The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

House Painting

It is well to know that you can sometimes clean wall-paper, especially ceilings which have become smoked; this is done with a handful of unbaked dough, to which the dirt will stick. What I always use is the moist, soft part of a loaf of fresh bread, just baked; with it a ceiling can be cleaned so as to look and be as good as new, and it is not a difficult thing to do. Moldings and ornaments can be cleaned the same way.

In putting on the border, which is the last part of the paper-hanging, do not begin in a corner; start a few inches back from the corner, and then you can make a smooth corner job.

Whitewashing

Whitewash is made from lime; for this purpose the lime should be in hard lumps, not such as has been long exposed to the air and become air-slaked. The U. S. Lighthouse Board recipe for making whitewash says that we may slake half a bushel of lime in boiling water, keeping it covered during the process to keep in the steam; but here it may be said that the more common practice is to put cold water on the lime, not enough to drown it, but slowly add as much as the lime will take up; it will generate plenty of heat, and steam will come off; keep adding water slowly, and finally the lime will crumble and become a loose white mass, to which enough water is added to make it a paste, and this is to be stirred with a stick until it begins to cool; this indicates that it has combined with all the water it will take. Some lime is much slower about this than other, because all limestone, from which lime is made, is not of the same chemical composition. There is no objection to using hot water, which will start it more quickly. It is then thinned with water to a thin paste, and put through a strainer, as there are often lumps and dirt in it.

Now we go back to the recipe. Add to the strained lime paste a peck of salt (about fifteen pounds), previously dissolved in hot water; boil three pounds of rice to a thin paste, strain it, and stir it in while the whole is hot; have a pound of good glue dissolved by soaking it the night before in cold water, then pour off the extra water and pour on to it three or four quarts of boiling water and stir it, and it will dissolve; in this glue solution stir half a pound of whiting (which is pulverized chalk), and add this glue and whiting mixture to the lime and salt.