Important: Safety Warning
This page directs the use of hazardous substances — such as benzine, gasoline, lye, or strong acids — for household tasks. These materials are highly flammable, corrosive, or poisonous, and the practices described have caused fires, burns, and poisonings.
In addition, this page suggests that bowls of water in a room absorb paint and turpentine fumes, and that eating acid fruit offsets the effects. Neither is true. Paint of this era contained lead, and the measures described give no protection against inhaling lead dust or solvent vapour.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
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Painting
If painting has been required, a patient endurance of a sufficient number of drying days must be given over to this process. The smell of the turpentine will be very much diminished, and the unwholesomeness of paint almost destroyed, by placing in the apartments, and in the adjoining sleeping-rooms, several wash-bowls or pails filled with cold water. In the morning the top of the water will exhibit the material which it has absorbed, and which those who were breathing the same air would have taken into their systems. If but one coat of paint is to be placed upon an apartment, all the wood should be carefully washed with strong sal-soda water, and dried before painting it, to remove any oily or dingy spots that would otherwise soon show through a single layer of either white or color.
Any woman of a mechanical turn of mind can paint a room, buying the paint ready mixed. While painting keep the room well ventilated and eat acid fruits. When done, any spatters on the glass may be removed by the application of a mixture of equal parts of ammonia and turpentine, washed off with soap-suds. To polish the glass, wash in warm water, wipe with a soft cloth, put a little whiting on the center of the pane, and rub with chamoisskin or a soft cloth.