Sprinklers: Keep a tin sprinkler with a fine rose for dampening clean clothes or sprinkling floors or carpets. If ammonia or alcohol is put into the sprinkling-water, rinse the sprinkler well before putting it away.
A Tool Box: Fill cracks with putty to keep out dampness, hinge on a cover, and furnish with a padlock. Keep in it a sharp fine saw, a hatchet, tack hammer, brace and assorted bits, chisel, monkey wrench, screw-driver, and gimlets. Also assorted brads, tacks, wire nails, screw hooks, screw eyes, and picture wire. A putty knife is useful. A T-square and foot rule are indispensable. Keep the box stationary, and insist that whatever is taken from it shall be put back in good condition.
A Wax Board: Cover a small clean board with flannel, sewing it firmly, rub the flannel well over with softened—not melted—paraffine, and keep for smoothing irons.
A Laundry Cabinet: Have a laundry cabinet if it is no more than starch boxes set one on the other. Keep in it starch, soap, blueing, Javelle water for stains, soap powder, washing-soda, irons and holders, the wax board, and sandpaper, which is sovereign for roughened irons. Keep also a filled pin cushion and a bundle of clean rags. Close with a roller shade instead of door or curtain.
A Clothes Drainer: Tack coarse burlap over a big wooden hoop so loosely it sags smartly. Nail stout legs to the hoop, spreading them so a tub can be set underneath. Drop clothes sopping wet from the rinse into the hoop, and save time, strength, and wear.
A Lead Swab: For use on marble, brick, or stone—especially good for removing smoke and rust stains. Sew a pound of buckshot rather tightly inside stout canvas, tie the canvas in chamois skin, and change the leather as it grows soiled.
Sawdust: Get a peck of clean non-resinous sawdust, sift, and sun or oven-dry. Keep dry. Use on floors, also for drying and polishing intricate surfaces. Heat for use, but do not scorch.
Pine Needles: Clean pine needles, if available, should be kept for polishing floors, either hardwood or stained. Heat very slightly and strew them in front of the weighted brush or broom.
Brick Dust: Beat a soft brick to powder, sift it and keep dry. Use with a chamois dipped in oil, else upon the cut surface of a raw potato. Especially useful for spots on steel or for polishing pewter and copper.
A Wall Mop: Cut washed cheesecloth into even strips, tack as many as can be firmly fastened to the end of a light rod, and shake free of lint. Clean by dipping up and down in soapsuds or gasolene after use.