3 Lessons I Learned from the 20-Year-Old Homekeeping Book That Forever Changed Me

Somewhere early on in my homekeeping journey, I came across Home Comforts by Cheryl Mendelson. The nearly 1,000-page tome became my encyclopedia of how to properly do everything from cleaning jewelry to removing stains, and it also set the tone for how I viewed my home and housework. 

I felt a little embarrassed, or at least different, that I found relaxation and even joy in so many of the household tasks that I thought I was supposed to view as drudgery. I didn’t want to betray the women before me who did so much to break free of the mold of “having” to stay home, clean for hours, and get dinner on the table and a cocktail ready for their spouse upon their return, looking pretty all the while. 

I loved keeping our home and felt guilty that my attitude delighted in what so many others had eschewed. I realize now that the difference lies in my having the freedom to choose. Mendelsen’s book gave me permission to embrace my actual feelings. My tension eased with her first line, in which I saw a kindred soul: “I am a working woman with a secret life: I keep house.” 

She goes on in the first chapter to describe how she hid her passion for domesticity, especially as a burgeoning lawyer, but eventually went on to write a whole book about it — a book that made such a deep impression on me and my role as the woman of the house that I’ve given it to others as wedding gifts! 

Here are three major takeaways from the book that have forever changed me.

Mendelson discusses finding meaning in housework. “The way you experience life in your home is determined by how you do your housekeeping,” she writes. “It is your housekeeping that makes your home alive, that turns it into a small society in its own right, a vital place with its own ways and rhythms, the place where you can be more yourself than you can be anywhere else.” 

This idea that housework has meaning is something I resonate with deeply. I’ve taken on this way of thinking and it not only tames the resentment that can sometimes accompany never-ending tasks, but also gives me the perspective that I’m showing love to my family and setting the stage for my kids’ childhood in the practical things I do for them. 

Another idea Mendelson presents in her book is that the order of work in a room matters. “When you are cleaning a room, the basic idea is to avoid disturbing or soiling clean areas as you proceed to new areas.” She specifies that you can do this by working from the inside (of closets, cabinets, refrigerators) out, high to low, and dry to wet.

This has become an order of operations that I don’t even have to think about when I go to clean a room. Of course, sometimes I am only able to do a quick surface-level pick-up like when I do the 5×5 method, but when it’s time for a thorough cleaning, the order of work as laid out by Mendelson is my default. This helps me be efficient and also saves me from the decision fatigue that comes from having to figure out what to do when and how. 

In her chapter entitled “Neatening,” Mendelson talks about how things that are left out or dirty invite more messiness. She likens this to the “broken window theory,” in which a broken window in a neighborhood, left unfixed, leads to crime because it “suggests to malefactors that no cares or that no one is in charge.” While it’s impossible to keep the house in complete order all the time without making it your entire personality and your home feel like a rigid place of rules, the concept of “cleanliness begetting cleanliness” is one I observe and try to operate by as much as possible. 

I do appreciate Mendelson’s concession that ongoing projects can get left out and that it’s allowable to have multiple “temporary holding stations.” Doing things like putting that dirty dish in the dishwasher instead of the sink or pushing the chair into the kitchen table is so worth it because they are small actions with a ripple effect.