FOR THE HOME-MAKER’S NOTEBOOK

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 147, 17 March 1933, Page 4

FOR THE HOME-MAKER’S NOTEBOOK

Daily care will do much to keep floors in good condition. Remove loose dust with a vacuum cleaner or hair broom, and then dust over with a dry, clean mop. • • v Instead of throwing cigarette ash away each day. empty the contents of ' the ash tray into a small box and use it for cleaning silverware. Use the ash with a moist rag, finish with' a soft duster, and a brilliant polish • • results. » ' • • Lace curtains that have become limp can be stiffened by washing in water to which methylated spirit has been added. Use a tablespoon to a gallon of water. » ♦ • Fireirons of steel that have become rusty should be allowed to lie in a flannel soaked in paraffin, and then rubbed with finely powdered bathbrick.

To keep the flues of bath-heaters and coke hot-water systems free from soot occasionally burn a few scraps of zinc in the grate of the tire-box. Stone steps that grow a green stain will be improved if they are washed with a mixture made by dissolving lib of common salt and -Jib of chloride of lime in 2 quarts of boiling water. Use for Coal Dust. Coal supplies will go further if the coni dust which always collects in the cellar is utilised in this way: Moisten some sawdust with a very little paraffin mix it with the dust, and form into good-sized balls. Bank up the fire with these and it will last for hours. Another method is to mix slack, sawdust, and clay together into bricks, allow them to dry, and place at the back of the grate with ordinary coal in front. They give out great heat.