Guide to Cleaning Your Kitchen and Dining Room for the Spring

Next up in our spring cleaning tour: the kitchen and dining room. This area's the most time-consuming (as far as cleaning tasks go), but if we work together, cleaning it will be simple!

From the Top to the Bottom

Clean the light fixtures. Kitchen and dining room ceiling fixtures collect dust and can be on the receiving end of flying grease splatters, which makes it hard for them to shine their light. And you don’t want to handle a butcher knife in a room where you can barely see.

Because electrocution isn’t your goal, you shouldn’t clean the lights while they’re in use. Leave them off for about an hour before you work on them; the light bulbs could get hot and burn you. If you’re really nervous about the task, you can turn off the electricity and use a headlamp while you’re working on the lights.

Use a microfiber cloth (lightly dampened with a mild white vinegar solution) to clean your recessed lights. Take the removable ceiling fixtures down. Before washing them in either a mild white vinegar solution or soap and water, get rid of the piles of dirt they accumulate. Don’t forget to dust your light bulbs (with a dry or slightly dampened microfiber cloth)!

Clean your walls with your vinegar solution. Remove everything from your cabinets and wipe it down completely. Wipe off your countertops with your vinegar solution (unless the countertops are marble — acid damages marble, so use baking soda here). Use a paste of baking soda and water to get rid of tough countertop stains.

Dust off your accessories and plants. Use your vinegar solution to clean the entire window. Dust the blinds with a microfiber cloth or duster, and clean the curtains by hand-washing them, dry cleaning, or steaming them. Use a damp cloth and your solution to clean the top and legs of your table.

Clean Your Appliances

Clean your stovetop using the abrasive side of a sponge and a solution of grease-cutting dishwashing liquid and warm water. Get rid of burnt food stains by covering them with baking soda, spraying those with white distilled vinegar or lemon juice, and letting them sit for at least 15 minutes under a towel that’s soaked in hot water and has been wrung out. After that, use a scraper to scrape the stains off.

You can clean the oven using its self-cleaning function (if that’s available to you), but if you do, turn on the oven hood, open your windows, and let nothing touch the oven while it’s working (for maybe 3-5 hours). It gets hot.

If you’d rather do it by hand, you can spread a thin paste (of baking soda and water) on the oven walls for a few hours and wipe it off with white vinegar or lemon juice. Soak oven racks in a solution of soap or laundry detergent.

Clean out your refrigerator and wipe its shelves, walls, and floors off using a vinegar solution. Throw away the spoiled leftovers before you put everything back in the fridge.

It’s the Little Things…

It’s easy to forget about your small appliances, especially if you don’t use them a lot, but they can harbor dirt, yeast, and germs if they’re not cared for. So show them some love!

To clean your coffee pot, act as if you’re making a pot of coffee, but use white vinegar solution instead of just plain water (and no coffee grounds). Use a filter. When all of your solution is in the coffee pot, let it sit for up to an hour. Clean the exterior of your coffee machine with a little vinegar (or soap and water) and a dry cloth. When you’ve finished soaking your pot, rinse it with soap and warm water. Run a cycle again using water only so your next cup of coffee doesn’t taste vinegary.

Clean your food processor/blender with a solution of vinegar, a bit of baking soda, and some water. Put the solution in the blender/food processor jar and blend it for up to a minute. Take the blender/food processor jar off the base, and use a sponge to carefully wipe the liquid around. Rinse everything out, and clean the base with a slightly soapy (or vinegary) cloth. 

Wash your dishes and sink, and throw away the sponge you used. (Replace it.) Take out the trash, and clean the garbage can. After everything is done, use a mop, broom, vacuum, or steam cleaner on your floors.

Your kitchen and dining room should be filled with contentment and love. But because the transition to spring brings about a flurry of activity, it gets difficult to clean those rooms after holing up during the winter. We at Andy’s Quality Cleaning will, though! Get in touch with us today, and we’ll make sure your rooms are clean!