A New Paint Job

One of the first things Mum wanted to do in the new home at Snake Creek was give the rooms a fresh coat of paint . The colours were worn from the endless scrubbing that was required to rid the house of the soot that coated everything . Locomotives spewed a thick gummy black smoke that infiltrated every nook and cranny .The walls grew stained from a combination of soot and woodsmoke so were spot cleaned weekly . The scour marks showed that the previous homemaker had tried hard to stay ahead of the grime .

 A walk along the track trailed the soot into the house . But , the floors faired better than the walls . A weekly scrub with lye water made from the woodashes kept them bleached white . Mum always put a coat of paste wax over the top. When the wax was set , she would put on a pair of Dad's worksocks and skate around the house , buffing the floors to a glass finish . This made washing the floors easier since the soot could not lodge in the shiny surface .

Interior paint came in only two CPR colours:white and green . Even if Mum had wanted