Part 2

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!_

The dining-room, breakfast-parlour, and study, should each be cleaned in the same perfect manner, but as the mode of proceeding is in no way different, it is unnecessary here to enter into any further detail; a few words, however, may be necessary with regard to arranging a gentleman’s study; those days of thorough cleaning are days of horror to the literary man; he would rather have a lion let loose upon him than a cleanly housemaid; and certainly, with regard to dusting either books or papers, too much attention cannot be shown, as much mischief may be done by even shifting their places; books upon a table should be taken up only one at a time, dusted, and replaced in exactly the same spot, or, if the table requires to be rubbed up, the books should be placed on the floor in the same position in which they stood on the table, then taken up one by one, dusted and replaced on the table as at first. A housemaid should never exercise her own taste in arranging books in a gentleman’s study; however her contempt of 1st, 2nd, or 3rd volume may be overlooked in a drawing-room, it is a serious annoyance to the literary man to be obliged to hunt for the 2nd or 3rd volume of a work of which he has finished the first, through, perhaps, fifty others; but it is a still greater grievance to have a written paper misplaced, torn, or destroyed; the smallest scrap of writing, though found on the floor, or in any odd corner, should be considered sacred, and placed on the table in such a position as to be easily discovered; a weight should be put on any parcel of papers so as to prevent the draught blowing them away when the windows are opened, and the housemaid had better be content with carefully dusting round them rather than run the risk of misplacing them in any way; let it be remembered, however, that this is perhaps the only case in which it is better to dust round a moveable article than to dust under it, for this dusting round is a slovenly practice too often indulged in. A lazy servant will dust round a writing-desk or work-box, for a week together, without once taking the trouble to remove it, till, when taken up by some one, her negligence is discovered by the line of dust which surrounds each article. Where books in a book-case require dusting, one shelf only should be emptied at a time, and the books placed on the floor (after the carpet has been lifted) in exactly the same order as they stood in the book-case; the shelf should then be washed, and the books taken up, one by one, dusted, and restored to their former places, as soon as the shelf is thoroughly dry; care should be taken not to replace them while the slightest dampness remains.

The rooms having been all cleaned, and the doors carefully shut, the stairs must now be swept down, beginning from the attic story. The long brush called the Turk’s head, should be used first, to sweep away the cobwebs from the ceiling and corners, and to dust down the walls; the bannisters must be brushed between all the rails with a bannister-brush, and the hand-rail washed over and well rubbed up. The hand-rail should always be polished with French polish that oil may not be required, as almost every person who goes up stairs lays a hand upon the rail of the bannisters, and it is difficult to rub the oil off sufficiently to prevent its being unpleasant to the touch: wherever oil is used too great care cannot be taken to rub it completely off.

A lady was heard to complain, that a set of books which had recently been sent home, beautifully bound, were all found, soon after, to be spotted with oil; on inquiry being made, it was discovered that the housemaid, wishing to make everything look particularly bright in the drawing-room, for expected company, had washed the table over with oil, and, after very slight rubbing, had exercised her taste by putting all the best bound books round in a circle upon it, with a bullfinch in its gilt cage in the middle. This setting out of drawing-room tables with all the best-bound books had better be avoided; a small stand of books on a table, or a few scattered up and down, together with writing-desks and work-boxes, give a look of freedom and comfort to a room which it is very agreeable to see; but to find a table set out with a couple of books, splendidly bound, at each corner, the bible and prayer-book, in velvet, with their gold clasps, very probably opposite to a couple of volumes of Shakspeare and Lord Byron, and sacred poetry at the alternate corners: to see these books put out in January, 1850, to remain till January, 1851 (unless the family should remove for a time into the country), is a melancholy picture of the general literature of the inmates.

But to leave this literary discussion, and return again to the uncarpeted staircase. The next thing to be done, after rubbing well the hand-rail, is to wash down the stairs, and then, with a painter’s brush and pipeclay, go over the sides of each step where the carpet does not cover it: the pipeclay used for this purpose is generally mixed with glue, or what painters call size; but this size is often not quite fresh, which produces a bad air on the staircase; to boil the pipeclay with equal parts of water and milk, or with water and beer, is a very good substitute for size; it will rub off a little, but not nearly so easily as when water alone is used in mixing it.

If there are any spots of grease on the stairs, before using the pipeclay, scrape them off; then on each spot put a little of a mixture of strong soap lees and unslaked lime, let it lie for a few minutes, then rub hard and wash it off. A bottle of this mixture, well corked, should be kept always at hand, to take spots of candle grease or oil, either out of floors or stone passages; when used for floors it should be washed more quickly off, or it may be necessary also to lower it with cold water, as this mixture will discolour the boards if left on for any time. The stairs being finished with the pipeclay, sheets of very coarse brown paper should be laid down under each carpet, and each sheet turned in, so as to make it lie double at the edge of each step; this prevents the carpet wearing so fast as it is apt to do at the edges. Care also should be taken that the same part of the carpet is not always brought to the edge of the step, so as to cause that part to be worn shabby while the rest looks fresh: a little arrangement in shifting, sometimes higher, sometimes lower, will, in a great measure, prevent this. A stair-carpet should be cut at least half-a-yard longer than required for covering the stairs, and turned in at top and bottom, which will allow for this shifting. Attention also is necessary to stretch the carpet as tight as possible in laying it down, so that there should be no creases to be worn by passing feet; and also to see that the rods, after being well scoured with rotten stone and oil, and rubbed bright, should be so driven through the rings as not to get loose. By attending to these particulars, a stair carpet will look well as long again as when it is ill kept and neglected, and allowed to lie so long without being taken up, as to wear a mark at the edge of each step, which it is impossible afterwards to efface.

The floorcloth in the lobby should next be swept, then washed over with soap and water, with a sponge or flannel (but never with a scouring-brush, which some housemaids use), and rubbed up with a dry cloth; a little bees’-wax may be rubbed in, which improves the appearance, and also preserves the surface, but brisk light rubbing will be particularly required when the wax is used, both to give it a bright look, and to prevent the dust from sticking to it. Floorcloths should not be much washed with soap, as it injures the paint. When not very dirty, washing them first with cold water, and then with milk, will be sufficient; the milk gives them a very pretty gloss, and they are more easily rubbed up than when the bees’-wax is used.

As the steps from the outer door, the door itself, and all in the under-story belongs in general to the cook’s work, the housemaid may now be considered as having fulfilled her task, with regard to a thorough cleaning. We proceed, now, to mention the routine of daily work she has to go through in keeping all clean, and will also combine this with the parlour work, which, in families where there is no footman, frequently falls to the housemaid’s portion.

With early rising and active habits much may be done before breakfast, and much should be done, or confusion will ensue for the rest of the day. The housemaid’s work should be begun both in winter and summer by six o’clock, for as in winter a good deal must be done by candle light, it is less difficult to accustom oneself to awake always by a little after five o’clock, than to leave off the habit in winter, and have to begin it again; half an hour, or even a whole hour, of longer sleep will make very little difference in the feeling of comfort at the moment, and will greatly add to the difficulties of the day. As the sitting-rooms will require to be done out thoroughly, each in turn once a week, this will require three mornings from six o’clock, and even the time this will give may not be sufficient; some things may have to be left undone, which a considerate mistress will give the opportunity of being completed after breakfast. In some houses where the cook has assistance, the dining-room is under her care, this will give more time to the housemaid for the drawing-rooms and study; but still as the stair carpet will require to be brushed down oftener than once a week, and should always be done if possible before breakfast, the necessity of early rising at all seasons is very apparent.