Spring Cleaning #3 - The Kitchen | Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

It doesn't feel remotely like spring here in London!

It's cold and the rain is bucketing down :-(

But, luckily this week's part of my complete spring cleaning list - the kitchen - isn't fair weather dependent.

Not that I am doing it all in a week anyway. The whole idea of this list is you can do any of the 52 easy parts at any time when most convenient for you.

In case you missed them, the previous two weeks focused on dusting, vacuuming and polishing and bedding, soft furnishing and carpets and you can download the complete list of 52 spring cleaning activities here.

So onto this week's activities ... it looks like a lot but the tips below will show you that you can get alot of them done in 30 minutes or less, so a couple of them could be tagged onto the weekly clean each week...

Spring Clean The Kitchen

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1. Clean oven and stove

Ask Anna

If your oven is not self cleaning you can obviously buy oven cleaner but many of them are pretty toxic and as Finely Ground and Slow Your Home show you can achieve great results with baking soda and vinegar without leaving over night.

If your oven door is anything like ours, it's grim (!) and you'll find Ask Anna's tips for cleaning between the glass really helpful.

If your stove top and pan rings are also looking gross you could try out this no scrub approach from The V Spot. However, it does involve using amonia which I'm not so keen on doing. Less toxic alternatives are good old baking soda sprinkled over the top and left for 30 minutes covered in a hot towel. Or baking soda applied via lemons.

2. Clean cupboards including under sink
There's no great secret to this one - just involves getting everything out of the cupboards and:

Hoovering up all the crumbs
Wiping down shelves
Chucking out stuff past it's sell by date
Getting rid of stuff you really never use
Washing nice but infrequently used glass & china that has got dusty

It's also a great opportunity to re-organise & invest in new storage. Even simple baskets make a big difference - check out my Organised Pinterest board at the bottom of this post for ideas.

3. Clean dishwasher

Clean and Scentsible

Dishwashers get pretty stinky if you don't look after them and as the sprays and filters get blocked, they stop cleaning things properly.

Luckily, the dishwasher is yet another thing that responds well to baking soda and vinegar - my doing the dishes post has some simple tips on how to use them for best results.

4. Clean fridge and freezer
Even if you try to clean the fridge regularly bits of food do get stuck in all the gaps and seals and there's always some dodgy jar of something way past it's use by date lurking at the very back!

Be Simply Organized has got some good tips on cleaning the fridge with vinegar and Clean and Scentsible has tips for both cleaning and organising the fridge and the freezer.

5. Clean microwave
Microwaves may get gungy and gross but the great thing about them is that they pretty much self clean themselves with a little help from some natural cleansers. Crafty Little Gnome shows how to clean with vinegar, Clean and Scentsible with lemon and Cheerios and Lattes with lemon, baking soda & vinegar - all three approaches loosen up most of the grime and get rid of the bad smells.

6. De-scale kettle
Hard water is one of the banes of London life, so our kettle gets full of scale in no time. You can buy descaler but Greener Cleaner shows that this is another thing where vinegar comes into it's own.

7. Clean other appliances e.g. toaster
Toaster, mixers, coffee makers all get gunge on them over the year - but yet again most of them will respond well to vinegar as Clean Mama shows.

8. Clean fans
Fans of all sorts are a pain to clean but it is so worth it - if you don't it they have an amazing capacity to distribute dust or grease all over the kitchen. The UK consumer champions Which have lots of really helpful advice on cleaning oven extractor hoods and Life After Laundry has a nice easy to follow post on cleaning ceiling fan with a pillow case.

9. Sharpen knives
I know this is something that should be done regularly but it doesn't happen in our house, so this a reminder to get them done and stop hacking at things! Adam Kapela's has tips on how to do them properly.

10. Clean and sanitise bins

Again this is something that needs to be done more than once a year but spring cleaning - if it's not raining! - is a good opportunity to give them a real scrub and hose down, particularly the outdoor bins before they get a chance to get nasty in the summer.

My post on keeping on top of the rubbish has tips on cleaning the indoor bins and One Good thing by Jillee has a helpful post on power cleaning the outdoor bins (although I wouldn't use the chlorine bleach).

11. Clean floors
The kitchen floor really takes a beating and needs at least weekly care and attention but once a year is the opportunity to:

really clean in all the corners you don't usually reach
scrub away at the stubborn spots - we have glitter embedded in our's!
re-apply wax or finish

There are lots of natural floor cleaners - Effortless Savings evaluates a range of them - but you need to be careful about what you use on certain floors and finishes. A good number of commercial cleaners and for example, vinegar will take the finish off floors and may damage stone or laminate floors. If you're not sure what to use, look for tips for your specific flooring.

12. Test all smoke and CO2 detectors
This activity and the next should really be right at the top of the list - if you do nothing else do these! Review all your detectors - have you got enough? are they in the right position? - and test that they all work, replacing batteries where necessary.

13. Get boiler and appliances serviced
Another absolute essential that must not be forgotten. Signing up for an annual service with an energy provider helps to ensure that you don't forget to book a service.