Spring Cleaning the Walls

The paint in a house should be washed at least twice a year. ~ Our Homes and How to Make Them Healthy,

…the walls cleaned where painted, and swept down with a soft broom or feather brush where papered; ~ The Book of Household Management, 998

Cleaning the walls is one of those time honored traditions that most don’t adhere to anymore. When spring ushers in sunnier days and bird calls on the wind you may take a look around your dingy rooms and want a bit of a brighter feel.

To do so give your walls a quick washing. Not every room need be done but the kitchens and dining room seem to benefit most.
This method is for painted walls. Most painted walls can take a light (operative word here is ‘light’ cleaning but do be careful not to mar your paint. Before starting vacuum or dust your walls to remove loose debris.

Mix up a bucket of warm water with a dash of all purpose cleaning solution. I use something like Mrs. Meyer’s. Use a microfiber cloth or a white cleaning clothing and dip it in the solution. Wring it out well. You only want it damp. Use it to wipe (gently now) the walls. Start at the bottom to keep dirty drips from ruining your new clean wall sections.

Don’t try and clean all the rooms in your home in one day. Do one room a day or even a week until done.

Organizing the Gardening Files

There are many horticultural papers which, as rule, are not worth saving and binding they are so largely filled with advertisements and news items which have no interest a month after publication. If there is any information in these magazines, I cut out the article, put on it the name of the magazine, the volume, page, and date of publication, and file the clipping in a folder under the plant or subject name. For each one of clippings I also make a card similar to the described above, and after having given the reference, state that it is in the clipping file.

I have found that in this present scheme of mine the information is very accessible and compact, and that it takes but a few minutes of my time to keep it up to dat.

~Garden and Home Builder

Cleanliness and When to Clean the Bird’s Cage

Bird’s need a clean home too. Here are some tasteful vintage tips for keeping our feathered friends happy.

 

Never forget that intense cleanliness is almost more of an absolute necessity to the happiness, nay very existence, of chamber birds than even seed and water. A person scrupulous in the purity of the details of the cage in which his pet’s life is passed, is not at the same time one to forget the supply of its occupant’s daily wants.

Do not rest content with merely scraping the tray and perches occasionally neglecting to cleanse the wires, roof, seed-stands, or any other part with water and “elbow grease,” for the trouble or time thus temporarily “saved” will inevitably be doubled when your poor suffering victim is thrown upon your tender mercies, to be nursed back into health lost through your failure in this duty. More time is uselessly “lost” repairing the damage caused by selfish neglect than can possibly be “wasted” in attending daily to Dick’s necessities cleanliness being chief amongst the number. Better to clean out a cage once thoroughly than to fiddle and scratch at it half a dozen times. Each bar, wire, seed stand, and every other portion should be rubbed inside and out until it shines, and that not with knife or scraper, which is destructive to wood and lacquer, but with sponge fresh water and a dry duster kept on purpose.

The perch ends and wooden parts require frequently to be plunged into boiling water, to prevent the creation of red mites, a pest once produced next to impossible to eradicate.Train oil or any external application within the hollows at the extremities is quite ineffectual; the very first creature to attack it is the bird itself, who of course suffers from eating the deleterious matter whereas the crafty, lurking, red mite runs over it and escapes scot free! For an ordinary sized square cage containing one bird, every four days is sufficiently often to wash the bars, tray, roof, &c.; if the cage be small and round, or more birds be kept together, this duty must be performed twice a week, and even each alternate day, according to the number and habits of the birds and the size of their home; fresh coarse sand should be given every time; clean perches, water fountains, and full measure of seed each morning.

 

~ Birds, their cages and their keep, 1874

Winter Evenings for the Children

Winter Evenings

 

The long winter evenings afford the opportunity for pleasant social enjoyment in the household, such as conversation on special topics, the establishing of a home lyceum, reading aloud, singing, instrumental music, pleasant quiet games, or those that are of a more social nature such as charades, character personations, etc. These should be sanctioned and sometimes participated in by the parents. Children require some amusement: they cannot move according to fixed rules like mere machines. They are active, restless, eager for occupation, fun loving, and social in their nature, and they must have relaxation of some kind. If they cannot have amusement at home, they will be very likely to seek it abroad as soon as they have the opportunity. Many a youth has been led to seek amusement in tho exciting scenes of the gambling table, liquor saloon, and other places of evil associations, because his home was lifeless and dull, and its associations had nothing to amuse, instruct, interest, or attract. Under such influences he soon becomes reckless and dissipated, and goes down to ruin, only another instance of a blighted life, which in all probability pleasant home associations might have ennobled and saved to future usefulness and honor. The isolation of tho country dwelling should suggest to tho farmer tho special necessity of his favoring and providing home amusements for his children. The memory of a beautiful, happy home, with its hallowed associations and teachings has saved many a man from yielding to temptation and treading a downward course, and is one of the richest legacies that parents can leave their children.

 

~The American farmer , 1884

 

The Proper Arrangement of Furniture in a Room

Vintage tips for arranging the furniture in your home.

 

1. What in brief are the principles which govern the proper arrangement of furniture in a room?

1. The rugs and larger pieces of furniture should be parallel to the side walls.

 

2. Mobilize the furniture in groups in a way to secure the best use of each piece, – e. g. a table with reading

lamp, flanking chairs, footstool, small end table, or smoking stand, etc.

 

3. Groupings on opposite sides of a room should balance each other as far as possible in mass and height; for

instance the fireplace with picture over, should, if possible, be balanced by the couch opposite, with mirror, picture,or tapestry above.

 

What pieces of furniture should be included in the living-room?

1. All that minister to the comfort of the various members of the household when they are gathered together.

 

What is the first thing to consider in deciding the placement of any piece of furniture?

Its use. The second consideration is proper lighting.

 

Around the Fire

If there is a fireplace an easy may be placed facing it at the or at one side. Another chair can brought from its place against the on occasion. There is usually no for a permanent group of furniture front of the fireplace in a small. Though there may be no floor to spare in a small room it is well to leave the center of the empty it tends to make the room like at box with furniture backed up against the walls. A table of moderate size in the center of room does not interfere with the circulation of people about the room if clear passage of sufficient width is on all four sides of it. It is a mistake to put unusually furniture in a small room with the of making the room look larger small furniture tends to make a seem like a dolls house. It is best to use furniture of moderate size perhaps a few pieces that are larger than the average may be. A small room naturally cannot be to seem spacious but it can be dignity and an air of comfort if it furnished with good easy substantial looking pieces and not over crowded