Even with the best intentions, keeping your home clean during the summer holidays can be an uphill battle; but with the children now back at school, there’s nothing from stopping you from getting your house back into shape, tackling one room at a time – and to give you a helping hand over the next three blogs we’ll provide some expert tips and advice; starting with the kitchen.

The kitchen is the heart of every home, making keeping it clean and ensuring that it’s a hygienic area in which to prepare food an essential task. The best way to achieve this is to separate the kitchen cleaning into three separate areas and to tackle each area individually.

At BuySpares, we’d also recommend cleaning your kitchen in a similar way to cleaning your car – starting at the highest part and working your way down; and with this in mind, here’s the BuySpares guide to getting your kitchen sparkling.

Surface Cleaning:

Your kitchen surfaces harbour a multitude of germs and bacteria caused by food spills and splatters when cooking, everyday dust, pets jumping up and sticky or grubby finger prints. However, despite being a playground for germs, kitchen surfaces are in regular use, particularly when it comes to preparing food, so it is important to make sure your surfaces are regularly cleaned.

One of the best ways to keep your kitchen surfaces clean, is to mop up spills and splatters with an all purpose cloth as soon as the spill occurs. It’s also important to give kitchen surfaces a deep clean on a regular basis, and by this we mean removing all appliances and accessories, from kettles, microwaves and toasters, through to knife-holders and chopping boards from the surfaces.

By completely clearing the kitchen surfaces of any clutter, you’ll be able to reach every corner of every surface within your kitchen. With the surfaces cleared of clutter, it’s now time to arm yourself with an unbeatable cleaning toolkit, which should include (at a minimum) the following:

• Mould and Mildew Remover
• All Purpose Cloths
• A Toothbrush
• All Purpose Surface Cleaner

To clean the surfaces of your kitchen, we highly recommend following the instructions on the all purpose surface cleaner and wiping away the cleaning products with an all purpose cleaning cloth, as this will provide you with the best chance of removing the build up of food, dirt, grease and stains, without too much work being required. Once this has been done, you can begin to tackle any tiled areas (such as splash-backs) within the kitchen.

Tiled areas are often difficult to clean, and require more than an all purpose cloth and surface cleaner, although these should be used to remove any surface layer of dirt. To provide tiled areas with a deeper clean, use a toothbrush and mould and mildew remover to clean the grout and silicon areas of the tiles. Once cleaned, if your grout is no longer looking white, bring it back to life with a once over with a grout whitener.

Appliance Cleaning:

When it comes to cleaning your kitchen appliances, there are two stages that you’ll need to go through. The first is to tackle any build up of dirt, grease and food residue from your cooker, hob and microwave; whilst the second involves tackling the descaling of appliances, which will allow your appliances to work to their full potential for longer.

By using a dedicated oven cleaner, such as the Wellco Oven Cleaner, you’ll be able to quickly and easily complete stage one whilst providing your oven with a deep and thorough clean, removing any sign of baked on food or grease.

When using the oven cleaner, for the best results it’s imperative that you follow the instructions on the packaging, the bio-degradable, non-corrosive, non-staining and non-abrasive cleaner will dissolve grease and burnt on food with ease, whether applied to the oven, shelves or electric grill, ensuring a spotless finish each and every time it’s approved – helping your oven to look like new!

Other cooking appliances within your kitchen, such as the microwave and hob, can also benefit from dedicated cleaning solutions – such as the Wellco Microwave Cleaner – whose cleaning formula has been designed to make the deep cleaning of even the dirtiest appliance a doddle.

Once the cooking appliances within your kitchen have been cleaned, at BuySpares we recommend stage two, which is giving your kettle and coffee makers a thorough clean, which should also include tackling them with an all purpose descaler, helping them to work at the best, for longer.

Floor Cleaning:

Kitchen surfaces and appliances cleaned, the third area of your kitchen to tackle is the floor. Like your worktops, the kitchen floor is a playground for germs and bacteria and with your children running in and out of the house during the summer holidays it’s likely that the kitchen floors are looking dirtier than normal.

Getting your floors back to their former glory can be done in one of two ways; both are highly effective without being too time consuming.

Option 1: Good Old Fashioned Mop and Bucket:

For years, the mop and bucket have formed an essential part in the cleaning of floors; and if you’re opting for this method it’s important to make sure that you give your floor a sweep with a brush, before running the vacuum over it.

Once this has been done, use a product such as the Bissell Wash and Shine Hard Floor Formula to clean the floor with a mop, lifting up any stains and dirt, such as muddy footprints, returning your floors back to their former glory and clean enough to eat off.

Option 2: Steam Cleaner:

Over recent years, steam cleaners have become popular cleaning tools for many homeowners and for good reason as they can be used on a multitude of surfaces, providing a deep and thorough clean whilst killing 99.9% of germs.

One such area in which a steam cleaner comes into its own is when cleaning the kitchen floor, where they will clean in an environmentally friendly manner.

Top Tip: Before using the steam cleaner on your kitchen floor, again make sure that you run the vacuum over the floor to remove any solid debris which may be present.

Separating your kitchen cleaning into three separate areas will make the task of cleaning a lot easier, as you’ll be able to focus on one area at a time; it’ll also make the task of cleaning seem a lot easier and not such a challenge – whilst to provide you with a helping hand, at BuySpares we stock all the products you’ll need to deep clean your kitchen.

Tags: Appliance Cleaning, Cleaning Tips, Kitchen Cleaning