A Clean Kitchen for the Holidays
A Clean Kitchen for the Holidays
by Charlotte Siems
‘Tis the season for cooking….so now is the time to prepare your kitchen for heavy duty! This week our family plans to spend a day in the kitchen together, but we won’t be cooking. We’ll set aside several hours to work alongside each other to get the kitchen ready for all of the upcoming cooking for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
It’s time to do some deep cleaning and decluttering, beyond the normal everyday maintenance!
Pardon me while I make a list of what needs to be done:
- Declutter drawers and cabinets (brace ourselves, pull everything out, get rid of stuff we don’t need or use)
- Wipe out drawers and cabinets
- Wash outside of cabinets
- Clean inside and outside window glass
- Wash curtains
- Declutter the pantry, removing all items that are not food or kitchen-related (funny how those things migrate to the pantry!)
- Wipe pantry shelves
- Replace pantry items and re-organize
- Make new labels for the shelves if needed
- Clean the oven
- Deep-clean countertops, stovetop, sink
- Clean the refrigerator, inside and out
- Wipe down baseboards
- Clean wall behind trash can
- Clean windowsills
- Clean blinds
- Hand-clean the floor (dividing up sections and racing against the timer!)
- Rent a new movie and eat pizza for supper!
Out of all these tasks, decluttering will make the biggest difference (well, besides soap and water). Cleaning out all the I-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-this-so-I’ll-stick-it-in-the-pantry stuff will free up space and my mind.
Getting the clutter out of your life can and will rid you of more discouragement, tiredness and boredom than anything else you can do. ~ Don Aslett
Can you think of anything to add to the list? Let me know in the comments below!
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We are currently in a house with a lot of bedrooms but a small kitchen and diningroom. I get a little panicky heading into the holidays knowing that our family of 8 children with a number of guests will be doing a lot of eating.
We are cleaning out an area in the garage to expand our kitchen space. The garage is accessible out the back door of the diningroom and around the corner so it is do-able. We will store the overflow of veggies that don’t need to be in the fridge (like potatoes) in the garage. We will also put an additional roaster oven out there and that will double as a second oven. There is an electrical outlet in the garage so we can cook things out there.
It has worked well for us in the past and helped us to keep the mess slightly under control!
Jill
Brilliant ideas, Jill! We have an extra refrigerator in the garage with shelving above, but I never thought of doing some cooking out there! Hmm…crock pots….