I love love having a clean kitchen. I do not love love cleaning the kitchen. It just seems like there are so many nooks and crannies and appliances PLUS there is the floor that is usually pretty dirty. As I was thinking the other day about how I clean my kitchen I surmised that we could gain a lot of knowledge by sharing with each other how we clean certain rooms in our house. I know it's not rocket science and that there is no WRONG way to clean a room, however I thought it might be helpful to share what and how we clean the room. This brings me back to the kitchen. I thought it might be a great place to start. Over the next few months we'll be sharing a little about how and when to clean items in each room of the house. So here it goes!
Step One: I begin with my counters. I use a damp rag with comet or an all purpose cleaner and scrub all counters and light switches.
Step Two: I then move to appliances.
- Microwave - I use an all purpose cleaner and thoroughly wipe off the front and inside of the microwave. If the tray inside is too dirty I wash it in the sink. I then dry it off with a cloth or paper towel.
- Oven - I have a glass top oven. Therefore, I use my homemade glass cleaner and wipe off the top, the knobs, and the front of the stove. I occasionally use a special "glass top" cleaner, but for the most part as long as I wipe it off daily and scrape any burns off, it stays clean. If you have the coil stove, you take each part off and wash in the sink with water and soap if necessary. Then reassemble. Ok, here comes the shocker. I DO NOT have a self cleaning oven and I hate it!!! I wipe out the oven with my all purpose cleaner and promise myself that I'm going to REALLY clean it soon, but then don't. So, I promise a post soon about how I cleaned it and it's shiny new!
- Dishwasher - I wipe off the inside and outside with my damp cloth.
- Refrigerator - for my weekly cleaning I simply wipe off the refrigerator with a damp cloth. Go here for more details on giving your refrigerator a good and thorough cleaning!
- Other appliances - I am a minimalist when it comes to keeping appliances on the counter. However, I wipe down any appliances (hello coffee pot!) that are on top of the counters and clean underneath them.
Step Three: Sink - I pour some comet in the sink and scrub real good! Then I wipe it out with a damp rag.
Step Four: Floors - I move out all of the chairs, sweep and scrub with soap and water! I switch every other week between on my hands and knees or the Swiffer. My mom just purchased the Shark Vac and Steam and I must say I am very jealous! She got a super good deal at Kohl's with her 30% off!! Hopefully she'll be telling us more about it soon!
Extras - There are still other extras that you can do such as wipe down any pictures or other items you have hanging in your kitchen and clean the lighting if you'd like. I need to be honest and say there is no way I have time to do these every time I clean the kitchen! I'm lucky if I get on my hands and knees and scrub the floors.
CONGRATULATIONS YOU ARE FINISHED!
So do tell us. How do you go about cleaning your kitchen?
Posted by Tami on Jul 26 10 | Comments (5)
Categories: Kitchen,
Everyone these days is trying to find ways to trim money in the budget. A little here and a little there can really add up to a lot of savings! Who doesn't like that idea? When it comes to cleaning supplies, the cost can add up very quickly. This got me to thinking about ways to cut costs when it came to using cleaning products in my home. I had heard rumors that making your own homemade cleaning products could save lots of money. Therefore, I started experimenting with homemade cleaning products and so far its a success! I most recently tried this homemade recipe for glass cleaner from instructables and was pleasantly surprised! It didn't streak as I thought it would and it took the fingerprints out of my patio doors instantly. I was also quite surprised at how well it worked on my glass shower doors. I showed it off to my husband and he seemed pleasantly surprised!
The recipe is listed below. I'm not going to lie, I made the recipe much stronger than suggested. I only used one 32 oz. spray bottle with the same recipe, which means I used a lot less water. I will admit this was COMPLETELY by mistake (perhaps I need to follow directions more carefully), but I liked the results A LOT so I think I'm going to stick with it.
What You Will Need
2 32oz Spray Bottles (or 1 if you are crazy like me)
1/2 C. Rubbing Alcohol
1/2 C. Vinegar
1/2 Liter Water
1 T. Lemon Juice
3-4 T. Dish Detergent
Mix
Mix together alcohol and vinegar in a container.
Divide
Divide the water into the 2 water bottles.
Divide and Add
Divide the alcohol and vinegar mixture and pour into each bottle.
Add
Add the lemon juice and detergent. Shake the bottles.
