Durable Whitewash

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 52, 21 June 1940, Page 45

Durable Whitewash

Dear Aunt Daisy, I wonder if any of the Daisy Chain could give me the recipe for white house paint made of lime and skim milk. Would it be suitable for outside painting?--" Timothy" (Te Kuiti). I am not sure about using skim milk but I know that equal parts of buttermilk and water, mixed to the usual consistency with fresh well-slaked lime will make a good and durable whitewash. It should be applied while hot. Here 1s another recipe which is supposed to withstand rain also. To every bucket of whitewash allow a cup of plain flour mixed to a fine smooth paste with cold water, and then made into a starchy paste by the addition of boiling water, being careful to stir all the time, just as if you were making starch. Add this to the bucket of whitewash, and use always a little washing blue in the water as you mix your whitewash. This makes it very white, and with the addition of the boiled flour starch you will find that there will be no flaking or rubbing off. Here is another recipe for whitewash: One pound of whitening, 1 cake of laundry blue, 1 Ib. of size, and 1 tablespoon of alum, Pour boiling water on to the whitening until it becomes a thin paste. Add the size, already melted in a saucepan, the blue dissolved in water, and lastly the alum. Tint if needed with red ochre, for pink; yellow ochre for buff; and Brunswick green for green. It will be found that if whitewash is mixed with salt water, or a salt and water solution, it will not powder off so easily.