Threshing floor

“ Through the holes that are left, the air comes up from below, keeping the rooms cool, but at the same time filling them with most unpleasant odours. A great deal of the ordinary domestic refuse is got rid of by the simple plan of pushing it through the holes in the floor, and leaving it to rot in the space between the house and the ground. ”

“ Overhead on the low ceiling someone is treading with heavy footsteps; no footsteps are heard, but the boards are bending and fine dust is falling into the joints. How could it fall if there were no one upon the dark floor, walking about and looking for something? ”

“ His foot found the trigger of the trapdoor, and he opened it and crept to the edge of the pit to hold the candle and peer down. There was nothing but the smooth cement walls and flooring. He ripped away rugs, searched the floor, finally stood, panting, beside the table in despair. ”

“ The wide corridor, flagged with black-and-white pavement, presented a cheerless aspect of bare walls discolored by damp, and adorned alternately by stags' heads and family portraits in a crumbling state of decay. The floor was thus divided: on the right, the dining-room and the kitchen; on the left, drawing-room and a billiard-hall. A stone staircase, built in one of the turrets, led to the upper floors. ”

“ They scarcely ever scrub the ceilings, walls, or floors of their dwellings. You may see dirt upon the walls and posts of their houses, layer upon layer, the accumulation of years. The floors, if made of plank, are always of a dingy dirty colour, yet polished with a varnish made by the dirt of their bare feet continually rubbed in with other filth. Here and there in the floor you will see holes conducting to the lower storey, which they use as spittoons, and for other purposes. ”

“ In order to prevent the staircase from acting as a flue in case of fire, and causing a draught of air to rush through the parts of the building opening into it, one side of it is left open to the external air, being only enclosed by a light arcade of open arches on each floor. ”

“ This upper floor is what you nowadays see when you enter the Pyramid,—and no one imagines that under it is an open space with room to walk in, and yet another floor below, where everything of value is secreted. ”

“ Reeling, glide at you, we dance it:
‘Tip us nicely for the gloss!’
It’s no putty that we daubs
On your ashen-wooden floors
It’s the bloody sweat we daubs
Over all your pretty floors
We polish it hard! ”

“ When the floor is disconnected one may advance three or four steps, either from the window or door, and then that whole part turns on a hinge and slides you into a padded strong-room beneath, where you may kick your heels until you are released. ”

“ As they struck the floor the little man in black emitted a most piercing and terrible scream, and instantly relaxing his efforts of attack, fell to beating the floor with the back of his hands and drubbing with his heels upon the rug in which he had become entangled. ”

“ One floor much resembles another, but the basement and the top storey rooms are the worst of all. We look through the window of a second floor back room, and see the out premises, but one look is sufficient. ”

“ Easy to see the marks; the floor is deep in dust, and the walls are thick with it. On floor, mark of several feet—confused in struggle, may articulate separately later on—one woman's—also trailing of long skirt. On walls marks of hands, fingers outspread, as if trying to grasp. Some of the long marks down the wall others across. ”

“ Whereas the inconveniences of the floor as a place for building are innumerable. The floor is draughty, it is inaccessible, except from the attitude of the serpent, and the serpent's attitude, even if rich in a certain lax comfort, is most unfavourable for the steady use of both hands. ”

“ The walls of the well-staircase having a remarkably fine echo, and the wooden floor of the steps serving as a sounding board, the shouting, whistling, and quarrelling of the impatient young costers is increased tenfold. ”

“ Maud.
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{45}
at all. They were squeezed into staircase walls, they lurked beside chimneys, they were down near the floor, they were close beneath the ceiling. It was as if a child had built the house for the express purpose of playing hide-and-seek in it. Ah, how we children did play hide-and-seek there! To lie curled up in the darkest corner of the “twisty” cupboard, that went burrowing in under the front stairs,—to lie curled up there, eating an apple, and hear the chase go clattering and thumping by, that was a sensation! ”

“ Imagine an exquisite room long and narrow. The walls are painted white or light gray—a warm golden gray for the relief and pleasing of the eye. The floor is comfortable to the feet, sanitary, easily cleansed and durable. There is an iron ring in the floor where the cover to the chute is lifted down which the dust is to be thrown. There is another for the ash chute, lined with metal for protection from fire by [Pg 138] means of the hot coals that may sometimes be left in the ashes. ”

“ Nothing could look more lamentable than the wall-papers of these rooms, blue or yellow squares, falling in tatters, and indicating, at the height of a fifth or sixth floor, just under the roofs, the place occupied by some poor little garrets, narrow holes, in which perhaps a man's whole life had been confined. ”

“ Paper sho ji, [19] or sliding doors, set loosely in grooves, took their place. They could be easily taken out, to allow fresh air. These grooves were so arranged that the whole floor could easily be changed into several apartments or rooms. ”

“ The centre and upper hinges had been torn from the walls, and the bars of the door were forced outward as from an explosion. Brick and plaster, strewing the floor, adding to the effect of ruin and wreckage, completed the scene. ”

“ But though the edifices are finer, and the arrangement more convenient, each floor consisting of a complete set of rooms, yet, from their great size, it usually happens that the same house is inhabited by several families, and the stairs, consequently, becoming public, are as dirty and as disgusting as the common streets. ”

“ Other drift-wood, split in rough slabs, forms the floor, leaving an entrance space about two feet square. From this hole in the floor, which is always several feet below the level of the surrounding ground, an entrance passage has been dug out large enough for a man to crawl through it into the main earth-floored room. ”

