My 6 Must-Haves for Cleaning

Since our move in September of 2024, our lives have been filled with projects, home maintenance, and just living life. We’ve slowly worked on actually getting organized and settled. I’m type A personality to the extreme, but my ADHD contradicts that quite a bit. I’m working through one room at a time, but things continue to pile up since they don’t have a designated “home” yet. Part of that stems from me refusing to spend hundreds of dollars at once to purchase new furniture and proper organizing systems. I have to keep repeating to myself, “progress over perfection.” Our home will come together over time, but for now we’re taking baby steps.

The mountain of boxes in our room shrunk significantly this past weekend, and boy did that feel good! We built a new organizer for the barn for our black storage boxes. Moving the boxes from our room to a neatly organized spot in the barn has been a breath of fresh air. That process finally allowed me an opportunity to deep clean our room, which was desperately needed.

I have been working hard to stay on top of cleaning our house, but I’m not a “deep clean your entire house on Sunday” kind of mom. I need to knock out a few things a day to maintain a clean home while also accomplishing administrative tasks and being a full-time mom. I found Amy Marie Hann through instagram and her ADHD home management system has been a huge help in breaking everything down into manageable daily tasks. It has been the only “chore chart” that works for me. Through trial and error, I found my holy grail cleaning necessities that make accomplishing these tasks a breeze. Here’s my six cleaning must-haves and why I love them:

Branch Basics

Switching to Branch Basics was one of the first non-toxic swaps I made. It simplified my cleaning system significantly! No need to have a cabinet full of different chemical cleaning products, because the Branch Basics concentrate can do it all. It’s made with all natural ingredients – gentle enough for your skin, but also strong enough to combat grease. One bottle of concentrate got us through almost 10 months of cleaning and it only costs $55 plus shipping. Not only did I make a non-toxic swap, but I saved money!

I purchased the basic glass starter kit. It came with three reusable glass spray bottles (all-purpose, bathroom and streak-free cleaner) and a bottle of concentrate. The concentrate is used to create all the cleaners and the glass bottles are labeled to make adding the correct amount of water incredibly easy. We use the all-purpose cleaner daily for wiping down our kitchen counters and highchair. We also use the solution for dusting and just about any other spot cleaning imaginable. The bathroom cleaner is amazing! We use it on the counters, toilets, tubs and showers. It suds up well with a little water. The streak-free cleaner is mixed using distilled water and just one drop of concentrate. It gets your stainless steel appliances spotless and your mirrors shining bright. 

The back of the concentrate bottle has instructions on how to use it for laundry and different types of flooring. I plan on buying some additional glass bottles for our bathrooms as soon as we finish up the hand soap we have now. Branch Basics has allowed this mama to simplify life a little bit while saving space and money.

Bissell Crosswave Hydrosteam

Once Brylee started eating solids, I felt like Cinderella; constantly on my hands and knees scrubbing the floors after every meal. Babies and toddlers can make a mess at meal time! I needed to make this chore easier because telling my 14 month-old to keep her remnants on the highchair wasn’t an option. At the time, I saw a lot of advertisements for the Tineco wet/dry vacuum. I knew I needed something that could handle the milk spills, scrambled eggs, and smashed fruit, along with the easier to sweep up crumbs. The Tineco seemed like the perfect solution.

Before spending that kind of money on the Tineco vacuum, I did some research and compared it to another popular brand, the Bissell Crosswave Hydrosteam. While the Bissell is heavier than the Tineco, it has the ability to clean area rugs and carpet. The Bissell isn’t cordless like the Tineco, but that wasn’t a deal breaker for me. It had a bigger clean and dirty water storage tank, HEPA filter, LED headlights to help find debris, a self-cleaning cycle, and hydrosteam to help disinfect/sanitize your flooring. It was the winner in my book.

We’ve owned the Hydrosteam for a year now and it has saved this mama some sanity with two messy eaters. I’m able to wipe down where they sit and the Hydrosteam gets the floors clean in just a few minutes. My knees sure appreciate it! It’s also helpful that we don’t need to have a separate vacuum and mop set. I simply just mix water and some Branch Basics concentrate in the clean tank, and I’m able to vacuum and mop all at once, saving me yet another step in keeping our house clean and fresh.

Bissell Steam Shot

I can honestly admit I was easily influenced by this one. I was aimlessly scrolling Instagram reels and saw a girl cleaning her tile grout and the little cracks and crevices on her toilet that you’ve probably never noticed before on your own. I was in awe. Not only was she cleaning, but she was also sanitizing and disinfecting only using steam and a towel. I waited and bought one the next day, because I’ve been following the 24-hour rule. If I still want something after 24 hours, then it’s not ADHD impulse spending, right? Impulse or not, this might be one of the best little investments I’ve made thus far.

