Hey Girlie Pops,

Between TikTok and Tumblr, I’m seeing way too much bedrotting and overwhelm about what actually needs to happen to clean a room or maintain a home. There’s a real gap in basic home-training skills; and the people filling that gap are often alt-right tradwife influencers and crunchy pseudoscience.

So!

I am here, as your big sister who’s been living alone and maintaining clean, functional spaces in both surgical/clinical and cozy domestic settings for 6 years now, to teach you the basic tools, how they work, and how to keep your home clean cheaply and effectively.

This is homemaking for Competent Women not patriarchal nonsense. I'll cover pet care and pet cleaning routines and supplies in a follow up post, and these are all going to be tagged as #Big Sister Chats

≽^•⩊•^≼ Tools and Supplies ≽^•⩊•^≼

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚

The Perpetual Tools ♡ Basics You Actually Need

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚

ᵔᴥᵔ An upright canister or Euro canister vacuum

- not a stick vac. If you’re only going to have ONE vacuum, it should be a canister with real suction power and attachments. Supplement with a stick vac later if you want.

ᵔᴥᵔ A Bucket

ᵔᴥᵔ A Mop

- Cuban, Spin, Microfiber, Sponge, Deck Brush… I don’t care, just get a good mop head.

ᵔᴥᵔ A Broom

ᵔᴥᵔ A Dustpan & Brush

ᵔᴥᵔ If you have carpet: A handheld carpet cleaner/spot cleaner, and know where your local rentable wall-to-wall cleaner is (grocery stores, Lowe’s, Home Depot).

ᵔᴥᵔ Rubber or heavy nitrile gloves

ᵔᴥᵔ Rags

ᵔᴥᵔ A Scrub Brush

ᵔᴥᵔ A Plastic Razor Blade

ᵔᴥᵔ A Garment Steamer or Iron (I am begging you and I promise it's worth it)

ᵔᴥᵔ A lint brush, lint stone, or lint comb

ᵔᴥᵔ A clothing drying rack or clothes line

ᵔᴥᵔ A dish drying rack with mat

ᵔᴥᵔ A Toilet Brush & Plunger Set

ᵔᴥᵔ Two Laundry Hampers or Laundry Bags

ᵔᴥᵔ A sponge with a non-scratch scrub side (Scrub Daddy, Scotch-Brite, whatever)

ᵔᴥᵔ Plastic Drain Snake

ᵔᴥᵔ An old toothbrush (For detail bits)

ᵔᴥᵔ An Ironing pad

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚

Nice To Haves ♡ Upgrades That Make Life Easier

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚

ᵔᴥᵔ A Hand & Stick Combo Vacuum (Bissell Featherweight, Dyson stick vacs, etc.)

ᵔᴥᵔ Your own wall-to-wall carpet cleaner (if you have carpet)

ᵔᴥᵔ A Spin or Steam Mop

ᵔᴥᵔ A Swiffer-type Quick Mop dusty and mist/damp mop system (O-Cedar Microfiber, Swiffer, etc.)

ᵔᴥᵔ A Wet/Dry Vac (there are very cool all-in-one mop/vac combos now)

ᵔᴥᵔ A Steam Cleaner

ᵔᴥᵔ 1–2 divided cleaning caddies

ᵔᴥᵔ Scouring Pads / Steel Wool

ᵔᴥᵔ A Dish Brush

ᵔᴥᵔ Dryer Balls

ᵔᴥᵔ A Mini Bucket (for mixing small solutions)

ᵔᴥᵔ A Duster (instead of just using dry rags)

ᵔᴥᵔ Spray Bottles (Labeled with what's in them)

ᵔᴥᵔ Dedicated sink plunger

ᵔᴥᵔ Pumice stone for hard water and rust lines

ᵔᴥᵔ A floor and a hand squeegee (Wet messes, pet hair if you do the rubber brush + squeegee thing)

ᵔᴥᵔ Ironing Board/ Arm boards/ Tailor's Hams

ᵔᴥᵔ Disposable Exam gloves

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚

The Barest of Cleaning Supplies ♡ The Minimum Effective Arsenal

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚

ᵔᴥᵔ Bleach or an ammonia-based cleaner

- Something with actual documented pathogen-killing power (Clorox, Lysol)

