SHAVINGS

Evening Star, Issue 20134, 26 March 1929, Page 2

SHAVINGS

A good durable varnish will wear on interior woodwork at least twice as long as “ pretty good varnish.” Jf the wear is severe, as on baseboards or in the kitchen and bathroom, poor varnish perishes beyond all beauty and all protective integrity within a few months.

One of the most beautiful products of the Chinese ceramists is the familiar blue and white ginger or tea jar, adorned with the traditional sprays of white plum blossom on a clear blue ground. Roth the blossom and the colour of the ground have their symbolic meaning. The jars were used to convey Now Year gifts of tea or ginger, so the plum blossom was chosen because it blooms when the ice of winter melts away at the coming of spring and the blue ground because it typifies the melting of the waters. The design as a whole is an allegory of spring.

Save all odds and ends of toilet soap of every description and Jet them dry. When enough has accumulated, grate them ,iu small pieces and put through the food chopper, using the medium chopper. To one cupful of this gianulated soap add one and a-half cupfuls of fine oatmeal or cornmeal, and put through the food chopper again until reduced to a coarse meal. This may be facilitated by rubbing between the hands to loosen the particles. Pass through a coarse seive and add one ounce of olive oil to each two and ahalf cupfuls of the soap mixture. Blend thoroughly and keep in a covered jar. This is invaluable for cleansing very soiled hands and keeping them soft and smooth.

To clean faded or dirty-looking wallpaper, where the accumulation of dust particles cannot be removed by a brush, an excellent plan is to nib the surface of the paper all over with new bran. The bran may be applied by placing it on a flat, dry sponge. One lot of bran should not be used after .it appears to be dirty. Sheets of paper should be placed along th© skirting at the base of the walls to catch the bran as itis used. Grease spots, however, will still remain after this treatment. Often these can he removed by holding a piece of blotting paper over them and pressing with a hot iron. * ♦ » • There has been probably no more significant factor in the interior design and decoration of the modern home than the trend towards colour, and it is not a question altogether for surprise that the demand for brighter colours has spread to th© kitchen. Electric range makers have met this new development in a novel manner, and have produced electric ranges finished in various shades of blue, green, fawn, and grey, to harmonise with the interior decoration of the kitchen. Nothing could be more marked than the increased attention paid to kitchen decoration nowadays compared with the scant consideration it received a few year? ago. Brighter and better kitchens have indeed arrived, and not many housewives will regret_ the passing of the drab and unattractive domestic workxopai of the last decade.

Place a quantity of potatoes m a bucket with sufficient water to cover. Take a brick and vigorously twist backwards and forwards in the water. It will be found that almost all the skin has left the potatoes, and they only require the ends scraping m the usual manner. * * * * When gas is to be used for heating the -water in the circulating system of new houses, the combined gas boiler and hot water storage system should generally be recommended. When the hot water storage is close, to the boiler, the losses due to radiation are considerably less than with the old system in which the tank or cylinder was fixed on another floor. If this latter system has to be adopted, the flow and return pipes and the exposed parts of the hot water tank should be lagged. Even when the combined boiler and hot water storage system is adopted, the cylinder should he lagged. The flue pipe from a gas boiler should discharge into a. warm chimney, and should bp as sboit as possible to prevent condensation. A “down-blow” foe should be fixed at the bottom of the flue pine whore the connection is made to the boiler. Asbestonc flue nipes should be used whenever possible because they do snot deteriorate so rapidly as iron pipes as the result of condensation.