Common Sense for Housemaids

by Ann Fraser Tytler

We come next to sweeping the floor previous to having it scoured. There are various modes of sweeping, and of non-sweeping; the non-sweepers follow the principle of letting the wee pickle stour lie (as they say in Scotland)—they wash on the top of the dust, and the inky appearance of the boards brings no feeling of shame to their darkened minds; other young housemaids, again, sweep with an air, giving a slight toss up with the broom, at every motion of the hand, so as to make the dust mount up and settle on all that has been previously cleaned; a tidy young woman, on the contrary, sprinkles the floor first with tea-leaves, she then lays the broom close to the boards as she moves along, sweeping gently, but thoroughly, and leaving no spot unswept. If there are closets in the room, let them be first swept, and the doors shut, then sweep under the beds and chests of drawers, &c., before sweeping the other parts of the room. The scouring should then commence: the first thing to be washed is the paint of the window shutters, doors, chimney-piece, and wainscots all round, and this should be done with the following mixture. To every quart of soft boiling water, add half an ounce of soft soap, and half an ounce of pearlash. Soda is too strong, and injures the paint. Let this mixture dissolve before using it. If the room is to be in immediate use, boiled yellow soap may be used with the pearlash, as the smell of the soft soap is disagreeable at first. Scour the paint (a small portion at a time) with a coarse flannel and this mixture; rub straight up and down, then wash with a clean flannel and plenty of water a little warm (cold water makes paint look clouded), and dry with a linen cloth, rubbing briskly: where there is carving above doors or mouldings, use a painter’s brush, with the soap and pearlash instead of the flannel, as it gets better into the carved wood, and then wash with a flannel and water. The floor is next to be scoured, with a little soda mixed in soft warm water—wet a small portion of the floor with your washing-cloth of coarse flannel, rub yellow soap upon your scrubbing-brush, and scrub hard up and down the boards, but never across, then wash well off with clean cold water, and dry with a coarse cloth. In Yorkshire a wisp of straw, tightly rolled up and doubled, is used in scrubbing floors instead of a scouring-brush, and sand instead of soap, and the floors are beautifully clean and white; but this method is not understood in London; the sand there is generally of a dull grey colour, and the dust and smoke of a large city require soap and hard scrubbing. Except in country-houses, the German method of sweeping and washing at the same time would not answer either; there the sleeping apartments are generally without carpets, and a broom is seldom used in sweeping them; a coarse cloth is passed through water, and being wrung out, is drawn across the floor in every direction, and by this method no dust is raised upon the furniture.