“ One of the simplest solutions is superimposing floor upon floor, so compelling tired women and puny children to mount narrow, dark, and gloomy stairs, and increasing to its maximum the danger of fire. The Egyptian pyramids and the catacombs of Rome centuries ago were not poorer in healthful light and air than were these homes of our fellow-citizens in our own decade of retrogression. ”

“ The floor of the baðstofa is of boards but the floors down stairs are frequently of hard earth which frequently becomes damp. From the ceiling are suspended numerous articles of domestic economy while large chests, ornately carved, containing clothing and valuables are scattered through the house. ”

“ No rug will ruck on it, no slipper stick to it. Needs no weighted brush. Self-shining. The only perfect Floor Wax known. One box will do all the floors you have."
Indeed, half a box did all the floors we have. No slipper would stick to the paste, but the paste would stick to the slipper; and the greasy Prince did in spots all the floors we have: the laundry floor, the attic floor, and the very boards of the vegetable cellar.
I am young yet. I have not had time to collect my twelve two-horse loads. But I am getting them fast. ”

“ The floor is made like the walls and covered with large sheets of bark; in the middle of the floor is a square sunken box filled with sand or earth in which a fire is kept burning, and over the fire hanging from the roof is a simple rack, on which wood is placed to dry. ”

“ She moved forward quickly, and knelt down on the floor. Then a shudder went through her, and she sat back with a low cry.
Once more bending down, she raised the inert mass from the floor, turned the limp head, stared down into the ghastly face. ”

“ No sooner were we in this vast place than we saw a strange and startling thing—a man, sitting or crouching on the floor, his hands before him, the wrists tied together, his body bound with thongs of raw hide to a big post which stood in the centre of the floor and supported the beam of the loft above. ”

“ They are always so arranged that those who operate them face the middle of the room. The floor is simply a smoothly plastered dressing of clay of the same character as the usual external roof covering. It is, in fact, simply the roof of the room below smoothed and finished with special care. ”

“ The houses are heated by means of a system of flues underneath the floor, which is made of large flagstone placed over the flues and well cemented; over all thick, strong, oil paper is placed, making a rich, dark, highly polished floor, through which no smoke can come, though it is always agreeably warm. ”

“ In whatever grade a wooden floor is used, it has the disadvantage of needing attention. It always needs refinishing. The better the floor the more attention it will need. It will splinter eventually and show marks if things are dragged over it. Although the scraping down and refinishing always make the floor look like new, the wooden floor is better in any room in the house than the kitchen, laundry or pantry. ”

“ The fixtures came late, too late for the big storm. There being no bolt or any other fastening to the north porch door, the wind blew that door open and the rain descended in torrents upon the hardwood floor of the guest chamber. Next day it was apparent that the floor was practically ruined. The carpenters agreed that it would have to be scraped and that it was very likely to swell and spring out of place on account of the soaking it had suffered.
Hardwood floors may have their advantages: they ought to have, for they are a costly luxury and they are a great care. ”

“ The floor of most rooms, being permanently covered with the mats already described in previous chapters, has no special attention bestowed upon it; at all events, the floor is often of rough boards laid in such a way that irregular spaces occur between them. When the house has a proper hall or vestibule, the floor is composed of wide planks ”

“ The floor is pitched above the ground as in the traditional house, but instead of a doorway there is a small square hole through which one must climb on his knees—a psychological design feature intended to ensure that all worldly dignity is left outside. ”

“ If you kneel—well, you know how hard the floor gets if you kneel on it for quite a little time; if you sit or squat your dress or your coat-tails insist on playing at earthquakes with your building. Also the city on the floor is liable to hostile invasion by cats or dogs or servants: to the crushing and scattering by short-sighted outsiders or people who rush into the room to look for something in a hurry. ”

“ For sometimes the tiles are more frightful than I can describe, and are often cracked and irregular, while one can manage the boarded floor if one resolutely tackles it and determines{37} that it shall not conquer one instead of being conquered itself. ”

“ The floor is extremely irregular with its accumulation of fallen masses of rock, and the action of water has given to portions of the walls the appearance of pillars supporting the arches of the roof. ”

“ The earthen floor is covered with coarse mats, and sometimes the walls are lined with finer mats; in the roof an attic is often formed for a part of or the whole length of the house and is reached by a rude ladder. The floor of this upper chamber is frequently covered over with a layer of earth and is used as a cooking-place, with much advantage to the lower part of the house, which is thus kept comparatively free from smoke and soot. ”

“ A lot of caved-in old rookeries; with everybody living on the second floor because the first one's so damp ye'd get your die-and-never-get-over-it if you lived in the basement, and the top floors so leaky that you go to bed under an umbrella; and they all braced up with iron clamps to keep 'em from falling into the canal, and not a square inch on any one of 'em clean enough to dry a shirt on! ”

“ To support the roof, which is about twenty feet above the floor, and extends in some cases over several acres, huge pillars not less than fifteen feet thick have been left standing at irregular intervals, thus forming immense rows of galleries, which even when illuminated by thousands of lights are lost in a dim and endless perspective, which may well remind the spectator of the fabled Hall of Eblis. ”

“ Then we hears somebody upstairs run across the floor over our heads and hears 'em pile down the steps, which is built on the outside of the building to save building 'em on the inside of the building, and in about a half a minute a fire bell or some similar appliance down the street a piece begins to ring its head off. ”

“ At night the fires go out, but the house [296] retains its heat until about daylight in the morning, when it begins to feel a little chilly. There is scarcely one perfectly level floor in the country, and many of the houses, especially the old ones, are tipped up at one end so that the line of the roof makes a very wide angle with the level ground. Some indeed tumble over altogether, where the owners are too poor or too indifferent to take them down before they progress so far towards demolition. ”