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The worst for cleaning are large items, such as bureaus and dressers, whose only purpose is to store or display other items. Closets and cabinets are for storage, if it all possible. Built-ins, decorative baskets, and easily movable trunks and chests that double as tables or seats are better storage choices than major furniture pieces. Use castors or sliders to make things easier to move for cleaning.

EASY FLOOR COVERINGS: A bare, hard-surface floor is the easiest to clean – just run the big floor broom over it; damp mop when soiled. Conversely, a long-pile throw rug that moves around when you’re trying to vacuum it is a nightmare. Short-pile or flat carpet is easier to clean than long-pile carpeting but harder than bare floor to keep stain free, so think about stains when picking the color and pattern. Wall-to-wall carpet can’t be cleaned under or taken up for serious cleaning, which creates major potential health issues.

In a multiple family dwelling, you may be required to carpet all or most of the floor to absorb noise. In some housing units, you’re stuck with wall-to-wall unless you go to the expense of laying down a wood or tile floor. (If you are decorating, you may find that a wood or tile floor costs 2 or 3 times what wall-to-wall carpet costs but the hard floor will last 2 or 3 times longer than the carpet, so it’s bit of a trade-off.)

Even if you have wonderful hard floors, you might also want at least some carpeting for its physical and emotional warmth, noise absorption, and decorative function. All rugs and carpets should be padded. Good quality, non –slip, non-allergic padding material that won’t harm the floor is a must; there are places to cut the budget but this is not one of them. If you don’t have much furniture and encourage floor sitting, double or triple the padding.

A rug that doesn’t stay put when you’re vacuuming needs a make over. Adjust the padding, nail the wiggly critter down (remember carpet tacks?), hang it on the wall, use it to line the dog’s house, or give it away. Whatever you do, don’t make a career out of struggling with it every week. Your life is too valuable. Further, if it wiggles when you vacuum, it is probably a “trip and fall” waiting to happen.

Picture: Cleaning under this rolling TV stand (to the left) and these nested end tables (to the right) is a pain. They are, at least, light weight, and thus easy to move, and they are all-wood (bamboo) so they are fairly cat-proof and need no care other than dusting. In behind them, you can glimpse a turquoise bedspread hung on the wall for fresh color and to soften a jutting corner in the wall.

Hint: You can try to get odor out of rugs by sprinkling with baking soda (use a grated cheese or flour shaker), wait an hour and vacuum. Use white vinegar for pet stains.

AVOID THE MESS: “A place for everything and everything in its place” is sooo much easier said than done. We can take a lesson from the park planners: the best way to lay out foot paths in a city park is to watch where people walk and put the paths there. Ditto in-home storage. If people (like you and me, for example,) want to leave things near the door, make a place for it. For example, try one basket by the door for out-going things like the recycling and the mail, and a second basket near the door, next to the seat for taking off street shoes, for leaving incoming things. If the baskets don’t get used, try something else until you find a solution that naturally works. (Feng shui note: The first welcome entering the home can not be the sight of an undone task. So, for example, if you can’t take out the recycling every time you go out, store it out of sight.)

CLUTTER IS AN ENEMY: Fight clutter. There is enough space in your kitchen IF all that’s in your kitchen is what you actually use on a daily or weekly basis. The same goes for the bath and clothes closet. Stuff that is only used occasionally or being saved for “in case of” is best put away or given away. If you can’t give it away, it’s actually better to dedicate a whole closet or room for storage then to have every room over-full of things that are not adding to daily life.

Picture: the "everything in its place” bit only works if you’ve eliminated the stuff that you don't use every day.

AVOID DIRT: Identify the major dirt-makers. Can they be eliminated or at least cut down? Some ideas:

• Leave street shoes at door since pesticides, petroleum residues and other gunk tracked in are a major form of indoor pollution and dirt. Tough on the rugs, too.

• Serve food in containers that are unlikely to spill.

• The more the dog gets groomed, the less hair to vacuum up.

• Have a talk with any house plants that regularly shed – you may need to take the fern in the kitchen monthly for grooming but the ficus benjimina (fig tree) needs moving since it will keep losing leaves unless you give it more light.

• Strategically place small, short-pile rugs as dirt traps in front of the cat litter, along the entire length of the in-coming hall, at the bedroom door, etc. Consider an easy-to-wash rug under your feet by the sink.

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF: Be nice to yourself: break jobs down into small parts that don’t overwhelm. Protect yourself with frequent rest breaks as frustrations rise and accidents happen when you are tired.

Use good posture, especially for scrubbing and lifting. When cleaning floors, move stuff first with both hands and proper posture, then come back with the broom, carpet sweeper, mop or vacuum; the job goes faster and it is much easier on your back.

Protect your hands from cleaning liquids with rubber gloves and long-handled brushes. Use a dust mask or a bandana (about a $1 from a street vendor or in the Dollar Store) to keep from breathing dust. Use protective eye-wear (about $3 in the hardware store) for over-head work.