The windows and doors should be left open that the floor may dry quickly, and while it is drying, the furniture outside the room should be dusted and rubbed. The furniture in the attics being generally painted wood, will require to be washed twice a-year with the same mixture as the other paint in the room, taking care to do it lightly, and to wash it quickly off with water. The carpet having been well beaten, should then be put down, straight and tight, upon the clean floor; a few small nails are requisite for this; but as the carpets in the attics are generally small, they require to be but slightly nailed down, and should be frequently raised: the furniture should now be restored to its proper place, and the door of the room shut; and after each of the attics has been cleaned in a similar manner the housemaid will proceed to the bed-room story. There all will be done as before; the furniture removed, the window-curtains and bed-curtains taken down to be switched and brushed, the beds covered up, and the carpet lifted, the chimney having been previously swept and the soot removed. The grate and fire-irons will next be scoured, the beds switched and brushed, and the mixture used for the bed-stock; the cornices will be swept, and the paint of the doors, window-shutters, &c., &c., taking care that in sweeping the paper on the walls the long broom be covered with a clean flannel bag, which should be frequently shaken and turned during the operation; for if the flannel is not clean the paper will look worse than it did before. Paper on walls can be made to look almost new by being cleaned with stale bread; this is a more tedious process; when it is to be done, however, after sweeping the walls with the broom covered with flannel, take a quartern loaf of stale bread three days old, cut it into four pieces, and holding the crust in your hand, rub lightly downwards, taking about half a yard at each stroke; the next time of going round the room begin a little above where the last stroke ended, and take care not to rub across the paper or to go up again. The floor having been sprinkled with tea-leaves, should be swept before the bread is used for the walls, and it will require to be swept a second time before washing the paint of the window-shutters, doors, chimney-piece, and scouring the floor commences. If the carpet does not entirely cover the room, attention should be observed in scouring thoroughly those places not covered, as nothing gives a greater look of cleanliness to a room than nicely cleaned boards: scrub hard straight up and down with the scrubbing-brush and soap, and then wash well off with clean cold water; it is a mistake to think that warm water is necessary for the washing off; cold water does quite as well, and is better, as it is more easily changed: to change the water often is most necessary in scouring floors: many housemaids scour the floor constantly, and yet they have always a black soiled look, from the water not being sufficiently clean. The bed-room furniture is next to be attended to: where the mahogany is French-polished, rubbing lightly with a dry soft cloth is generally all that is necessary; but if the furniture is soiled in any way, then wash it over with a sponge and water (a little warm), and rub lightly with the cloth till quite dry and clear. Where there is no French polish, dust the mahogany well, and with cold drawn linseed oil, mixed with a little turpentine, wash it over with a sponge, and rub briskly and well with a soft woollen or linen cloth; the rubbing does more, in polishing the wood, than any mixture you can use. Many people mix bees’-wax with the oil, and this makes the furniture look well at the moment, but it gives a fictitious brightness, which every finger-touch or drop of water will dim; the polish produced by rubbing is superior to French polish or any other. The oil should not often be put on, and never while the slightest dampness remains on the mahogany. Some servants use a great deal of oil and very little rubbing, the consequence of which is, that little or no lasting polish is acquired; the dust sticks to the furniture, and gives it a dull soiled look. Nothing gives one a greater idea of care and cleanliness than to see all the mahogany looking bright and clear; the legs and rims of tables, and all that is below as well as above, should be attended to; amongst other bright things the looking-glass must not be omitted: after the mahogany frame has been well rubbed up, the glass should be washed with pure cold water, dried with a clean soft cloth, and polished with a silk handkerchief: if the bed-room chairs have loose chintz covers, they should be taken off and well shaken before the mahogany of the chairs is rubbed up, then put on again as tightly as possible, and rubbed lightly with a clean cloth; all this having been done, before the furniture is brought into the room, the carpet, having been beaten, should be put down perfectly straight, drawn as tight as possible, and slightly nailed; there is nothing looks worse in a room than to see a carpet all pulled awry, and the stripes and seams running across instead of straight up and down. The furniture should now be replaced, the bed-curtains put on, the bed made up for use,[1] and the blinds let down, so as to keep the room cool and preserve the carpet.

All the bed-rooms having been thoroughly cleaned in the same manner, the drawing-room should be next attended to. If there are two drawing-rooms, the chairs and lighter furniture should be removed into the one while the other is being cleaned; if there is but one room, and there is not space on the landing-place, the chairs should be placed, one turned down upon another, in the most convenient corner of the room that can be found for them; the carpet and rug should be taken up to be beaten, and the window-curtains taken down to be well shaken in the court below, then spread upon a table and thoroughly brushed, and if winter curtains, folded up and laid aside, or, if summer muslin curtains, washed. In putting aside winter-curtains, coverlids, &c., when not in use, a sheet should be spread in the bottom of a drawer, the curtains folded to the size of the drawer, laid perfectly smooth, and the sheet brought over them, so that no dust can get in at the sides. Curtains or any other things, put into a drawer uncovered, get marked at the edges if they lie any length of time. Next, the pictures, if easily removed, should be taken down, and china and chimney ornaments, books, &c., &c., put into some closet or safe place, and dusting sheets thrown over the sofas, mirrors, &c., &c.: all this, if it can be managed, should be done at night, that the room may be ready for the sweeps in the morning. The chimneys of sitting-rooms, where there is constant fire, should be swept at least twice a year; a third time, in the middle of winter, may be necessary for some chimneys; in this case it will be necessary to pin up the curtains, and enclose them in bags similar to pillow-cases, and to cover the carpet and furniture completely with sheets, as, even with the most careful sweeps, a great deal of soot finds its way into the room. As soon as the soot has been removed the scouring of the grate should commence; if a bright polished steel grate, it should be rubbed with fine emery cloth, or with a paste of fine emery powder, No. 3, mixed with boiled soap; after rubbing well with a piece of woollen cloth and this paste, polish with glass-paper (not sand-paper), and finish off with soft dry chamois leather, rubbing quickly and lightly till quite bright. The marble chimney-piece should then be first dusted carefully and thoroughly with the small dusting-brush, and afterwards washed, rubbing soap on a soft brush or sponge, so as to get the dust and smoke out of all the ornaments; if they are deeply carved, so that the brush does not get into the crevices, use a little bit of wood bluntly pointed, for nothing gives a marble chimney-piece a worse appearance than dust lodging in the ornaments; whether flowers or figures, let the roses, if roses there be, be pure and white, and Cupid’s face particularly clean. All this having been done, cover the whole up with a covering sheet, putting one end of the sheet on the marble chimney-piece, with a weight to keep it down, and letting the rest hang like a curtain before the grate, to preserve it also free from dust; sweep the room then for the first time, sprinkling the floor first with tea-leaves, to keep down the dust as much as possible; after this let the long steps be brought into the room: place them alongside the wall at such a distance as to give the full use of the broom; before getting upon the steps, see that the feet are put out as far as they can stretch, so that they stand quite firm; then fearlessly mount upon them, and with the long broom covered with a clean flannel bag sweep the cornice and walls straight down, leaving no spot untouched; shake the dust frequently from the bag, and turn it during the operation. The small dusting-brush should next be used, for dusting the paint of the doors, window-shutters, and wainscoting all round the room, and the floor should be swept a second time: proceed then to wash the paint which you have dusted with the mixture of boiled soap and pearlash, and scour the floor with yellow soap and soda, in the same manner as directed in the bed-rooms.

