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Cleaning Floors and painting Walls

Use foaming oven cleaner to clean floors and make milk paint to seal floors.

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Greetings! I've a couple of tips. First, with plenty of ventilation in the room, you can use a foaming oven cleaner to dislodge built-up wax on a vinyl or tile floor. Keep applying, letting it set and then scraping. In our case, it was the only product that did the trick. No more floor waxing for me!

Second, you can make milk paint to seal and color raw wood. Whip one-and-a-half cups of nonfat milk powder with half a cup of water. If too thin, add a bit more powdered milk; if too thick, add a bit more water. Whip it very well, until it's about the consistency of latex paint. Add a small amount of water-based color (acrylics made for craft painting) and stir thoroughly. I found myself with tiny globs of undissolved milk powder, but running the mix through a piece of cheesecloth solved the problem. Paint your wood with one coat and let dry for 24 hours before putting on a second coat, which will need to dry and set up for three days.

Janet Hounsell 
Conway, New Hampshire


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