Day 4- The Kitchen, Part 1

Day 4 of our Spring Cleaning Party already?! I tackled the kitchen today and it took longer than I had originally expected! Since my kitchen is small, I was quite smug with the idea that I would be finished in one day and would be able to take a day off. Not the case.

SimpleMom allows 2 days for the kitchen and I am certainly going to need it! Today I focused on a major surface cleaning and purging the cabinets that are home to the dishes. It was a productive day...but then I had to make dinner. Bummer.

Tips for kitchen clean-up:

• The dishwasher cleans your dishes but you must clean the dishwasher! Check around the inside seal on the edge of your dishwasher. It collects food from all those dirty dishes! Remove the silverware racks and clean them out. Also, clean around the drain for any debris that may have gotten stuck.
  

• Don't forget to clean the underside of your kitchen wall cabinets and the baseboards along the floor. These spots are hidden and easily forgotten during a routine cleaning.
  

• If there are any items in your kitchen that are broken, chipped, heavily worn or expired, throw them away! This will be the easiest part of your clean up! Be ruthless! Inanimate objects do not have feelings.

• If you don't use them, lose them. I noticed that I had a 9" stainless steel pan, extra pot lids, a casserole dish, a set of spring-form pans that never quite worked correctly, and some miscellaneous bowls and coffee mugs that I didn't use and quite frankly didn't even like. They went into the SELL/GIVE box that is steadily growing.
  

BEFORE:



AFTER:



Here are the cabinets that house the dishes. Everything was removed; the shelves were cleaned and the shelf liner was washed. I won't bore you with the before pictures but they were quite cluttered with unused, unwanted items.





Tomorrow, I have a date with the spice cabinet. I will be taking an inventory of the spices, extracts, and sugars using SimpleMom's Pantry Inventory Sheet from her e-book, Spring Cleaning for Normal People.

Until then, get some rest! We still have 6 more days to party!