Category: Driscoll Cleaning

One of our Driscoll Cleaning customers recently mentioned that she was concerned about grease buildup in her kitchen. It is a problem that can sneak up on you.

You may wipe down the stove and countertops regularly and think everything is clean. Then one day you run your hand across a cabinet door and wonder why it feels sticky.

Cooking grease doesn’t necessarily stay around the stove. Tiny droplets can become airborne while you cook and eventually settle on cabinets, appliances, backsplashes and other surfaces. Add a little dust to that grease and, over time, you can end up with a sticky film that isn’t nearly as easy to wipe away as an ordinary layer of dust.

If you’re wondering how to clean greasy kitchen cabinets, the first thing to remember is that stronger isn’t always better.

Start With the Gentlest Cleaner

Before reaching for a heavy-duty degreaser, start simple.

For many washable cabinet surfaces, warm water with a small amount of mild dish soap is a good place to begin. Dish soap is made to cut through grease, and sometimes that’s all you need.

Use a soft cloth rather than something abrasive. You don’t want to solve the grease problem by creating a new problem with scratches or a damaged finish.

Don’t soak the cabinets, either. Your cloth should be damp rather than dripping wet.

Work on a small area at a time and then wipe away the soap and loosened grease with a clean damp cloth. Dry the surface afterward instead of leaving it wet.

Know What Your Cabinets Are Made Of

This is important.

Not all kitchen cabinets can be cleaned the same way.

Painted cabinets, laminate, finished wood and other cabinet surfaces may react differently to cleaning products. Something that works beautifully on one surface could dull, discolor or damage another.

If you aren’t sure what kind of finish you have, be cautious.

Before trying a new cleaner, test it somewhere inconspicuous. The inside of a cabinet door can be a good place. Give it a little time and make sure there is no change in the finish before using it everywhere.

Pay Attention Around the Handles

Take a close look at the area around your cabinet handles and knobs.

Those areas can collect quite a bit of grime because we touch them so often, sometimes while we’re cooking. Grease from the air combines with whatever is transferred from our hands.

The little edges and grooves around handles can also be easy to miss during regular cleaning.

A soft cloth can handle most of the job. For small crevices, a soft toothbrush can sometimes help, provided it won’t scratch the surface.

Don’t Forget the Tops of the Cabinets

If your kitchen cabinets don’t go all the way to the ceiling, take a look on top.

You might be surprised.

Grease that becomes airborne can eventually settle up there, and because the tops of cabinets aren’t something most of us see every day, that layer can sit undisturbed for a long time.

Then dust settles on top of it.

That’s when you can end up with a thick, sticky mess that takes considerably more work to remove.

The range hood and the cabinets closest to the stove deserve special attention for the same reason.

The Range Hood Is Part of the Job

Your range hood is designed to help capture grease, smoke and other cooking byproducts, so naturally it can get greasy.

The outside needs regular cleaning, but don’t forget about the filter.

Some range hood filters can be removed and washed, while others need to be replaced. Check the manufacturer’s instructions for your particular range hood before cleaning the filter.

A range hood can’t do its job as effectively if it is loaded with grease.

What About Really Heavy Grease Buildup?

This is where patience comes in.

If grease has been accumulating for months or even years, one quick wipe probably isn’t going to remove it.

You may need to clean the same area more than once.

I would rather make several gentle passes than immediately attack a cabinet with the strongest cleaner I could find. Once a cabinet finish has been damaged, cleaning it isn’t going to put the finish back.

For stubborn buildup, check the cabinet manufacturer’s cleaning recommendations before moving to a stronger product.

Be Careful With Homemade Cleaning Remedies

There are all kinds of homemade cleaning recipes on the Internet.

Vinegar and baking soda seem to show up in just about every list.

That doesn’t mean they’re appropriate for every surface in your kitchen.

Vinegar is acidic, baking soda is abrasive, and cabinet finishes vary considerably. Before using either one—or any homemade mixture—make sure it is safe for the particular surface you’re cleaning.

Natural doesn’t automatically mean harmless to a finish.

Keeping Kitchen Grease From Building Up Again

Once you have gone through all the work of removing old grease, keeping up with it is much easier.

Wipe the cabinets around the stove regularly instead of waiting until they feel sticky. Clean splatters when you notice them. Keep the range hood and filter maintained, and don’t forget those areas around the knobs and handles.

You don’t necessarily need to scrub the entire kitchen every week.

The idea is simply to remove the grease while it is still a light film instead of waiting until it has had months to collect dust and harden. Dust is another cleaning problem that likes to collect in places we don’t always notice.

A few minutes of regular cleaning can save you a much bigger job later.

Sometimes Kitchen Grease Just Gets Ahead of You

Kitchen grease is one of those cleaning problems that tends to build gradually. You don’t wake up one morning to discover that your cabinets suddenly became greasy overnight.

It happens a little at a time.

