Welcome To Our Home - The Kitchen

If you recall in my post earlier this week I menitioned that I was beginning my Autumn / Winter Deep Clean this week, and true to my word, I began today. You may also recall that my original plan was to tackle the kitchen and dining area first, but I felt that since the kitchen is often the room that requires the most work, that I might be being optimistic.

I was correct. :)

Not only did I not get to the dining room, but I didn't even finish  the kitchen. I did get a lot done, however, so I thought I would share what I accomplshed and what still needs to be completed. 

The first thing that I did was to clean out the refrigerator.  This is actually a task that I complete every week, as the kitchen is the room that I focus on Monday's. There tends to always be a lot of food and leftoevers that accumulate from the week before and in particular over the weekend, so on Monday's I like to clean it our and start fresh.. But today I did a little more thourough cleaning. I went through all the bottles of condiments and other things and threw out anything that was expired, and gave the inside a good cleaning. I also had it on my list to clean the freezer, but I didn't get to that, so I'm bumping that to another day.  I also cleaned the top and the outside of the refrigerator.

Next I took everything out of the cabinet you see above and to the left of the refrigerator, wiped it out and organized and replaced everthing. I took the items off the top of the small counter you see to the left, gave it a good scrubbing, dusted all the items and replaced them. Still on my list is to take everything out of the drawers,wipe them out and then organize and straighten the contents. 

Next up is the stove top/oven and microwave. I lifted the top of the stove up and scrubbed the inside around the burners, took the drip pans off and cleaned them, cleaned the top of the stove and then replaced everything.  I had planned to clean the inside of the oven. I did not that too long ago, but to make it easier to keep it clean I was going to do it again, but I ran out of time. Then tonight I was making a batch of chocolate chip cookies and when I reached for the pan I burned my finger and dropped it inside the oven. The broken cookies fell all over the heating element in the bottom and caught on fire. It ended up making a HUGE mess! Needless to say, I'm actually thankful now that I didn't get around to cleaning it. It will be a much bigger job now, but at least I don't have to do it twice! I also cleaned the inside and outside of the microwave, and took out the glass tray and washed it.  

As with the other cabinets, I took everything out of all the upper cabinets around the stove, wiped them out and organized and replaced the contents. I also removed all the items from the countertops, scrubbed them down, dusted things off and replaced it. Tomorrow I'll be tackling the lower cabinets. 

I gave the sink a good cleaning, and then swept and mopped the floor and called it a day.  Along with the other things I mentioned, I still need to clean the toaster oven which you can just see to the left of the sink, all the lower cabinets and drawers still need to be wiped out and straightened, and the pantry (the white doors to the right of the refrigerator in the first small picture above) needs to be organized, so there is still a lot to do. I got started a little later than I had planned today, as well. My husband and I got into an interesting conversation over breakfast and lingered a little longer than usual, which I don't regret at all.  

In case you're wondering about the Christmas Tree Farm sign hanging above the sink, we keep that up all year round. It's not so much a Christmas decoration, and more because we like a wintry/cabin feel in our home, and decorate with a lot pine trees, saltbox houses and stars, which may sound like an odd combination, but we like it. Our color scheme throughout the house is deep green, rusty red and black. I made the valance above the kitchen window and I'm currently working on curtains for the dining room window. 

So anyway, I hope you've enjoyed this little tour of my kitchen. I've been meaning to share pictures of our home for some time now, and I figured since I'm deep cleaning now would be a good time, since it's looking its best!

We are bracing for Tropical Storm Debby which is scheduled to hit our area some time tomorrow. They are calling for 4-6 inches of rain and high winds (30-40 mph) between now and late Friday, early Saturday, and some areas could see as high as 8" inches.  Thankfully we are situated at a higher elevation, so flooding shouldn't be much of a problem for us here at home, but it could present some problems with traveling. All  the rain combined with high winds will  likely mean downed trees in the area and power outages. We're prepared in the event it happens, but if you don't hear from me for a few days, that is likely the reason!

Until then!

❊