A housewarming wishlist to send when people ask

Announcing one is. A housewarming is about filling the place with people, gifts are optional, and the etiquette advice is not to set up a registry or post a wish list for the party. The same advice says that when a guest asks what you might like, it's fine to name a few things.

We built this for that second case. Keep the list off the invitation and don't mention it. When your mother, an old roommate or a friend across the country asks what you need, send the link instead of saying "oh, nothing" and unwrapping another candle. Something like "You asked, so here's what we're still missing. No pressure at all" does it.

The useful list is the one only you could write. A guest can guess at a candle. They can't guess how wide your windows are, or that the kitchen has no room on the counter for a knife block.

• Things that depend on the space: a bath mat, a shower curtain, a doormat, with the size in the note.
• Tools for the jobs you've already run into: a drill, a step stool, a proper set of screwdrivers.
• Kitchen basics you're missing, with a note on what you cook on and how many you cook for.
• Plants, with the light your rooms really get.
• Small things for the guest who wants to spend a little: dish towels, good olive oil, a set of glasses.
• If you rent: only things that leave with you. Say so in a note, so nobody buys a ceiling fixture.

It usually does. The drill is at a hardware store, the frying pan at a kitchen shop, the fern at a garden center, and the side table is one you spotted secondhand. A store's own gift list covers one of those. This one takes a link from each, so the person asking gets a single page, not four.

Not everything needs a link. Type "a side table about knee height, like the ones at the thrift shop on Main Street" and whoever comes across one knows what you mean.

Big furniture, and anything you'd want to choose yourself. Nobody can pay toward an item through the list, so a sofa just sits there. Hold off on decor until you've lived with the rooms for a while; what looked right in the listing photos often isn't what the place wants.

Your sister opens the link on the bus, sees the bath mat is already taken and picks the step stool. She taps "I bought this". A week later a friend opens the same link and both are struck through, so he goes for the olive oil.

You don't see any of that. On your own page the list looks the same as the day you wrote it, so what turns up at the door is still a surprise. If something arrives that wasn't on the list but covers an idea, take that idea off so nobody doubles it.

Weddings and showers come with a gift list by custom. A first apartment, a move for a new job or a fresh start after a breakup doesn't, even though the kitchen is just as empty. The people around you may well want to help and have no idea whether you own a colander.

A list answers that without a party or an announcement. It opens only from its link, so nobody sees it unless you send it, and you can send it to one person.

With a partner, make one list and type both names; it's headed with both. Two households tend to add up to spare toasters and not one good frying pan, so the list ends up being about the gaps. The share link shows what's been bought on any phone that hasn't opened the list's private link, so have the other one of you open it with the private link behind Save my link.

With roommates, a group wishlist fits better. Each of you gets your own list behind one link, and you can see what the others have asked for before you all request a kettle.

Until 90 days pass with no activity, or 30 days after the event date, if that's later. Every edit and every bought mark resets that clock, and so does opening your own private link. If friends visit over several months and the list goes quiet in between, open it or tidy an idea now and then to keep it.