In bed-rooms with fires, a whisk-brush is best to clear the curtains and hangings from dust.
To remove grease or oil from boards, drop on the spots spirits of turpentine before the floor is scoured.
The house-maid should be provided with a box, with divisions, to convey her various utensils, as brushes, black lead, &c., from room to room, and a small mat to kneel upon while cleaning the grate.
3. Scouring Bed-rooms.—This should never be done in winter if it can be avoided, as it is productive of many coughs and colds. If inevitable, a dry day should be selected, and the windows and doors should be left wide open till dusk. A fire ought always to be made in the room after cleaning.
4. To clean Carpets.—Before sweeping a carpet, sprinkle over it a few handfuls of waste tea-leaves. A stiff hair-broom or brush should be used, unless the carpet be very dirty, when a whisk or carpet-broom should be used first, followed by another made of hair to take off the loose dirt. The frequent use of a stiff broom soon injures the beauty of the best carpet. An ordinary clothes-brush is best adapted for superior carpets.
When Brussels carpets are very much soiled, take them up and beat them perfectly free from dust. Have the floor thoroughly scoured and dry, and nail the carpet firmly down to it. If still soiled, take a pailful of clean, cold water, and put into it about three gills of ox-gall. Take another pail, with clean, cold water only; now rub with a soft scrubbing-brush some of the ox-gall water on the carpet, which will raise a lather. When a convenient-sized portion is done, wash the lather off with a clean linen cloth dipped in the clean water. Let this water be changed frequently. When all the lather has disappeared, rub the part with a clean, dry cloth. After all is done, open the window to allow the carpet to dry. A carpet treated in this manner, will be greatly refreshed in color, particularly the greens. Kidderminster carpets will scarcely bear the above treatment without becoming so soft as speedily to become dirty again. This may, in some measure, be prevented by brushing them over with a hot, weak solution of size in water, to which a little alum has been added. Curd soap dissolved in hot water, may be used instead of ox-gall, but it is more likely to injure the colors, if produced by false dyes. Where there are spots of grease in the carpeting, they may be covered with curd soap dissolved in boiling water, and rubbed with a brush until the stains are removed, when they must be cleaned with warm water as before. The addition of a little gall to the soap renders it more efficacious.
The carpets should be nailed on the full stretch, else they will shrink.
Fullers' earth is also used for cleaning carpets; and alum, or soda, dissolved in water, for reviving the colors.