oak boards with 

 soap and water is to bring them to a dirty 

 dull white colour. To prevent this, the 

 boards, after being scoured, are washed over 

 with water, coloured either with umber or 

 yellow ochre. With old boards, the umber 

 is most commonly used ; with new oak floors, 

 the ochre. After the scouring and the wash- 

 ing with the coloured water has been done, 

 the most laborious part, that of polishing, 

 called dry rubbing, the boards, remains to be 

 accomplished. For this work, the house- 

 maid must have a large, heavy, hard bnish ; 

 in length, one foot or more ; in width, about 

 eight inches, affixed to a long stake or handle. 

 With this brush and a little hot, dry sand, 

 she must scrub the floor to and fro the way 

 of the grain, until the polish, destroyed by 

 scouring, be restored. Sometimes bees' wax 

 is used to accelerate the reappearance of the 

 bright surface ; but bees' wax, in restoring the 

 polish, at the same time renders the boards 

 so slippery as to make walking on them 

 scarcely less dangerous than on ice. Friction 

 alone will, by frequent repetition, brighten 

 the boards sufficiently without the incon- 

 venience of making them slippery also. After 

 the dry rubbing is over the sand is swept 

 away, and for the next ten or twelve months, 

 these boards will only require sweeping 



every day, and a little dry rubbing once a 

 week. 



In France, where carpets are less com- 

 monly used than in England, oaken floors 

 are seen in most of the great houses and in 

 hotels. They are kept in a highly-polished 

 state by men — the work being there con- 

 sidered as too laborious for women. The 

 men perform this duty with their feet, to one 

 of which they fasten the brush ; and with 

 gi-eat activity, and without much apparent 

 fatigue, they soon bring a glass-like surface to 

 the floors. They employ wax and other 

 polishing substances to hasten their work. 



For removing spots of grease from boards, 

 take equal parts of fullers' earth and pearl 

 ash — a quarter of a pound of each — and boil 

 in a quart of soft water, and, while hot, lay it 

 on the greased parts, allowing it to remain on 

 them for ten or twelve hours, after which it 

 may be scoured off with sand and water. 

 A floor much spotted with grease should be 

 completely washed over with this mixture 

 the day before it is scoured. Fullers' earth 

 and ox-gall boiled together form a very 

 powerful cleansing mixture for floors or car- 

 pets. Spirits of turpentine, rubbed for a 

 short time forcibly on grease spots, dissolve 

 the grease in the floor, and make it readily 

 unite with pearl ash or soap, with either of 

 which the parts should be afterwards washed. 

 Drops of tallow may be scraped off. Stains 

 of ink. dried in on floors, are difficult to 

 eradicate. Strong vinegar or salts of lemon 

 will remove them. Red wine stains on boards 

 may be removed by laying on them a strong 

 solution of soda. If this be not sufficient, 

 the chloride of lime or bleaching liquid, sold 

 by chemists in half-pint bottles, will remove 

 them. 



II. CLEANING THE SIDES OF APARTMENTS. 



As oil paint is injured by too frequent 

 scouring, it is necessary to use every means 

 which may render the scouring of paint need- 

 less ; first, by cleaning the walls, edges, and 

 mouldings from all lodgments of dust, fre- 

 quently sweeping and daily dusting them 

 with the proper hair broom, called the Turk's 

 head, over which a clean linen duster should 



