Unlocking Grandma’s Cleaning Secrets
To me, there’s no place more welcoming than my grandparents’ homes. Is it the fresh smell? The tidiness? The sparkling surfaces? Ever the gracious hosts, their homes were always clean, comforting, and guest-ready. Do my grandparents hold some secret key to keeping a home clean and cozy that has been lost on my generation?
To find out, I decided to try a week-long cleaning experiment and see if I could unlock Grandma’s secret to a clean home and how it would fit into my modern lifestyle. I dug into some vintage cleaning guides from the 1950s, including Good Housekeeping: The Best of the 1950s and The Good Housekeeping Housekeeping Book published in 1947. I also interviewed my grandmothers, Grandma Marie and Grandma Lou, who were both new mothers in that era.
What I Learned from the 1950s Housewife Cleaning Schedule
The Good Housekeeping Housekeeping Book provided a detailed weekly cleaning schedule that seemed incredibly regimented compared to my usual “clean-as-you-go” approach. The publication outlined daily tasks that a 1950s homemaker was expected to complete each and every day, including:
- Making beds
- Checking floors
- Wiping counters
- Tackling clutter
- Doing a load of laundry
And then each day of the week had its own dedicated cleaning tasks:
- Monday: Groceries and kitchen
- Tuesday: Laundry
- Wednesday: Bedrooms and bathrooms
- Thursday: Linens and living room
- Friday: Groceries, defrosting the fridge, and cleaning dining rooms and halls
- Saturday: A “free day” for relaxing with family
Before this experiment, our cleaning mentality at home had a more lax, “clean-as-you-go” vibe. Aside from daily meal clean-up, most chores were divided between my husband and I to complete on the weekends. Deep cleaning tasks were done monthly or seasonally.
My goal was to try the Good Housekeeping routine for one week, single-handedly completing the daily tasks and each day’s themed chores, all while continuing to be present as a wife and mom to my family. I planned to somehow fit this schedule into my full-time job as a writer in the home industry. I decided to grade myself for each day’s work, just for added assurance that I was sticking to the protocol.
A Week in the Life of a 1950s Homemaker
Monday: Groceries and the Kitchen
Monday morning started, and I was already behind. After a particularly chaotic Sunday, I woke up to a sink full of dishes. A 1950s homemaker would never have gone to bed with that kind of mess looming in the background. To be fair, the cleaning experiment didn’t start on Sunday, but it would have made things a lot simpler to begin this journey without a game of catch-up.
Here we are, Monday morning, and I’m already feeling the consequences of my lackadaisical attitude toward housekeeping. “This week will be interesting,” I thought.
The first task for the day was groceries – or “marketing” as it was called back then. After tackling yesterday’s dishes, I was ready to start on the real task for today. The shopping, meal planning, and veggie prep came naturally; I usually take this task upon myself over the weekends and plan for two weeks since we buy in bulk. Doing this on a smaller scale was actually a nice change.
After scrubbing away at the sinks, countertops, and stove, I looked out at my handiwork and felt pretty good. Overall, the marketing and food prep kitchen cleaning took about 4 hours. I completed the daily checklist for the living room, kitchen, and hallways. Since it was a beautiful spring day, I decided to turn down the covers in our rooms and open the windows – a task my grandmother still does on sunny days.
In the end, I forgot to make my bed. “Was I raised in a barn?” I chastised myself.
Tuesday: Laundry Day
Tuesday was a rollercoaster. Today was laundry day, and the book stated that the average home should have about two loads of laundry to finish today. This did not count linens, which were saved for later in the week. I don’t know if we just have too many clothes, but I can assure you that two loads of laundry would not allow me to wash everything.
Thankfully, laundry requires significantly less manual labor than it used to. I was able to complete my daily chores while the laundry was going. Throwing the clothes in the washing machine may have been easy, but air-drying any delicate clothing still took as much time today as it would have then.
I was nearly finished with my husband’s work shirts, carefully laying them out to hang up, when I decided it was time to open the windows and turn on the ceiling fans to get some fresh air circulating. This was a mistake, as the fan had sat unused all winter. Dustmagedon. Fluffy flakes scattered down from the fan blades like snow. It was horrifying, and dust was visibly clinging to my drying delicates and my husband’s work shirts. Back to square one.
Wednesday: Bedrooms and Bathrooms
Overall, modern life’s chores are easier to perform than their 1950s counterpart. This is not the case with bedrooms and bathrooms. Today’s homes have a larger square footage, and even modest apartments have multiple bathrooms now. I’m thankful for the extra space, but that means double the scrubbing.
After finishing my bedroom, my kids’ bedroom, and the guest bathroom, I ran out of energy and time to finish the master bath. Scrubbing baseboards takes a lot out of you. I had to start my workday, my shoulders ached, and I was slowly falling more behind. Did I mention I had laundry going all week? The laundry never ended.
