Rooms on the First Floor.
The rooms on this floor nowadays are generally shut off by portières, over and under which the dust sifts into the adjoining rooms when one of the series is being cleaned, unless the housekeeper provide the proper screens. Have for this purpose sheets of strong, unbleached cotton, a yard longer and wider than the height and width of the openings. If you take down your portières and tack these sheets on the top and at the bottom of the casings, the other rooms will be well protected. Now dust and remove the small ornaments. Beat and brush the upholstered furniture. Remove from the room as much of the furniture as possible. Take down the window draperies and shake the dust from them in the yard. Have the dining-room table made its full length, and lay an old sheet over it. Spread the draperies on this, one at a time, and wipe them with a clean piece of cheese-cloth; then fold them carefully, if they are not to be hung again until fall, and, pinning them in clean sheets, put them away in boxes or drawers. Next take down the shades, and after wiping them with a clean cloth roll them up and put them aside until the room is cleaned. Cover the large pieces of furniture, and if there be carpets to be taken up proceed in these rooms as directed for the bedrooms. If there be brasses, take them to the laundry or kitchen to be cleaned. Take down the shades of the chandeliers and wash them. If the carpets are to be taken up, they should be removed at once, and if they are not, brush the ceiling, walls, woodwork, windows, blinds, and ledges, and then sweep the carpet. When the dust settles sweep a second time; be careful to brush the corners and edges thoroughly with a small broom. After the carpet is thoroughly swept, saturate the edges and corners with naphtha, leaving the doors and windows open, of course. Now clean the paint and windows. When the room is clean put three tablespoonfuls of household ammonia in about six quarts of water, and, wringing a clean cloth out of this, wipe the carpet. Change the water as soon as it becomes dark. Replace the furnishings. Of course, if the floors be of polished hard wood, half the burden of house-cleaning is removed.