If you have a lot of kids (and maybe a couple of pets) you either clean all the time, or your house is a wreck. Or, if you’re like me, you clean all the time AND your house is a wreck. Picking up messes, cleaning up spills, vacuuming, doing laundry…just keeping the house livable can take hours. Every day. Seriously. Hours. However, I’ve found a few cleaning and organizing tools that have actually made cleaning more efficient and enjoyable. So enjoyable, in fact, that my kids ASK to help me so they can use them.
One of the best things you can do to make housework less of a burden and more enticing to your kids is to buy tools that are cute and fun to use. I’ve got a few of those on the list, as well as my all-time favorite cleaning tool ever, which has saved several rugs and pieces of furniture from the trash heap.
Here are my current favorites for every room in the house (not affiliate links):
Kitchen
Best Broom Ever: The Broombi
The Broombi is the coolest broom I’ve ever owned. Instead of bristles, the bottom of it is just a thin, silicone, squeegee-type blade. You would not believe how well it sweeps up dog hair, crumbs, dirt, and even liquid. And it works with the dustpan I already had. I was hoping it would be a good alternative to vacuuming the rug in my living room, which is perptually covered in dog hair, but it really doesn’t work on that any better than a normal broom. However, it is great on my laminate and linoleum floors, and the blade is so much easier to keep clean than the bristles on a normal broom. You just wipe it off once in a while with a wipe or paper towel, and it’s good as new. It also adjusts height so that it can fit my younger kids, and they love to use it.
Best for Cleaning Crevices, Bottles, and Shoes: Detail Cleaning Brushes
I bought a set of Cleaning Brushes because I’ve been watching a lot of hoarder-house cleaning videos on YouTube and all of the serious people use them. I use mine primarily for getting gunk out of the crevices around my sink and stove and for cleaning bottles. They’re also great for cleaning shoes, which I do a LOT of in the summertime. I haven’t really used that pointy silicone tip for anything, but I just know that one day, it’ll be the perfect tool to clean something.
Best Scrubber: Scrub Daddy
The Scrub Daddy works really well on dishes and pans, but I really love it because it’s so adorable. My kids love to clean with it, and you just can’t help but feel a little bit better about doing the dishes when your sponge is smiling at you. My favorite thing about these is that when they’re dry, they’re nice and hard and get off the tougher stuff, and when you get them wet and soapy, they’re softer for more delicate jobs. They last forever, and you can designate different colors for different rooms. I don’t do that, because I always forget which color means what, but it sounds like a great idea.
Bathroom
Best Cleaner for Glass and Counters: Sprayway
Every time I spray Sprayway glass cleaner, my daughters come and find me just to breathe in the smell. They also love it because it has a very satisfying, thick foam and it works so much better than my usual vinegar-and-water spray. It’s more expensive than my homemade spray, and doubtless much worse for your lungs, but it really is irresistable. I use it all over the house, on countertops, walls, and anything I’d use my vinegar spray on.
Best for Linoleum, Crocs, and Stains: Melamine Erasers
Nothing is better than Melamine Erasers (Magic Erasers) for cleaning surfaces with a finely-textured finish: linoleum, Crocs and other shoes, white appliances, bathtubs, formica, and even walls. I have one of those thick mats in front of my sink that are supposed to help support your back, and no other rag or cleaner can get it clean, but the melamine erasers make it look brand new.
The best part about these erasers is that you don’t need any soap; just get them wet and wring them out. If they’re dry, they also work as erasers for dry-erase markers. Once they start to fall apart, they’re cheap enough that you can just throw them away…in fact, if I use one on my bathroom, I usually do throw it away when I’m done. I try to keep my permanent markers hidden, but every once in a while someone finds one and scribbles all over a wall or table, and a melamine eraser takes it right off.
Best for Toilets, Gross Stuff, and Quick Cleaning: Disinfectant Wipes
I used to frown on Disinfectant Wipes as wasteful, but there is only so much laundry that I can do. I keep a container of these in my kitchen and bathrooms, and if I have to clean up something gross, I just use one of these and then throw it away. They’re great for giving a quick cleaning to the toilet seat, sink, or fridge. They also make it easier for kids to help with cleaning. Whenever someone in the house gets a stomach bug, I have someone go around each day and wipe off all the door handles and light switches with a couple of these wipes. I’m sure that actually doesn’t do any good, but it makes me feel a lot better.
Living Room
Best Cleaning Tool Ever: Bissell Little Green Pet Deluxe
This is it – the best cleaning tool of any kind ever invented: the Bissell Little Green Pet Deluxe. It’s a tiny wet vacuum that works SO WELL on getting small stains out of carpets and furniture. I also use it to clean my entire couch every few weeks. It gets up so much dirt that the couch looks new again. It even holds a surprisingly large amount of water, so you’re not constantly dumping and refilling it. When we were potty-training the dog and my toddler simultaneously, I would have died without this thing. It’s so much better at cleaning up bodily fluids than a rag and a bottle of carpet cleaner, and you don’t have to actually touch whatever disgusting mess you’re cleaning up. Make sure you get this model, because it’s way cheaper than some of the other versions that have almost the same name. Mine was $88 at Wal-Mart.
Best Floor and Wood Cleaner: Murphy’s Oil Soap
When I mop with vinegar and water, the house smells so…bad. Murphy’s Oil Soap, on the other hand, smells fantastic. It lasts forever, it does a good job, and it doesn’t leave any residue behind. I use it on my laminate floors and wood cabinets, and when I’m done, I just sit for a while and look around my kitchen, admiring the shine and breathing in the good smell.
Bedroom
Best Storage for All Those Stuffed Animals They Never Play With: Macrame Toy Holder
I got this Hanging stuffed animal holder on Amazon thinking that it would probably end up being junk like all the other hanging toy holders I’ve ever gotten, but I actually love it. The cord that it’s made with is sturdy, the design is pretty, and it holds a ton of stuffed animals. I hung it low enough that the kids can reach into it to play with the stuffed animals (which they never actually do), and it feels like it’ll last a long time even if they do decide to take things out and put them back in.
It came with some ridiculous foam stickers, which are now in the garbage, and some fairy lights that require batteries (which I think are silly), but the actual toy holder itself is worth the price. I like the idea of turning all the toys that are usually driving me crazy all over the house into a piece of artwork on the wall. Five stars, Amazon.
Best Way to Hide Little Toys and Books: 6-Cube Organizer
This Walmart 6-Cube Organizer is cheap, and you can tell it’s cheap, but in general, I think that kids’ furniture should be cheap until they’re old enough to know better than to write, jump, and spill things all over it. My kids have a million tiny little toys that I can never keep organized, so I gave up and just shoved them all in the square baskets that go inside the cube. Their rooms look great, they don’t care that nothing is organized in the cube, and if it gets covered in marker and water stains, I only want to cry a little bit.
Office
Best Way to Keep Cords from Driving You Nuts: Cord Holders
I cannot stand it when I want to charge something and I have to dig through a tangled up mess of a thousand cords. I bought two of these Cord holders, which came with a bunch of silicone and hook-and-loop wraps, and now my cord cupboard is so much less aggravating. Will anyone else will ever put the cords away neatly? Probably not. But at least I have the tools I need to organize them every so often. If I designed this thing, the compartments would be bigger and the lid would actually latch, but other than that, I love it. I wanted to go the extra mile and label each section with the type of cord, but I don’t know what most of my cords go to, so I gave up on that.
What are your favorites?
Do you have any favorite cleaning and organizing tools that the world needs to know about? Share them in the comments!