While the floor and the paint are drying the furniture should be cleaned; if either the rose-wood or mahogany furniture is French polished, dusting and rubbing it, as has already been mentioned, with a soft dry cloth, is all that is necessary, or, if spotted or stained in any way, let it be first washed over with a sponge and warm water (but not too hot), as warm water is better than cold for French polish; then rub briskly but lightly with a soft cloth till the brightness is restored. A mixture is now sold for reviving French polish, which has considerable effect for a short time, but requires to be frequently repeated, and is by no means sufficient to give lustre to any article which has not been previously polished; in this case the cold drawn linseed oil, for unpolished articles, with a little turpentine, is the best mixture to be used, and will, in time, with a great deal of rubbing, produce a lustre equal to French polish, and much more durable, as not liable to be worn off or easily scratched, but on the contrary, increasing with years, and kept bright with very little labour after the polish has once been obtained.

As directions have been given with regard to cleaning mahogany in the bed-rooms, it is needless so particularly to repeat them here; the rubbing is at first the great matter, and cannot be done too often; very little oil and a great deal of rubbing is the root of the business; it is not enough to rub the furniture of a room with a view to polish it on the great cleaning days, a little every day makes, in time, a great impression; a really good housemaid should never be able to be alone in a room with a table or a chair without giving it a good rub, or, if the room is occupied, without wishing to do so. Tables and chairs should be to her objects of deep interest; after her own family and the family of her mistress, they should claim the next place in her affections; she should steadily contemplate them between her and the light, and in all various points of view, and if they present themselves to her sight without spot or blemish, shedding a bright lustre over her past labours, she may rejoice in the work of her hands.

All the brass in the room comes next to be polished; the plates and handles of the doors and of the bells, the castors, &c., &c., should be cleaned with rotten-stone and oil, and rubbed with leather till quite bright; care should be taken not to soil the paint in doing this; there is nothing so ugly as a black rim round the handle, or to see the mark of dirty fingers on the door itself, giving evidence that the housemaid’s mode of shutting the door is not by turning the handle, but by pulling the door itself. This strange dislike to touching the handle of a door, this constant habit of putting the hand either above the handle or below it, anywhere, in short, but on the handle itself, seems a prevailing disease amongst housemaids; the consequence is, that one often sees the paint, either above or below the handle, entirely rubbed off, and the wood shining through from the necessity of frequent scouring, or, if there are brass plates to prevent this, they have constantly a dull and smeared appearance: in scouring either the handle or brass plate all marks of the rotten-stone may be prevented by having a duster in one hand to cover the paint, while the other hand is employed in scouring the brass.