This four-pound cleaning machine quite literally does it all. If you want to squeegee some dried bloodhound slobber off of your outside windows, the steam shot won’t let you down. If you can’t figure out how you’re going to get yogurt out of the teeny cracks of your high chair, the steam shot is the tool for the job. If you want to clean out the inside of your oven without making your arms sore from scrubbing all the baked on yuckiness, the steam shot will be your best friend. I think I’ve made my point, but seriously this is hands-down one of the best, non-toxic cleaning tools I’ve ever owned. 

One very unexpected, but beneficial way I’ve used the Bissell Steam Shot is to clean my other cleaning tools. The Bissell Crosswave Hydrosteam does a great job at cleaning the brush head, but the plastic cover and tubing get some build-up over time. The Steam Shot does an amazing job at making it look brand new again. 

Electric Spin Scrubber

I used to keep a dish scrubber that had a soap compartment on the top in our shower. It was filled with Dawn dish soap and vinegar. Whenever I needed to clean the shower, it was there ready for me to use. The downfall was the scrubber was small and we had a decent sized tile shower. It was an arm workout scrubbing every inch. I finally got tired of that process and went on a search for something to get the same results. That’s when I found this spin scrubber.

First, it’s electric. Which means no more Cinderella scrubbing for me. It comes with eight replaceable brush heads for different cleaning needs. After charging for just four hours, it’s ready for up to 90 minutes of cleaning. The three different spin speeds and detachable and retractable handle makes it adjustable to your specific cleaning needs. The handle also has an LED screen to display the current charge level and selected spin speed. If you’re ready to save your back and knees while cleaning, this is the cleaning tool for you!

The eight different brush heads make it a versatile cleaning tool. You can shine up those tall windows outside, scrub the dried toothpaste in your kids sink, and so much more. You’ll be surprised at what all you can accomplish with the spin scrubber. 

Mini 3-in-1 Vacuum

I was in the market for a compressed can of air to clean our computer, when I found this handy tool on Amazon. I figured it would be worth it to buy a chargeable option rather than having to purchase multiple compressed cans over time. I was also concerned with Brylee getting a hold of the air can. While we baby/toddler proof, accidents happen and I try to avoid potential accident causing materials whenever possible. Speaking of toddlers, if you have one you’ll want to get one of these bad boys. My kid loves to help clean and she gets a kick out of using her little vacuum.

This vacuum gets to the small spaces that a normal vacuum can’t reach, such as your car cup holders and the stove top, where crumbs accumulate quickly. It has come in handy in a variety of situations requiring a quick clean up. This tool is also helpful when you need to remove dust build up in your robot vacuum and its home base. It’s a versatile tool that I never knew I needed. Now that we’ve had it for a while, it gets used almost daily. 

Roomba robot vacuum

This was most definitely an impulse purchase. In our old house we had super dark hardwood floors and two dogs who slept inside at night. I was sweeping twice a day trying to keep up with the dog hair. The week of our wedding I decided to purchase a Roomba simply to take that one daily task off my plate, and I’ve never looked back. Now that we live out in the country and have two small children, I’m so grateful for all the hard work Glinda (yes, I named her) puts in on a daily basis. There’s no way I’d be able to keep up with all the sweeping, given our busy schedule. It’s one less task to worry about and it gives me more time with my family.

When shopping for a robot vacuum, I wanted to find a model that had automatic dirt disposal. The i7 model we got was one of the newer ones at the time. I’m sure there’s bigger and better options now, but Glinda was well worth the money and cheaper now than when we originally bought it. It comes with the smart mapping through the irobot app. The first few times it vacuums your whole house and is able to create a map of your home. Once the map is set up, you’re able to create cleaning schedules or send the roomba to clean a specific room. I set ours to vacuum the rooms we were in daily, but rooms less used, like our office only got vacuumed once per week. All of the replacement parts can easily be bought through the roomba website, but we’ve also purchased them through Amazon.

This is truly all I have, besides microfiber towels and a broom, for cleaning our home. While some of the tools are an investment, I believe it’s worth it to have quality products that will last and make your life easier. Keeping a clean home with two kids isn’t easy, but with the right tools, it’s a whole lot more manageable. What’s your favorite cleaning tools and/or hacks? I’d love to hear your recommendations, bonus points if it’s non-toxic!