Tips for Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen
Spring is officially here, which means you might be feeling a renewed sense of energy that’s leaving you ready to get your home a bit more organized. The kitchen is a good place to start your spring cleaning. Your kitchen is likely where you spend most of your time. It’s functional but also a key gathering place. As a result, it also tends to get the messiest. Spring clean your kitchen with these tips.
Start At the Top
You don’t want to start at the bottom of your kitchen with your spring cleaning. If you do, you’ll get dirt on the surfaces you’ve already cleaned. To prevent this, startup. That means dusting off the tops of your cabinets, your ceiling fans, and your light fixtures. You can also clean any windows in your kitchen, take off curtains, and wash them. Dust the top of the refrigerator, and dust anything decorating your walls.
Wipe Surfaces
Your goal when spring cleaning your kitchen is to get every surface. That means countertops, tables, chairs, and the fronts of your cabinets and your knobs. Wipe your drawers and their knobs and polish the sinks and faucets—clean your appliances’ exterior surface, including the microwave, oven, and refrigerator.
Cabinets and Drawers
Our cabinets and drawers can become a catch-all in the kitchen throughout our daily lives. Once you’ve cleaned the front surfaces of all your cabinets and drawers, you can work on the inside.
Work on one cabinet or drawer at a time. Remove everything in each. Clean the interior and use a degreaser, particularly on the ones around your range. Throw away unneeded clutter. Ensure you get the hinges because that’s an area where greasy dust tends to gather.
Counters and Small Appliances
Your countertops should already be fairly clean since you wiped down surfaces earlier. You can remove everything from your countertops and give them a deeper clean using a microfiber cloth and soap water. Before putting any of your small appliances back on the counter, like mixers or toasters, wipe them with warm, soapy water. Add some baking soda to your sink to scour it, and buff it.
Big Appliances
If you have a microwave, one way to loosen up tough, stuck-on food is to boil a cup of water and then let it sit inside for a minute. Wipe it down with a damp cloth. Clean your oven and stovetop and the inside and outside of your dishwasher.
Your refrigerator can be a project in and of itself. You need to take every single item from your fridge to get started. You should throw away anything old, expired, or that you don’t use. Once everything is out, you can start cleaning every interior part, including the shelves, walls, and drawers. You can use soapy water made with dishwashing liquid.
Remove your drawers and shelves so you can clean those in the sink. If you can, plan to do all this before your grocery shopping day. When you add items back into the fridge, make sure that you’re grouping like items together. Consider using storage or produce containers in your fridge because it will help you keep things more organized and keep your food fresh for longer. You can eliminate packaging that takes up unnecessary space.
As you add items back to the fridge for your spring-cleaning session, the bottom shelf or drawer is best for meat because it’s the coldest. Put butter and soft cheeses on the doors, because it’s warmest here. The middle is good for eggs and dairy like yogurt and milk. You should do a similar cleanout of your pantry if you have one. Empty everything, clean from top to bottom, and throw away what you don’t need. Then, you can start to reorganize the space with a clean slate.
Floors
Sweep and mop your floors, but make sure you’re not just doing the visible areas. You want to get under appliances, rugs, trash cans, and planters. Get into the corners and around the edges of cabinets. Finally, if you use any linens in your kitchen, you can change them out for spring or maybe add a few seasonal dishtowels for a pop of fun and color.