Where there is a balcony, and the drawing-room windows can be cleaned in safety, this should next be done; the footman generally assists in this work. The window, both outside and in, should be first dusted with a light dusting-brush, and the footman being outside, and the housemaid mounted on the steps within, each should clean the same pane at the same time, that it may be more easily cleaned, and not left in streaks, which is apt to be the case where only one side is cleaned at a time: a little Spanish whiting, mixed with very little water, should be rubbed over each pane and washed off with a woollen cloth or sponge (but sponge, unless after long use, is liable to have particles of sand in it, which may scratch the glass, and injure its appearance); each pane should be finished and rubbed bright with a clean dry linen cloth, and particular attention paid to cleaning well at the edges and corners, as dim corners will entirely spoil the look of the most newly-cleaned window; the sun should not strike on the window when it is being cleaned, nor should this work ever be attempted during frost, as the glass will then be much more apt to crack. The frequency with which windows should be thus thoroughly cleaned on both sides will depend much on the situation of the house; in the country three or four times during the year may be sufficient, while in London, in many situations, once a month may not suffice: the inside of each window should be rubbed at least once a week, when the room is regularly done out, but a cleanly housemaid will give many a rub between times; nothing improved the look of everything within the room so much as transparent windows. The windows being all cleaned, and the bannisters brushed outside, the balcony should be washed over with soap and water, and the work within the room again proceeded with.

The frames of the pictures and mirrors must next be attended to. The frames should be lightly dusted, for the flowers or other projecting parts, being generally made of plaster, are easily broken, and even when in carved wood the edges and corners may be chipped off and disfigured; a feather-brush should therefore be used for this purpose; the glass of both mirrors and pictures should be washed over with a woollen cloth and pure cold water, dried with a soft clean linen cloth, and polished with a silk handkerchief, which should be kept for the purpose; but if the glass be either dimmed by fly marks or smoke, it may be necessary to wash it over with spirits, then dust it over with powder-blue in a small muslin bag, rub it up with a soft linen cloth, and finally polish it with a silk handkerchief. If there are portraits in the room not glazed, which appear to require cleaning, they might be gently washed over with cold water without being injured, but on no account touched with soap; it is however safer merely to dust them, and even this should be with a feather-brush, and very lightly done; it is impossible to take too great care of such precious possessions; an injury given to a valuable portrait or painting no money can repair.

Should much dust have fallen from the pictures and mirrors, &c., &c., it may be necessary to sprinkle with tea-leaves and sweep round the sides of the room very lightly before laying down the carpet, or else remove the dust by drawing a coarse damp cloth round the room as they do in Germany; this method of sweeping answers extremely well when there is not a great deal of dust to be removed, and is much in favour of keeping the furniture clean.[2] If the carpet is made so that it can be turned each time that it is laid down, then care should be taken that the same part does not always lie before the door, so as to be worn out before the rest, for a shabby piece of carpet, on entering a room, immediately strikes the eye; but if the carpet is cut to fit into recesses, this cannot be avoided. As soon as the carpet has been put down quite even on the floor, and tightly stretched and nailed (which is generally done by the man who has the charge of beating it), the housemaid, with a clean coarse cloth, should rub down each breadth, taking care to turn to different parts of the cloth as they get soiled. Many people approve of rubbing it over in this way with a damp flannel, but the practice is not a good one; it has the effect of brightening for the moment, but gives it afterwards a duller and more soiled look; a greater degree of dampness than that produced by the use of tea-leaves when brushing the carpet is injurious. When a carpet is much soiled, by having been used for years, it may be made to look perfectly clean, and even the colours greatly restored again, by being washed with a mixture of boiled soap and ox-gall, but in a very short time it will look worse than before; even if clean cold water is spilt upon the carpet, though no stain is left at first, that part will very soon have a soiled appearance.[3]

The room being now ready to receive the furniture, the chairs having been previously dusted, washed over, and rubbed bright, as directed, and the cushions taken off, switched, and wiped with a clean cloth, they should be restored to their proper places in the room; the window-curtains having been properly switched and brushed below, should be put up, the fire-irons and coal-scuttle brought back, having been scoured, and all the china ornaments, after being carefully washed in cold water, should be arranged as before, together with books, writing-desks, and work-boxes, and behold the room complete. The housemaid may now look round with modest triumph, and exclaim, Sublime. A drawing-room in perfect order, how lovely is it!