My DH is such a sweetie. I've been struggling to keep up with the housework due to some health issues, and he had kindly offered to get a cleaner in to have the house nice for Xmas.
Of course, the SS side of me doesn't like this at all, but I'd relented, just once.
Hmmmm....$180 later, the house was clean, but it got dirty again a week later.
*sigh*...
I decided there had to be a better way.
My main gripe was the kitchen. I'd already tackled the bathroom which you can read about if you click on the underlined wording, and clearly a way of cleaning the dreaded oven, range hood filter and other kitchen stuff, had to be out there.
So, armed with a tub of Baby Wipes and a tin of stinky oven cleaner (the SS miracle cleaner just wasn't going to cut it this time), off I went.
Now we all hate this job, and I'm ashamed to say that despite the fact that I use my oven daily, the last time I cleaned it was this time in 2011, just before I had surgery! Eek!
So I'm sorry, but the SS methods were out the window before we started and Mr Muscle was my friend, even though he's smelly. I set aside an hour to complete the task, thinking 'well, 30 minutes of soaking, 30 minutes of cleaning'. HA!
4 hours later. Really. 4 hours. Well, once you start of course, it's hard to stop.
I cleaned the oven, and the racks and the oven door. Then I cleaned the grill. Then I did the ceramic cooktop, then noticed that the range hood was a bit grimy on top. Then I decided to try to remember how to remove the filter in the range hood for cleaning. I think I've only ever done that once or twice.
Eeee-yew.....now that WAS gross. Everything was disgusting, and I had to Google three different methods of cleaning it. The one of sitting the filter in a boiling pot of water and Bicarb was a good one, but my pot was too small and the liquid bubbled all over my newly cleaned cooktop. So I then had to clean the cooktop again.
Then I tried the one of pouring boiling water over the filter set over the sink. That was okay but was taking an awfully long time.
So then I sprinkled it all over on both sides with Bicarb, and ran hot tap water through it to get the majority of the dirt and grease out. Then I rubbed good old Sunlight Soap all over both sides and scrubbed the heck out of it with a bamboo dishbrush, and rinsed again. I still had to do both sides three times before I could honestly declare the thing 'clean'.
Of course I'd made a doozy of a mess of the benches and floor in the meantime, so I had to mop, not once but three times.
I then polished the range hood top, the cooktop, the oven door, the fridge the microwave, the toaster and kettle and the front of the dishwasher with Baby Wipes. Gosh those things are useful. I swear I could save heaps on other cleaning stuff, by just going round the house with a tub of Baby Wipes. And I'm talking the generic ones, so they're an easy quick fix. They wipe over vanity tops, benchtops, polish taps, clean toilet seats, shine washing machines, remove specks from mirrors, the lot. Awesome.
The bin was emptied and cleaned thoroughly, as was the bin recess. Again, using the Baby Wipes.
Finally the microwave got a going over, although it was mercifully clean compared to the oven!
Well the kitchen looks different. It looks clean and new and fresh. It smells nice too.
Did I like doing it? Nup.
Am I glad I did? Yup.
It's a good feeling.