ᵔᴥᵔ Distilled White Vinegar

ᵔᴥᵔ Scouring Powder

- Bar Keepers Friend, Comet Bleach Powder, Baking Soda, pick one

ᵔᴥᵔ Oxygen Bleach / OxiClean / OxyPowder

ᵔᴥᵔ Castile Soap

ᵔᴥᵔ Laundry Detergent

- powder, liquid, pods, doesn’t matter just something effective

ᵔᴥᵔ Carpet cleaning solution (if you have carpet + a portable carpet cleaner)

ᵔᴥᵔ 90% Rubbing Alcohol

ᵔᴥᵔ Hydrogen Peroxide

ᵔᴥᵔ Enzyme Cleaner (if you have pets or a period)

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚

Nice To Have Cleaning Supplies

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚

ᵔᴥᵔ Cleaning solutions for any “Nice to Have” machines

- (steam mop, carpet cleaner, wet/dry vac)

ᵔᴥᵔ Dish Soap

ᵔᴥᵔ Surface-specific cleansers

- (stone-safe, wood-safe, bathroom-safe, etc.)

ᵔᴥᵔ Mirror & Glass Cleaner

- (Though 50:50 vinegar + water does this very well)

ᵔᴥᵔ Canned Air for electronics

ᵔᴥᵔ Screen Wipes / Screen Cleaner

ᵔᴥᵔ Metal Polish

ᵔᴥᵔ Leather Cleaners

ᵔᴥᵔ Beeswax Block

ᵔᴥᵔ Lemon Oil

ᵔᴥᵔ Essential or Fragrance Oils

- These do not CLEAN they're to make things smell nice, and be sure to check which ones are compatible with YOUR pets

ᵔᴥᵔ Fabric Softener

ᵔᴥᵔ Fabric Scent things (sprays, rinses, beads, etc)

ᵔᴥᵔ Spray Starch

ᵔᴥᵔ Wrinkle Releaser

ᵔᴥᵔ Ironing Spray

ᵔᴥᵔ Color Safe Fabric Sanitizer

ᵔᴥᵔ Dryer Sheets

ᵔᴥᵔ Dishwasher detergents & Rinse additives (if you've got one)

ᵔᴥᵔ Washing Machine Cleaners

- If your machine works with these AND you have them in home, but honestly, hot water + a baking soda scrub + rinse + vinegar will do this too

ᵔᴥᵔ Laundry Stain Remover Pre-treatment (tide pens work pretty well here tbh)

ᵔᴥᵔ Niche fabric detergents (woolite, delicates detergent, etc)

ᵔᴥᵔ Drain Cleaner/Liquid plunger

ᵔᴥᵔ Citric Acid or other hardwater problem solver if you have hardwater issues

ᵔᴥᵔ Carpet Powder

≽^•⩊•^≼ The Routines ≽^•⩊•^≼

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚

Daily Maintenance ♡ Because it's easier to keep clean than get clean

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚

Mornings:

ᵔᴥᵔ Make the bed

- Your mom and that navy admiral guy on all of the inspirational vertical shorts accounts were correct. It starts your day off correctly with an accomplishment and it makes your room look better

ᵔᴥᵔ If you have in unit laundry and a load, start it before class/work/etc

ᵔᴥᵔ Do dishes as you cook or right after eating

ᵔᴥᵔ Quick Trash check

- if it's full, smelly, wet, etc, take it out on your way out of the house

Evenings:

ᵔᴥᵔ Switch your load from the morning into the dryer or onto a drying rack

ᵔᴥᵔ Quick sweep of clutter and things where they don't belong back into their rightful places

ᵔᴥᵔ Quick run through with a broom/dust mop/swiffer/stick vac (your surface level quick cleaning method for hair, crumbs, dust, and dirt)

ᵔᴥᵔ Dishes, get that sink cleared nightly and wipe it down and a quick pass over your prep surfaces (you can literally take your wet sponge from doing dishes, wring it out, and take a hand towel after it)

- it's the same concept as making the bed in the morning, so that you start and end your day with an accomplishment

ᵔᴥᵔ Put away any laundry you did that day, pull out and prep your outfit for the next day (iron/steam out wrinkles, hit it with a lint roller doesn't have to be perfect, doesn't even have to be starched, just presentable and not looking like you grabbed it out of the laundry pile and slept in it)

ᵔᴥᵔ As Part of your evening hygiene routine, wipe down the bathroom sink for toothpaste worms, makeup dust, etc. Grime will build up quick in bathrooms

Keep In Mind: These are all 2–10 minute tasks, totaling about 30 minutes to an hour of maintenance per day.

Doing these small resets cuts your deeper weekly cleaning from 6–8 exhausting hours down to 2–3 manageable hours.

