Of all of the rooms in the house, the kitchen and bathroom may be the hardest to keep clean. These are the rooms that get used the most often and it’s fairly easy to make a mess in them, especially when you’re making dinner for a family night after night. In today’s blog, we’re going to focus on kitchen cleaning — from tips on keeping the mail off the counter to clearing the fridge of leftovers.

At White Glove Cleaning in Spokane Valley, we want to help every resident live a happy life in a clean home. While we can come every day and clean up any mess that was made each night, this doesn’t often fit into people’s schedules or budgets. So as much as we can, we want to help you keep a clean home in between visits.

General Kitchen Cleaning

We understand that it can be incredibly challenging to pick up after yourself as you’re working. If you simply come into the house and walk through the kitchen, dirt from your shoes could land on the floor, your bag could be dropped on the counter, and mail lands in the corner. If you stop to sweep the floor and put things where they belong, you would never get anything else done. This is why it’s so important to do the things you can when you’re able — like going through the mail. It doesn’t typically take more than a few seconds to at least throw the junk mail out and then you can go on to whatever you were doing.

Cooking

Even when you’re simply tossing a frozen pizza in the oven for dinner, it’s nearly impossible to not get something on the floor. And even pizza requires using some utensils most of the time. And when you’re cooking more involved meals, with more ingredients that could be spilled or more pots and pans, there is an even bigger mess that needs cleaning when you’re done.

When possible, find ingredients that only require one pot or pan and minimal utensils to make. This will make your stack of dishes a breeze to clean. If there is any downtime while you’re cooking, like when a casserole goes in the oven, now is the perfect time to start putting away ingredients, clearing the countertop, and rinsing off any messy utensils. You’ll want to avoid ever letting any pots or utensils sit out overnight that still have sauce on them, or anything that could crust over.

Loading the Dishwasher

Kitchen cleaning is a lot about saving time too. After dinner when you’re loading the dishwasher, load it as methodically as possible. Depending on the layout of your dishwasher, there are a few tips to make loading and unloading easier. If you have a utensil rack on the door of the dishwasher, load that first, as it will be right there when you open the door. Make it a habit of loading it the same way each time, the bowls in one spot, glasses in another, and plates in their spot. It may not sound like much, but even small habits can help a lot. When unloading the dishwasher, start from the bottom and work your way up. If there are any wet items, the water won’t fall onto the bottom rack and you won’t have to spend time drying them.

The Fridge

Leftover containers, empty cartons of milk and eggs, or bottles and bottles of condiments — nothing is more stressful than a fridge full of items that you won’t use or shouldn’t be used. If there are leftover containers that are more than two days old, toss it! Get the whole family into a habit of throwing empty containers out. And avoid opening a new item unless you know for sure you can use all of it. This will save space and help you keep your sanity when doing a full fridge cleaning.

A Little Goes a Long Way

Even after a long day, completing a few kitchen cleaning tasks each night will help a lot. At the very least, try to wipe down the countertops, the stovetop, and clean the inside of the sink. If you work with a cleaning service, the crew can clean the floors at their next visit. But the countertops is where meal prep happens and so should be sanitized regularly.

Need help keeping your kitchen clean? We know it’s hard, but that’s why we are so passionate about providing the best possible cleaning services around. Learn more about the residential cleaning at White Glove Cleaning and schedule a consultation with our team today!