Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen
Everything about spring is teaming with the feeling that the world is coming alive… we’re all stuck inside. Being stuck indoors during this time of year is tough, but you can still take advantage of the situation and accomplish house projects that you would normally brush under the rug #pun. Since you’re done making TikTok dance videos, painting, starting your new knitting business, and completing day 3 of the quarantine body challenge, now it’s time to clean your kitchen.
1) Handle Basic Messes First
Before you can spring clean your kitchen, you should tackle any basic messes that may be lingering. So if you have a sink of dishes ‘soaking’, wash those, dry them, and put them away. Make a pass around your house and pick up any stray dishes, utensils, cups, etc. and do those as well before getting into the cleaning. Any garbage or recycling hanging around the counter or the floor, just pick it up real quick and toss it. Any boxes of cereal or pasta that are sitting on the counter instead of in their home cabinet, put those away as well. The last thing you want is to finish a deep clean of your kitchen, only to find stragglers lingering around the house.
2) Do a Deep Clean
Next, you’re going to do a deep clean of your kitchen. Remove all of the food, utensils, beverages, containers, etc. from your cabinets, drawers, and pantry. Find a box or boxes to store them in temporarily. Then you’re going to scrub and wipe down all of the surfaces within your cabinets and drawers. Toss out any lingering trash that you see in any of these areas. Thoroughly scrub out your fridge, we know how areas like that can get particularly stinky if you’re not keeping up with it regularly. Scrub the inside of your microwave and oven, but also make sure to get areas where there can be buildup like underneath your microwave/toaster or underneath your fridge. Make sure to either mop or vacuum the floors as well and wipe down all of the counters and your stove.
3) Go through food and utensils
Once you have thoroughly wiped down virtually any surface within your kitchen that you can think of, it’s time to go through your food. Organize the food based on how you’re planning on storing it- so if there’s a cabinet shelf for spices group all of those together if you’re planning on having one shelf of your fridge dedicated to dairy products put those together. Once you have your groups organized, go through each piece of food and each utensil individually. Check the expiration date for the food and organize it so that (within each group) the ones with the sooner expiration dates are in the front. In addition, we know that diets can change based on new allergies or diets so consider whether the item will actually be of use and, if not, toss it.
In regard to utensils, take out each item and carefully inspect it. Are there new cracks or chips you haven’t noticed? Is one item missing a spring or a prong? This is the time to get rid of any malfunctioning silverware or utensils so that everything you have is being used. Group all of the silverware and utensils together according to how it will be stored. This can be done in a few ways, you can organize it by size so there is a drawer for bigger vs. smaller utensils. You can store cooking utensils in one drawer and baking utensils in another. However, you decide to go through it, make sure that everything is grouped together in a way that would be most efficient for your household.
4) Find Creative Ways to Store Items
Prior to your kitchen overhaul, it would be helpful to purchase additional storage bins that will allow you to get more creative in terms of how you’re organizing your items. We all know the panic we feel when our kitchen cabinets are spilling out items every time we open them. But utilizing tools like a Tumbler Organizer will allow you to store to-go mugs on the door of your pantry, freeing up a whole cabinet for meal-planning containers or for that new blender you want to treat yourself to.
5) Make it fun!
If you’re someone who doesn’t enjoy cleaning, doing a big spring-cleaning task like this can be the bane of your existence. And something that you put off for a week… and then another week… until spring is over and you can say to yourself, “Well, I’ll try again next spring!” Instead of taking that route, try to actively create ways to make the task less painful and more fun. Create a cleaning playlist on Spotify, start a new podcast that you’ve been looking forward to, start an audiobook, or bring a tv into the kitchen and watch one of your favorite shows or movies while you clean. This way a deep clean of the kitchen can be a dance party or a way for you to catch up on something you’ve been meaning to get to for a while, as opposed to a boring drag that takes up your whole day.
