Cleaning the Kitchen

Krisann Blair, Christmas Coach
Christmas Organizing Founder

The kitchen can be the hardest room to get ready for the holidays so it is important to get it on its way to being organized and ready for the holiday rush as early as possible.  By planning early you can take a large task and break it down into small parts.  With no time to waste, let’s get started! 

First set aside 15 minutes each day for 2 weeks to work on the deep cleaning of your kitchen.  Set a kitchen timer and stay in the kitchen for the FULL 15 minutes.  DO NOT LEAVE until the timer goes off!  You will be surprised at what you can get done. 

Next count up the amount of cabinets and drawers in your kitchen.  Divide each number by either 10 or 14 (depending on if you are going to work weekdays and weekends or weekdays only.)  This is now the number of cabinets and drawers you need to work in each day.  Example:  I have 12 cabinets and I will be working on them each day except for Sunday’s so I will do one cabinet a day.   

Now when I talk about doing a cabinet I mean that you take everything out, discard things you no longer need either in the trash or in a box to be given away.  Put down fresh shelving liners or if you have the new rubber kind wash it in hot soapy water and hang outside to dry.  As you place items back into the cabinet put things that are rarely used on the top shelf and work your way down.   

The finishing touch will be to clean the outside of your cabinets.  If you have wood cabinets use a good wood cleaner that will cut the grease and not harm the wood.  Then use the scratch repair oil if you have any marks and finish off by using a good wood oil polish if you can. (And if you want to spruce up your kitchen some more, change out your handles and pulls on the drawers.) 

In addition to the cabinets you need to spend one day cleaning your dishwasher really good including under the knobs where they get dirty and run the dishwasher empty once with the cleaner to get the inside really good and clean (check with your dishwasher book to see if you can do this with your dishwasher). 

You will also want to divide up your refrigerator shelves the same way you did your cabinets or you can tackle the whole thing at once—the choice is yours.  Personally I spend one day throwing away anything that is old, then one day moving things around and cleaning the shelves with hot soapy water and then one other day organizing all the like items together. 

The final item you will want to do is clean your oven/stove or combination thereof.  Clean out the inside of your oven as well as the drip pans on the stove.  If your drip pans are old and yucky looking replace them with new ones.  Wash down the entire unit with a good grease cutting cleaner that is safe for your surfaces.  Do not forget your back splash and vent hood.