Archive for category: Home Organization

I hope everyone is enjoying my posts about The Butler Speaks. I am telling you I have learned a lot these past few days.

Today I want to list the Ten Golden Rules of Housekeeping. Now, I know most of us know these things but it is still quite wonderful hearing it come from a butler.

Here are the rules:

1. Before you being cleaning, get your caddy ready. ( I have been using one for about 8 years. It makes carrying supplies easier to carry up and down the stairs).

2. Clean from the least contaminated item in the room to the most contaminated.

3. Clean a room from top to bottom.

4. A good housekeeper moves his or her eye within a room from top to bottom, and from left to right. This helps you notice details that aren’t at eye level.

Photo by Heather Ford on Unsplash

5. Look at a room from the user’s perspective. What will someone in the room see while sitting down at the table or lying in their bed?

6. Always clean under objects, moving them as necessary.

photo credit Jon Tyson

7. Use cleaning methods that are the least invasive or harmful to surfaces.

8. Dust regularly.

9. Tackle seasonal deep cleans to help reduce the time required for daily and weekly housekeeping.

10. Don’t bother with artificial air fresheners. A clean home does not require them. ( I don’t agree with this one. I have 2 boxers so I need a wallflower or 2 maybe 4! My dogs can smell bad and I love walking in my home and smelling “fresh cut tulips”. That is the name of the scented bulb I have been using).

Well, I hope you have enjoyed this list. I know I have and Friday will be my last post (for now) about the Butler Speaks. Enjoy!!

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

(list via Charles MacPherson)

In our continuation of the Butler Speaks, today I will be sharing his snippet about housekeeping. On Wednesday I shared his snippet on house-cleaning. I never knew there was a difference but in his world there is.

Mr. MacPherson says:

Housekeeping is the day-to-day work that goes into tidying, reorganizing, and detailing rooms in a home after it has been properly cleaned. Housekeeping is that extra touch that goes into a good presentation.

This includes fluffing pillows, positioning furniture correctly, organizing magazines and books, properly making a bed, and so on. 

photo credit Murphy Beckerart Instagram account

Without good housekeeping, a clean room is only a clean room, not necessarily an inviting one. I’m not saying clean is bad- it’s simply NOT ENOUGH. A good housekeeper has a FINE TOUCH and a KEEN EYE for detail (I love this)! A clean room can only reach its full potential with good housekeeping.

Photo by Elaine Howlin on Unsplash

I hope you enjoyed these tips from Mr. MacPherson. In my next post, I will be sharing his thoughts on deep-cleaning! Until then I hope you enjoy this video from Sir John Richardson. I have watched this a million times. I can’t get enough of it!

(text Charles MacPherson)

I have a lot of wonderful friends in the social media world. One of my friends Mrs. Shery tagged me in a photo of a book called The Butler Speaks: A Return to Proper Etiquette, Stylish Entertaining, and the Art of Good Housekeeping. I was truly intrigued by this. So I jumped on Amazon to find it and was really happy to see that it had the “look inside” feature.

So I was able to take a quick peek inside the book and may I say it caught my attention. I have the first Kindle so I tried to download a “sample” to it but I could not find it. I always try to download samples to my Kindle before I commit to buying a book. So I took a risk and went ahead and order it.

I don’t think I will regret this purchase. I read a few pages on Amazon and I was truly pleased.

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

Here is what author Charles MacPherson had to say about housekeeping:

In the Victorian and Edwardian eras, cleaning was a matter of pride and decency. Harsh techniques and chemicals were used to clean practically everything in the home. What we have learned today is that cleanliness is possible, even preferable, without the use of toxic chemicals. In fact, harsh techniques and chemicals actually damage the surfaces they touch. 


A furniture conservator and friend of mine, Mr. Greg Kelly, once described our role in caring for household items as “custodians of fine furniture for future generations.” Before he said this, I’d never thought of my butlering role this way. Instead of concentrating on the drudgery and stress of maintaining the cleanliness of every object in a household, I was heartened to think of my role-and indeed the role of all the household staff as that of a preserver of a kind of legacy. 

photo credit Olivier Bergeron

After reading that I thought wow…… my have things changed. We have no care for what our homes look like. In fact, people care less about how they look and live now than ever before! We have so many things to help us yet we are so lazy! I absolutely refuse this! My home is always clean and always will be. I agree with what he said, cleaning was a matter of pride and decency. Let us bring that back. 

                                Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

I will be sharing more from this book. I believe we will enjoy it!

(text Charles MacPherson)