Fast and Furious Fall Cleaning and Organizing - Day 4
Are you tired yet?? I am! But there are two more rooms to go on my list: The Kitchen today and the Living Room Tomorrow.
The Kitchen
The kitchen is usually the hardest room to Fall or Spring Clean in because we use it so much and its hard to have it out of commission for a day in some families. So I suggest that you utilize your crock pot or other means of having supper tonight so that you can concentrate on cleaning instead of breaking to cook.
Take a good look at your kitchen….. does it need:
…to be majorly decluttered?
…to be degreased?
…to have structural work done?
…to be emptied out and started over? laugh.gif
You must choose what you need to do in your kitchen today. Do you have time to devote to this project? maybe you should not get in to a really deep, deep cleaning of the kitchen today. Perhaps you should do a medium clean. That’s what I am going to do. You just find your happy place and get in the groove, OK?
First Things First:
Take out trash.
Pick up countertops
Take everything out of the kitchen that doesn’t go in the kitchen… use your 4 bags/boxes/baskets!
Take down curtains - wash
Take up rugs - wash
The kitchen can become a catch-all if you’re not careful. If your family has a habit of depositing things in the kitchen, and you’re OK with that, try to have a receptacle for all their stuff. Baskets are great for keys, change, pocket contents.
Mail really clutters up kitchen counter tops! Try using a box or basket to hold mail, both outgoing and incoming.
Move out furniture and take everything off your countertops that you possibly can. I will use my living room to store these things while I am cleaning because I have just cleaned my dining room and I don’t want to mess it up!
I will use laundry baskets to hold everything.
I don’t recommend that you attempt to clean the frig and the oven today unless your kitchen just doesn’t need all that much concentrated cleaning elsewhere…that’s a lot of work that might not get finished if you’re not careful!
But if your frig needs it, feel free to tackle it!
Next
Sweep down cobwebs
Make a sink of hot soapy water or use your chemical cleaner. Get out your rags and start washing down
the ceiling if needed, door frames, window frames, baseboards and walls. Wash windows.
Take up your rugs and put them in to wash. Take down curtains and wash.
Put a load of dishes in to wash while you work, or go ahead and wash all the dishes by hand.
Clean the top of the refrigerator, the stove exhaust hood, all large appliances. Go ahead and spray cleaner in the oven if you’re adventurous. Take out the drip pans and put them in a pan of hot soapy water to soak.
Clean of shelves and inside cabinets. Wash them down. Order and organize your pantry food and your pots and pans.
Wash inside your cabinets while they are empty.
Re-line cabinets if needed. Did you know that in the “old days” we used to use newspaper for this??
Replace everything that goes in the cabinets, washing and dusting off as you go.
Wash down the outside of the cabinets, use de-greaser if needed or a wood soap. Dry them and then polish them with lemon oil if they are finished wood. This is going to be the really hard, arm-breaking scrubby part for me today. My cabinets just need a really good deep scrub. But when its done, it will make the whole kitchen look better!
Don’t forget the areas over the stove!
Change your wash water if needed.
Wash down all the bottles, canisters, containers, etc. that sit on your counter tops.
Scrub the counter tops. Wash and replace the drip pans.
Sweep the floor. Make up your mop water and get to scrubbing. I will use a scrub brush this morning and scrub under the stove and all around the cabinets. Then I’ll mop the rest of the floor.
Can you move the stove and clean under it? That would probably be a good idea.
Consider setting up a Baking Center if you cook and bake a lot. I sat mine up in one of my cabinets. I put these items in the Baking Center:
Mixer
Food processor
Flours
Yeast
Baking powder and soda
Salt
Cornmeal
Shortening
Oil
Spices
You could put more in it, like measuring spoons and mixing bowls. It really is a time saver for me!
Finally…
Put all your curtains and dry rugs back down when the floor is dry. Give the appliances one more look and a polish.
Rearrange all your counter top things.
Check out Robin’s thread for ideas regarding kitchen storage and organization.
Light yourself some candles, make some tea and enjoy your kitchen!