Here is the break down as far as cost is concerned (when I say store brand I am referring to generic):
1. Store Brand White Vinegar - $1.08
2. Store Brand Rubbing Alcohol - $0.99
3. Store Brand Dish Detergent - $0.99
4. Store Brand Lemon Juice - $1.69
Total - $4.89 with tax
The white vinegar and rubbing alcohol will make at LEAST 3 batches of glass cleaner and the dish detergent and lemon juice will last a very long time. Therefore, you can make 1 container of glass cleaner for approximately $1.00! The cheapest glass cleaner I found in the nearest Kroger was $1.99 for 1 32 oz. container and the name brand Windex was $3.79 for 1 26 oz. container. I also love the fact that the recipe took less than 10 minutes to make!
If there is one thing I do not like about the homemade glass cleaner its the smell. As I continue to make batches (yes I like it that much) I will work on getting a more pleasant smell from the product. The good news is that the vinegar smell goes away fairly quickly and does not linger.
If you give it a try let us know what you think! I hope you have as good of results as I did.
Posted by Tami on Jul 19 10 | Comments (0)
Categories: Products,
It seems like windows are constantly getting dirty! Back in the day (am I that old that I can say that?), people cleaned their windows once in the spring & once in the fall. However, we live in the country so I'm cleaning my windows almost once a month! It depends on where you live, but everyone needs to clean them some time; so here are a few suggestions:
We recently got new windows & they are vinyl-clad, so I wipe off the vinyl first to get any dust off of them. I use a damp rag or paper towel.
If you have wood trim & windowsills, which we used to have, I either clean them with a damp rag & dry them off; or use my dust cloth to get the dust off of them.
During the warmer weather, of course, the screens are in and they get quite dirty. There are a few different ways to clean your screens:
- Take the screens out of the windows. Get a rag and a scrub brush and scrub them on both sides with soap and water. Then rinse them with the outside hose. Let them dry in the sun before putting them back in the window. I'll still do that a couple of times a year.
- Get some warm water with a little soap in it and dampen a rag and wipe it over the inside and outside of the screen. It really works and you'll be amazed how much dirt is in the bucket!
Once you have cleaned the screens, you use window cleaner (Tami's recipe coming very soon) and paper towels. Spray and dry off the inside, then do the outside of the windows. It's nice if you have a helper. Then one can be inside and one outside....it gets done much quicker! I've tried different things to dry the windows with and paper towels still works best for me. I've tried rags and newspaper, but they don't do as good of a job as the paper towels. **If anyone has any something they clean their windows with that you'd like to share, please do! It's such a great feeling standing back and looking at all your hard work!
Posted by Kim on Jul 9 10 | Comments (0)
Categories:
Go through the mail as soon as you get it out of the mailbox! Shred, file, recycle, and throw away. It saves GOBS of time later!! Buy something like this cute MAIL ORGANIZER and you will add order to the chaos.
Posted by Tami on Jun 30 10 | Comments (2)
Categories:
I feel fortunate to have a pantry in my kitchen to store food, especially since my last house did not have one. It is not large, but big enough to store food and baking items. However, I can't ever decide how exactly to organize it and what to put where. Therefore, I'm constantly moving things around in there! Here are a few tips on how I organize my food "space!"
Here's a picture of the pantry before organizing
I haven't gone through the food in awhile and don't really know where anything is!
Umm, chips everywhere and potatoes on top of containers...
and no real organization here either...
So I started with the top shelf and began taking everything out.
I put boxes of food items and the coffee on the third shelf. I don't need these items as often and they fit nicely together. I then placed extra cereal boxes (more on that in a second), peanut butter, unopened sauces, and cans on the second shelf. I also purchases a small wire shelf to put on the second shelf. This way I could put cans underneath and on top of this wire shelf! The first shelf contains snacks, cereal, and flour/sugar. I LOVE these Martha Stewart Tupperware containers I purchased to store cereal, chips, and baking items. The entire bag of food pours right into the container and I cannot believe how much longer the food lasts! No stale cereal and no flour bags making messes! They also stack very conveniently.
I have room in my pantry to place a smaller shelf underneath the larger shelves. I placed all other baking items on this shelf as well as lunchboxes and other miscellaneous items. Here is the finished product! Do you have any fun pantry/food organizing tips? Let us know!
Posted by Tami on Jun 24 10 | Comments (1)
Categories: Kitchen, Organization,
