Dedicated laundry

In the olden days, large estates with an army of servants have dedicated rooms for different uses. The above is a dedicated laundry where they wash, dry and iron the linen. It requires to people full time to get things done.

Thank goodness for inventions like the washing machine, flat iron and tumble drier!

Grandma’s advice : Cleaning your glasswares

The following advice are eco-friendly and cheap – it is how the people in the past clean their glasswares properly.

• To get rid of traces inside your glass jars, jugs and vases specially those difficult to get rid off, just fill it with vinegar until you reach the middle of the jar, jug or vase. Add 1 cup of uncooked rice. Shake it really well until all traces are gone. Wash thoroughly with water.
• For very dirty glassware, just add a fist full of washing soda (or sodium carbonate) in hot water. Soak the glasses and crystals. Rinse them one by one with warm water and dry.
• Dirts on the engravings of glass and crystal objects are very difficult to clean. Soak an old toothbrush in Alchol (90 degrees) and brush it until all dirt is gone.

I hope you find these advice useful, thanks for reading

Grandma’s advice: Getting rid of limescale

I’ve been planning to share some cleaning tips which are often Earth friendly, using basic cleaning products and even fruits. Decreasing our dependence on toxic chemicals to clean up dirt at home. I hope these tips will come useful for you too!

Often wonder how to get rid of limescale in the kettle or even on the edges of the tub and sink? The easiest ecological way to clean it is to use Lime and Lemon. For the kettle, cut thin slices of lime or lemon, fill the kettle full and drop it in. Keep for a couple of hours then wash using your regular dish washing soap. No need to scrub hard because the limescales will just drop off. If you have years worth of lime in your kettle, do this at least twice.

The kitchen sink and lavabo? Just cut lemon or lime in half and scrub it to the surface. You can leave it for 15 minutes before washing it off. Scrub the surface with regular dish washing liquid and wipe dry. Surface will be limescale free and smell fresh too!

For acrylic baths, use liquid detergent and sponge. Rinse abundantly.

Enamel baths are fragile, do not use acid base products, use liquid detergent for the stains and for those very hard to remove stains use “White Spirit” on a piece of cloth. Do not forget to clean around the faucets using lemon juice. Don’t leave it too long, rinse abundantly.

Lemon is also quite good at cleaning stained marble surfaces. All you need is half a lemon, and salt. Pour very fine salt on the lemon and use this to scrub on the marble surface. Leave for 10 minutes and rinse abundantly. Do this several times if necessary. For marble surface, DO NOT USE bleach (javel), pure or highly concentrated bleach will ruin your marble!