The kitchen is the heart of your home. It’s where you start your morning and where you end your day. It is where your children and the neighborhood kids hangout on the weekends and after school and it is also where you entertain guests. However, the kitchen is also where the dirt, dust, grease and grime from all of that entertaining quickly builds up.
Everyone knows the basics of keeping a clean kitchen. We all know to wash the counters and wipe down the stove and microwave after using them. There are some kitchen maintenance things that most homeowners do not do though. If you would like to keep your kitchen filled with smiling faces but hate dealing with the mess, these kitchen maintenance hacks with help keep the heart of your home shiny and clean.
Garbage disposals can be a wonderful addition to your kitchen sink, but they can get very smelly. Some homeowners notice a bad odor in their kitchen, but they can’t quite pinpoint where it is coming from. There is a chance that it is your garbage disposal. In order to eliminate that smell, you can simply cut a lemon into small pieces, drop them into your garbage disposal and then turn on the disposal and run it until it sounds like the lemon has been broken down.
In addition to rinsing off your dishes thoroughly before putting them into the dishwasher, another kitchen maintenance task is to actually wash your dishwasher. At least once a month, you should wipe down the outside of your dishwasher to remove any food or grime that has build-up. You should also look inside and remove any food that has gotten into the drain. If your dishwasher has a manual filter, you can take it off and actually wash it out in your sink.
Backsplashes can add a lot of character and design to a kitchen, but sometimes homeowners forget that they need maintenance too. Backsplashes are often located behind the stove or sink, and there is a very good chance that food or liquids have splashed up onto it. In order to keep your backsplash looking new and beautiful, you will want to use a cleaner to wipe it down on a regular basis. If your backsplash is made from tile, you will also want to get a small grout brush and scrub the grout. If there are grease stains that are not easily removed, you can make a mixture of baking soda and water and put it directly onto the stains. Once it has dried, you can then wipe it down with a cloth.
Sometimes pots and pans are part of the aesthetic of the kitchen, and some people choose to hang them decoratively. Others might have kitchen utensils out on the counter in some sort of container. If this is the case, you want to make sure that you are washing these items regularly, since dust is very likely to get onto them. Food can also get splashed up onto them if they are placed above a stove.
