Saturday, January 26, 2013

3 Steps to Cleaning Your Kitchen in Under 30 Minutes

I blame my mom for how ocd I am about keeping my house clean.  I blame her and I am thankful all at once!    She kept our house spotless, and she took the time to teach me how to do it as well.  Now that I have my own house, I do things pretty much the same as she does.

One of the habits that I carried over was once a week deep house cleaning.  I love this method because it keeps my house consistently clean--without buildup.  If I'm faithful at this cleaning and work to maintain  it during the week, cleaning each week doesn't take me very long at all.  Today let me show you how I deep clean my kitchen once a week in three simple steps.

1. Take it apart.

The first thing I do is get rid of everything on my counters and shelves and dump it all on my kitchen table.  I prefer cleaning nice clear open spaces.  So seriously....pull everything off...even the things you keep hanging on your fridge.  


Your kitchen should be bare and ready to clean now.



I also pull apart my stove and prep it for cleaning by sprinkling it with Comet. 


Lastly, I fill up my sink with nice hot soapy water and stick the stove burner pans (is that what they're called?) in there to soak.  These are my two best friends when cleaning the kitchen.  I usually throw a little of each in my sink full of water:


2. Wipe it down.

Once everything is pulled apart and my cleaning water is prepped, I'm ready to quickly wipe everything down.  To me, thoroughly wiping down my kitchen each week is important because it keeps grease and dust from building up.  I consider it a "preventative" measure.  

I seriously wipe EVERYTHING down--all surfaces on every side!  I also make sure to frequently rinse my cleaning rag in my hot soapy water.


Dirty microwaves are one of my pet peeves, so I'm always careful to wipe through mine.  Tip: if you have lots of gross stuff stuck to the inside of yours, microwave a mug with equal parts water and vinegar on high for 2-3 minutes.  I guarantee you everything will wipe right off...it's like magic!


Oh..don't forget to wipe off your garbage can and the top of your refrigerator :)  I usually take a peek inside of my refrigerator and wipe off obvious spills if there are any.



I also like to wipe down all of my cupboard doors and drawers before tackling the stove.  They tend to get greasy and stained if you don't.  

For my stove, I take my sponge and scrub the surface using the Comet that I previously sprinkled on.  I find that since the Comet is somewhat abrasive, it helps remove anything that's stuck on.


If you can, lift the top of your stove and clean under there as well.  This is also a great way to clean the edges of your counters--you know that place where stuff falls between the edge of your stove and the counter?

Once I've scrubbed everything with the sponge, I wipe it all down and then shine it up with windex and paper towels.  I love how the windex makes my stove gleam and sparkle!


To wrap things up, I wipe down my counters and back splashes, and then drain and wipe down the sink.  
At this point...I'm usually feeling wonderful because everything is sparkly and smelling great!

3. Reassemble it.

Now all I have left to do is to put everything back where it goes--remember all that stuff I dumped on my kitchen table?


If your floors need cleaning, you should do that last.  Unfortunately, I have a carpeted kitchen so I have to drag out my vacuum cleaner for this part.



These three steps to cleaning my kitchen take me less than 30 minutes when I faithfully stick to them each week.  That's not very much time! And seriously--don't you just love having a delightfully clean kitchen?





One last tip:

For me, the key to making my kitchen stay clean between cleaning days is maintenance.  These are my best friends:


I keep these wipes in a handy spot under my kitchen sink and use them to wipe off my stove and counters after meals.

So what cleaning habits to you have? How do you keep your kitchen clean?


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