PAINTING AND FINISHING FLOORS How shall the floor in the ordinary house be treated so that rugs may be used, yet so that all unnecessary expense may be avoided? There are a great many houses where the expense would render hardwood floors out of the ques tion. In the case of a rented house, the owner may be unwilling to lay hardwood floors or even to paint or varnish the floors, yet the tenant wants to use rugs or perhaps bare floors. Although great claims are made by varnish manufacturers for their floor varnishes, it may be truthfully said that none of them will stand the hard usage of walking on them without sooner or later marring white. As has been pertinently said by a varnish manufacturer, "floor varnishes are not meant to be walked on." They are intended, rather, to keep the wood clean, so that it will look nicely around the edges of the rugs, which should be laid on the floor wherever people may be expected to walk. The average householder does not take this view of the subject. A floor is meant to walk on, rug or no rug. What can be done? First of all, the cracks must be filled either with putty or with one of the special crack fillers on the market that are made for the pur pose of filling in the spaces between the shrunken boards or remedying surface defects 74 in the wood. For those who wish to make their own crack filler, one or two recipes may be given: For large cracks, an excellent unshrinkable filler or putty is made by soaking blotting paper in boiling water until it becomes converted into a pulp, which is then mixed with glue, also dis solved in water. Enough bolted whiting is kneaded into this pulpy mass to make a fairly stiff putty, which may be tinted with color so as to match the wood. This mixture should be pressed well into the cracks, and smoothed off with the putty knife.
For small cracks, one part of white lead in oil should be mixed with two or three parts of bolted whiting, and enough coach varnish added to form a stiff paste. For hurried work, coach japan may be used in place of coach varnish.
This putty will resist moisture, and when dry may be sandpapered and rubbed.
Another putty or floor-crack filler said to be exceedingly waterproof, is made by mixing five parts by measure of cottage cheese, and one part of unslaked lime, kneaded together to a stiff dough. This putty will become stone hard. By the addition of mineral colors, such as raw or burnt sienna, burnt or raw umber, Vandyke brown, Venetian or Indian red, this putty can be colored to any desired shade.
Where the floor is pretty good, the simplest and best treatment, if one will take care of it after it is finished, is to give the wood a coat of good silex paste filler, if it is open-grained hardwood. This should be applied along a strip, say, two or three boards wide, with a short, heavy brush. The finisher should then go back to the starting point and rub the filler well into the wood, across the grain, with bur lap, and should carefully wipe off, in the direc tion of the grain, any surplus filler, using a soft rag. After the filler has had time to thoroughly harden, say, in from twenty-four to forty-eight hours, one or two thin coats of shellac should be applied; and after this a thin film of floor wax, which is brought to a polish with a weighted brush.
Care must be taken not to use more than just enough wax to give the requisite polish. As the floor wax begins to wear through, a little more wax may be applied to the worn spots. The floor should be polished at least once a week with a weighted brush. On no account should varnish or linseed oil ever be used over a wax finish, as it will soften it up and make a sticky mess, which will never dry and must be com pletely removed. When a wax finish becomes dirty through wear, it can be readily removed with turpentine. This is better applied hot; and to avoid any danger from fire, the can con taining the turpentine should simply be set in a pan of boiling water, which should be stood on several thicknesses of newspaper to protect the floor under it from the heat.