Kitchen Clean Up

We are in the process of painting the kitchen. Doing this nearly caused our divorce. Things were pretty tense this weekend while the painting was going on. I have often heard that traveling together and renovations are two of the biggest tests of a relationship. Douglas and I travel well together, so I guess this is our test. The problem is that we have a lot of renovation left on the house, and I do not want it to end our relationship. Once we calm down, we can usually talk things out, but it is hard to get us to both calm down. He needs time to cool off, but it only makes me angrier when he walks away in the middle of an argument. It seems to me that he does not care about me when he leaves. I need to figure out how to let it not bother me so much. Anyway, we are still together, and the kitchen is nearly done. We have to finish touching up a few mistakes on the trim and rehang everything that was on the walls. Wednesday’s post will be about painting the kitchen, but in the meantime, here is a preview of the new color.

While I was waiting for paint to dry, I used the time to get some cleaning done. I generally wipe down all of the appliances whenever I clean the kitchen, but there are some areas that always seem to get dirty despite that. In particular, the water and ice area in the door of the refrigerator as well as the vent at the bottom. Also, because the material covering the fridge is not smooth, it gets dingy overall when not cleaned thoroughly every once in a while. The sides of the stove also get quite dirty because I cannot pull it out by myself. We had to pull out the stove to paint behind it, so I figured it was a good time to clean that part. I also cleaned the inside while I was at it. I try to clean the stove entirely at least once a year.

I have tried many different products over the years, but in the end Ajax or Clorox seems to work the best on appliances and enamel products. I like to make a paste on my hand using Ajax or Clorox powder and very little water. I smear it directly on the area I want to clean using my hand, with gloves on of course. Using a cloth to do this does not work as well for me. I let the paste sit for a while.

Next, I like to use Scotch Brite Non-Scratch Scour Pads to scrub. They clean well but do not scratch, as their name would imply. I use very little water while scrubbing with the pad. This allows the paste to sit even longer.

Finally, I fill a bucket with soapy water using dish soap and add a dash of bleach. I use a rag, washcloths work best in my opinion, to wipe everything down. The rag usually has to be rinsed in the soapy water several times before all of the Ajax paste comes off of the appliance.

Here are the clean appliances. I can never get that little colored circle off of the water dispenser, so if you know what I can do, I would appreciate some advice.

After I cleaned the appliances, I wiped down all of the cupboards with the soapy water. I find they get dirtiest around the handles. I did not take a picture because the dirt does not show up on the brown cabinets. Then, I cleaned the tops of the cupboards. I wipe these down about once a year, as you can see in the first picture, they are not very dirty. Here are the before and after pictures of the top of one cabinet.

One area that I have neglected until now was the inside of the oven hood. I had never looked down into it before, and I am sure that no one else had either. I was horrified by what I saw, especially after I started cleaning and realized that it was a cream-colored metal underneath the grime. Douglas held the vacuum for me while I climbed on the counter and cleaned it out. Then, I used the soapy water. It was hard to clean because there were a lot of nails sticking up. It is not perfect, but I feel a lot better now that it is mostly clean. I figure that every time I clean it will be a little better in there.

So, now my kitchen is sparkling clean and freshly painted. I cannot wait to show you the new look. In the meantime, here are more shots of the clean stove and refrigerator. You can see some of the paint behind them too.

Happy Homemaking!