And because we see our own kitchens every day, sometimes we don’t notice the buildup until it has become a pretty good cleaning job.

If that has happened in your kitchen, don’t feel like you have to tackle every cabinet, appliance and surface at once. Start near the stove, work on one section at a time and keep going. The same one-step-at-a-time approach works when the whole house has gotten away from you.

And if the job has become more than you want to tackle yourself, that’s one of the things we’re here for.

At Driscoll Cleaning, we’ve learned that sometimes a good cleaning isn’t about making a home look perfect.

It’s about helping someone get caught up—and making it a whole lot easier to keep it that way.

Sometimes a house just gets away from you.

It doesn’t necessarily happen because you don’t care about your home. Life gets busy. You get tired. You may be working long hours, taking care of other people, or simply have too many other things that need your attention.

A few dishes are left in the sink. The laundry piles up. Things get put down instead of put away. Before you know it, you look around the house and wonder where in the world you are supposed to start.

If you are wondering where to start cleaning a messy house, the most important thing is not to try to clean the entire house at once.

Pick a place and start.

Start With the Trash

I think one of the easiest places to start is with the obvious trash.

Get a good-sized trash bag and walk through the room. Don’t worry about dusting or scrubbing anything yet. Just pick up the things that you know need to be thrown away.

Empty food containers, junk mail, paper towels, empty bottles and other trash can make a room look much worse than it really is.

Getting those things out of the way can make a noticeable difference pretty quickly.

Gather Up the Dishes

Next, collect the dishes.

You don’t necessarily have to stop and wash every dish you find. The first goal is simply to get them all to the kitchen.

Once they are there, you can load the dishwasher or start washing them a little at a time.

A clean kitchen sink and an empty kitchen counter can make the whole kitchen feel better, even if there is still plenty of work left to do.

Get the Laundry Under Control

Laundry has a way of taking over a house.

Gather the dirty clothes, towels and linens and put them in baskets or in one designated place. Start a load if you have enough for one.

But there is another part of laundry that can create just as much clutter—the clean clothes that never got put away.

If you have baskets of clean clothes sitting around, don’t feel like you have to stop everything and organize every drawer and closet. Fold what needs folding and get as much of it put away as you reasonably can.

The object right now is to make progress.

Work on One Room at a Time

One of the easiest ways to get discouraged is to work a little in the kitchen, notice something in the living room, carry it to the bedroom and then start cleaning the bedroom.

Before long, you have worked all over the house and it doesn’t look like you accomplished much of anything.

Choose one room.

Even if you can’t finish the entire room, choose one part of it. Clean the kitchen table. Clear one countertop. Straighten one corner of the living room.

When you can actually see an area that you have finished, it gives you a little encouragement to tackle the next one.

Don’t Try to Organize Everything While You Clean

Cleaning and organizing are not always the same job.

If you haven’t used something in years and know you don’t want it anymore, certainly get rid of it. But this probably isn’t the best time to spend two hours going through a box of old photographs or deciding what to do with every piece of paperwork you own.

Have a box or basket for things that belong somewhere else.

Put those things in it and deal with them later.

Otherwise, it is very easy to turn a cleaning job into an organizing project and never get the cleaning done.

Clean From the Top Down

Once the clutter is out of the way, you can actually start cleaning your home.

I like to work from the top down.

If the ceiling fan needs dusting, do it before you clean the floor. The same goes for shelves, furniture and countertops. There isn’t much sense in vacuuming a floor and then knocking dust and crumbs all over it.

Save sweeping, vacuuming and mopping until toward the end.

That way, you are cleaning up everything that has fallen while you worked.

If you’ve discovered pantry pests while cleaning, see our guide to getting rid of pantry moths.

Don’t Expect to Finish Everything in One Day

If your house has gotten away from you over several weeks or months, don’t expect yourself to put everything back in order in a few hours.

You may get tired.

That’s okay.

Finish the job you are working on, put away your cleaning supplies and come back to it later.

One completely clean room is an accomplishment. So is one clean counter, one empty sink or one load of laundry that is washed, folded and put away.

Every job you finish is one less job waiting for you tomorrow.

Keeping It From Getting Away From You Again

Once you get the house back under control, keeping it that way is usually much easier than getting it there in the first place.

Try not to let dishes sit for days. Take the trash out when it is full. Put a load of laundry in before the hamper is overflowing.

You don’t have to keep a perfectly clean house every minute of every day.

Very few people do.

A few minutes spent picking things up each day can prevent that small mess from becoming a big job later.

Sometimes You Just Need Some Help

There are also times when the job is simply bigger than you want to tackle by yourself.

Maybe you’ve been busy. Maybe you’re preparing for company. Maybe you have fallen behind and would rather have someone help you get caught up.

There is nothing unusual about that. We see homes in all different stages of being lived in.

At Driscoll Cleaning, our job isn’t to judge how the house got that way. Our job is to help get it clean.

And sometimes, getting a little help is all it takes to get things back under control.