Thursday: Linens and the Living Room
Today is – you guessed it – more laundry. I was finally caught up on all our clothes, only to be done in time to wash all the bedding and towels. Another case of multiple loads.
Ever the multitasker, the 1950s homemaker was advised to thoroughly clean the living room while the sheets laundered. I woke up two hours early to start on the bathroom, make my family breakfast, and start the linen laundry. I felt bone-tired, and the day had barely started.
By the end of the morning, I had a surprising amount done. The breakfast dishes were put away, and the kitchen was tidy. The bathrooms were both sparkling, and the living area was vacuumed and mopped. At one point, my husband ambled by to compliment my work – which he did by smirking and saying that it was too bad this was just a week-long experiment. I sweetly replied that next Monday could start an experiment about a week as a beautiful young widow. Don’t worry, I need him around. I’m not doing the dishes next week.
After I wrapped up my usual day at work, I couldn’t bear the thought of doing anything, let alone vacuuming my upholstered furniture. I dusted all the light fixtures, wiped down the windows and window sills, and straightened any loose items. Clearly, the modern equivalent, right?
Friday: Groceries, Defrosting the Fridge, and Cleaning Dining Rooms and Halls
I woke up on Friday morning feeling terrible. I felt like I’d run a marathon, or at least a 5K. My arms and shoulders ached intensely, and my head was pounding. I almost didn’t go to work. I felt mildly pathetic, but realistically, I was trying to squeeze a full-time homemaking schedule into a day with a full-time job. Something had to give, and at the end of the week, it was my sanity and stress-level.
Thankfully for me, modern refrigerators don’t need weekly defrosting, making my workload a little lighter. I attempted a cheerful attitude as I continued on with the chores, but by this point, I was tallying how many times I’d tidied the same item.
That evening, we had friends come in from out of town, and we planned to meet them for dinner at a nearby winery. If they were local, I would have canceled. I was so exhausted by dinnertime that I felt dizzy. Constantly being the only one in the house tidying up is taxing. I can’t imagine the mental exhaustion of hosting guests in your home regularly after completing this schedule.
On the plus side, everything is constantly guest-ready. Last-minute visitors? No problem, feel free to tour my home.
Saturday: A “Free Day”
After a long week of accomplished housework, the book suggested Saturday was a day to take special time with the family. And yet, naturally, the daily cleaning tasks could not be ignored.
We invited our out-of-town friends over for a BBQ that evening, so it seemed appropriate to use the morning to bake cookies in preparation. Since I didn’t shop the day before, I also stopped by the local Saturday market to find some fresh veggies for our dinner. Unfortunately, I still had laundry to do.
My significantly-taller-than-me husband graciously took on the task of dusting all the tall ceiling areas, which the book described as a “man-sized job.” The house sparkled and felt incredibly welcoming. It felt like Grandma’s house, which was lovely because our BBQ invitation became an indoor dinner after it started raining.
Every last nook and cranny was dust-free, throw pillows were fluffed and straightened, the floor was clean enough to eat off of, and the house smelled as fresh and airy as a spring afternoon.
Lessons Learned from a Week as a 1950s Housewife
This schedule was demanding. As a homemaker in the 1950s, it would have been exhausting, but as a modern woman with a career, it was impossible. Granted, practice would make one more adept at quickly going down the list of tasks, but for the week I did this schedule, hobbies and gym days fell to the wayside.
Every time we sat for a meal, I couldn’t relax. I just wanted to get started on the cleanup. While my family enjoyed the cheerful cleanliness, I was the only one left to worry about whether the baseboards were dusted appropriately.
I did like the schedule’s flow of daily, room-specific tasks. With modifications, I’d like to follow it long-term. I also learned a critical lesson: Before, I never straightened things – I only addressed items that weren’t put away. Taking time each day to straighten items made a huge impact on the overall look and feel of my home. It felt welcoming. Grandma knew its importance.
Notably, after checking in with both grandmas during the week, I was surprised to find neither had adhered to a schedule quite this rigorous. In fact, Grandma Lou sheepishly told me her husband did a lot of the housekeeping. He learned to keep things pristine while in the navy, and once he realized that his wife didn’t share the same affinity for a sparkling home, he took a lot of the tasks on himself.
I guess regardless of the generation, an expert’s ideal is not always a household reality. Maybe I’m willing to sacrifice perfection for sanity. A less-than-pristine house is a welcome exchange for help from my partner – and let’s be honest, he could not care less about an antiquated expert-recommendation to vacuum the furniture and blinds weekly.
As I transition back to normal life, I’ll take a pass on the constant baseboard dusting, but I’m definitely going to be taking time each night to straighten. Most importantly, my husband will be coming out of household chores retirement. Please call before coming over, because the house will never again be this tidy on-demand.
Adam Cleaning can help you maintain a sparkling kitchen and home with our professional cleaning services. Contact us today to learn more!
