Simple Housekeeping
In keeping house. It might not be where you’d think to find it, but there’s simplicity there, too. A stack of white cotton cloths, a sponge, an assortment of natural bristle brushes, a goat’s hair duster. A horsehair broom for the indoor floors; a corn broom for the porch. A jug of distilled vinegar and another of natural dish soap. A glass spray bottle. A lifetime vacuum. An uncomplicated plan.
I knew from the time I was a child that I wanted my one-day house to always be ready to welcome people in - even (especially) if the people were those of us who lived there. I wanted my house to be generally tidy and neat, well-kept and clean.
As I matured and became an adult, I began the learning of how this might be. Trying different ways, setting habits, discovering things about myself, our house, and our lifestyle along the way. Finding that having the goals of well-kept and clean could also be in-stride and easeful. Sometimes, it took necessary reframing to realize that ‘burdensome’ and ‘onerous’ were often mindsets that kept me from seeing that the housekeeping tasks could be much lighter and more manageable than I might have believed.
There’s a particular experience, I’ve found, in taking care of the things we love and value. I will naturally care for something I treasure more than I’ll care for something that I don’t. Over the years, this has become a guide and filter for the things we’ve chosen to let into our home and lifestyle. The philosophy that has emerged is fewer, but better. That’s really the first step in how I keep house - having in it only what we find beautiful and useful, as William Morris said so well. Edited, meaningful, useful, beautiful. When you have only these things, the keeping of them is less tiresome and more inspired. And when even the tools you use in keeping house are beautiful and useful? Well, there you go. Because even the experience of keeping our home can be (should be!) beautiful.
I decided long ago that, even as easeful as I might make it, or how beautiful the tools, I still didn’t wish to keep house on the weekends, nor did I want to spend an entire weekday (or large portion of it) on these tasks. So, I created a guide for keeping house over four weekday mornings, about an hour each. I’m a morning person, remember, so this time of day was optimal for me working with my grain.
Monday: Clean bathroom, launder bath linens
Tuesday: Launder bedding, dust, clean washer & dryer, water houseplants
Wednesday: Clean kitchen. Always countertops and sinks, and rotating each week between:
Stovetop & oven
Refrigerator
Shelves, cabinet doors & drawer fronts
Banquette storage
Friday: Mop floors, touch-up bathroom
Nearly every day at around 5:00, batched with feeding Nellie and starting our dinner prep, I vacuum the floors and rugs. When time is tight or energy is lower, I’ll do a quick sweep with the broom instead.
Yes, having a smaller home is a factor in this particular set-up, but I’ve followed much the same flow in other, larger houses as well. It’s a basic framework that’s proven robust enough to accomplish the needed tasks and easy enough to incorporate into my mornings. And maybe just as beautiful as having an uncomplicated plan is knowing that the plan is also a safety net to catch me when the inevitable circumstance throws a kilter and all goes haywire - I know without thinking about it how and where to fall back in step.