The Dixie Cook-Book

“The best is none too good.” Southern family receipts gathered across generations and printed in Atlanta in 1883 — and, in the same volume, everything else a household was expected to know: the laundry, the sick-room, dressmaking, babies, and a year's bill of fare.

HomeHouse-Cleaning › Painting

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 destroved, 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.

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