This isn’t about perfection.

This isn’t about being a Stepford wife.

This is about saving time, energy, and effort for Future You, so she’s not stuck doing disaster recovery every Saturday.

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚

The "Adulting" Midi Cleans (1-2x weekly) ♡ for a little more heft (1 hour max in addition to above daily)

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚

ᵔᴥᵔ Run the Vacuum, just... hit the open floors, should take you maybe 10 minutes per room assuming fairly large rooms, my entire apartment takes me about 20 minutes and 30 minutes if I'm wrestling with the stairs, and I only do stairs once a week

ᵔᴥᵔ Quick scrub the toilet, just a quick inside the bowl with the toilet brush, swirl (not even 90 seconds)

ᵔᴥᵔ Hit all the kitchen and bathroom countertops with a quick wipe without moving your knife block, spice rack, etc. (3-5 minutes a room)

These are your touch up cleans, Not your deep cleans, not your maintenance cleans

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚

The Weekly Reset ♡ 2-3 Hours Active Time

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚

Bedroom:

ᵔᴥᵔ Sweep under the bed

ᵔᴥᵔ Strip the bed and throw the linens in the wash (Pillowcases, sheets, duvet covers, mattress pad/protector)

- Blankets and comforters that don't have a cover should be laundered monthly, covers and sheets should be laundered weekly, and inserts should be laundered every 3-6 months

ᵔᴥᵔ Gather any dishes that didn't get caught in the daily sweeps

ᵔᴥᵔ Vacuum

ᵔᴥᵔ If you have hard floors: Mop and dry with a towel (a towel under the feet works great for this and you can use your dirty towel from the bathroom)

ᵔᴥᵔ If you have carpet: use carpet powder or baking soda on freshly vacuumed carpets and let it set while you clean the rest of the house, then vacuum again at the end

ᵔᴥᵔ Remake the bed with clean linens (either the ones you just stripped, or a secondary set)

ᵔᴥᵔ Wipe mirrors and surfaces

ᵔᴥᵔ Dust frames and bookshelves

ᵔᴥᵔ Tidy Nightstands, put books away, etc

ᵔᴥᵔ Straighten Drawers and closet

Bathroom:

ᵔᴥᵔ Clean Makeup and Skincare Brushes/Sponges

ᵔᴥᵔ Launder towels, washcloths, and bathmats

ᵔᴥᵔ wipe down toilet exterior, toilet seat, sink, and tub with lysol or bleach solution

ᵔᴥᵔ Scrub any necessary stains away

ᵔᴥᵔ wipe mirrors

ᵔᴥᵔ Chemically clean toilet bowl (lysol or bleach into the bowl, then scrub with toilet brush)

Living Space/Office:

ᵔᴥᵔ Vacuum and mop

ᵔᴥᵔ Wipe Down Surfaces

ᵔᴥᵔ Straighten throw blankets and throw pillows

ᵔᴥᵔ Sort Mail into shred, address, and file

ᵔᴥᵔ Clear your junk mail tab in your email

ᵔᴥᵔ Empty digital and real recycle bins

ᵔᴥᵔ Hit upholstery with a lint roller

Kitchen:

ᵔᴥᵔ Vaccuum and Mop

ᵔᴥᵔ Wipe Down surfaces, cooktop, and oven; move knife blocks,spice racks, and small appliances as needed

ᵔᴥᵔ Thoroughly clean any small appliances like toasters, coffee makers, or air fryers

ᵔᴥᵔ Wipe down sink

ᵔᴥᵔ Check fridge for expired goods, wipe down one shelf (rotate which shelf you wipe down through the month)

ᵔᴥᵔ Check freezer and scrape frost if necessary

ᵔᴥᵔ Wipe the microwave out with a damp cloth if you have a microwave

Outside and Entryway:

ᵔᴥᵔ Sweep leaves, dirt, and gravel from front step, shake out welcome mats and entry rugs

ᵔᴥᵔ Tidy your shoe rack if you have one

ᵔᴥᵔ If you have dogs, now is the time to clean up poop in a back yard.

ᵔᴥᵔ Straighten up outerwear, "dump tray", and purse/bag

ᵔᴥᵔ Check the car for random fast food trash or general clutter

Closing Words:

Please consider increasing your contribution to The Sameer Project. They have several campaigns on Chuffed that support different areas across Gaza. I encourage you to choose any campaign and contribute regularly, increasing your donation whenever you are able to.