How to Clean the Oven, Safely

I've been needing to clean the oven for some time.


But it's such a nasty job, I'm always putting it off.

This time, I thought I'd do a little research to see if I could find an easy--and safe--way to clean the oven. I found the answer immediately. Baking soda in a water bottle--what could be easier?

I made it up following the instructions: a full bottle of water (828ml or 28 oz) and four tablespoons (4 x 15 ml) of Baking Soda. The nozzle did clog a couple of times, but it was worth it!

I wanted to see how this method would work without turning on the oven--so I spritzed it and then left it to sit as I started working on the oven door. Here it is in all its soupy glory:

Did you know that I had no idea you can take the oven door off the oven? I discovered it by accident a few months ago. See the hinges at each side? The door just lifts out. Amazing.

Not having to reach over that door while on my hands and knees to wipe out the interior made my back much happier than it would be otherwise. (It's still not all that happy, however!)

For the oven door--and everything else--I made up a paste of equal parts dish detergent and baking soda--and then I added a smidge more baking soda. (I discovered this formula while watching a British TV show about cleaning absolutely filthy houses--it was a sort of fore-runner to A&E's Hoarders)

Here it is, all ready to go:


I smeared it on, thickly, with my bare hands. (Note: have lots of hand cream standing by. It dries out your hands like crazy!)


Then, I let that sit overnight.

Out of curiosity, I decided to wipe out the oven. I wanted to see how much I could get off after just having let it sit for a bit. (How long? I don't know. I was painting the foyer ceiling at the same time.)


Astonishing, isn't it? There were still a few stubborn spots, so I just smeared on the Baking Soda/Detergent goo and left it.

Sunday morning, I was rewarded:


The door took a bit of scrubbing with the nylon scrubber, but it, too, was all cleaned up in short order. My daughter walked into the kitchen right after I took this picture and said, "Mom! It's all shiny!"


We were impressed, to say the least.

To ready the oven for using, I put down some pieces of aluminum foil on the bottom of the oven. But before I did that, I spritzed it with the baking soda + water. So, as I use the oven, the heat should help bake off those stubborn left over bits.

I cleaned the oven racks, stove top, burner rings and trays with the Baking Soda+Detergent Goop but it was a much tougher job and I'm not completely happy with my results. I would post the after pictures--if I had them--but as I was trying to put the SD card back into the camera, I couldn't do it. It jammed somehow, and I couldn't fix it. So, I've had to take my camera in for service, and I don't know how long I will be without it! I am peeved to say the least.

Nonetheless, the Spring Clean/Cure continues! After a visit to my chiropractor, I'll be ready to tackle the cabinets under the counter!

Sprin-a-Ling-a-Ling

I'm so excited.
Look!
(from the back gate looking into the yard)

Here's from the back door looking left (towards the East) where we have our garden boxes.


Here's from the back door looking left (westwards) where we have the picnic table. That bush is a lilac. I can't wait for it to blossom and bloom.



And here we are, looking from the back step towards the garage.
There's the snow!


Can you believe that all last week there was a puddle all the way out to those boards? I put them down to get around it--and then, yesterday morning, I woke up and poof! It was gone. It's like the ground thawed over-night.

See that shed to the left of the garage? That's where we have our bikes. Looks like we'll have to dig them out if we want them!

Update: The Foyer

I've been working on the front hallway since late January. This is what things looked like then:



It all started with an impulsive decision to take down the popcorn ceiling.

That was fun. (Um, not.)

After quite a bit of hemming and hawing, I decided to paint the walls.

But blue was not the answer.


I decided I wanted to try grey. Grey is the up and coming colour for the decade, after all. I settled on Benjamin Moore's Edgecomb Grey. I absolutely love it.

This was taken before I painted the trim and ceiling. It really came alive then.

Memories of scraping that ceiling stayed with me a long time, however, and I took my time getting to painting it. I filled the cracks. A few days later, I sanded them.

Fill, then sand.

Then I washed the ceiling.

I waited.

At long last I decided it just had to be done, so I asked my husband to tape it for me one evening. He did--and I promptly got very, very sick. The green tape stayed up for about two more weeks.

Meanwhile, I had decided that I wanted to change the hallway light fixture. Ideally, I wanted something trendy, like this:

from Home Depot.

At the time I was looking, the bills from Christmas were piled high and hubby was working overtime to pay them off. The $90.00 price tag just seemed like too much of a splurge. Two little "candelabra" type fixtures didn't seem like enough light--and I really wasn't sure a pendant fixture would work in the space, anyway.

I saw this while searching, though, and I had a brainstorm courtesy of a blogger in love with oil rubbed bronze spray paint. I'm sorry, I can't remember exactly who it was.

From Home Depot. About $75.00

For about $8 I could simply spray paint the ugly brass fixture I already had. And so I did.

We went from this:

you can still see the bit of "popcorn" dangling from the ceiling, here.

to this:

I can't believe I didn't get a picture of all that glass taped off. It was quite the job. I used an eXacto knife to get it all taped just so.

Last week, I decided to do a hybrid Spring Clean and Cure. In preparation for it, I knew I wanted the hallway finished.

So, two coats of Benjamin Moore's Ceiling paint in Cloud White went up last week, and I finished up the light fixture and reinstalled it today.

This is the After--at least as far as painting goes. The trim is BM Cloud White in Semi-gloss. Please ignore the stuff on the stairs!

I'm not sure if I am moving the yellow cabinet back in or not. Hubby and I have been remarking on how much we like having the space.

Linking to Met Monday at Between Naps on the Porch

Week 2: The Kitchen Plan

source: from Colour Me Happy. I love the light pouring in and the fresh green colour on the walls. I'm not sure if the black countertops would work as well with white appliances, but I would love to emulate how crisp, clean and homey it all feels.

This is a blockbuster post--and a doozy of a week coming up.

First, how did the prep week go? Are you ready?

Set?

Go!

From The Book:

According to Apartment Therapy, The Eight Step Cure, by Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, Week Two is all about the kitchen. The following is from p.p. 72-73.

Bones:
Fix one thing in your home
Clean your kitchen from top to bottom and throw out old food
Buy a water filter and use it.

Breath:
Run your hands over every wall of your apartment.
Clear Space for an Outbox

Heart:
Buy fresh flowers
Determine your style

Head:
Find one new recipe and cook one meal at home
Choose the date for your housewarming.

I won't be doing all of these: I think that once you have run your hands over all the walls, you don't really need to do it again!

source: For the Love of a House. This is so elegant, it's hard to believe it's someone's kitchen!

The Cleaning Checklist.
I have hobbled this together from various sources: my favourite turned out to be a list from the book Unclutter Your Life in One Week, by Erin Rooney Doland. She breaks down the lists into three parts: a list for the busy person, for the dedicated cleaner, and for the overachiever. (Any I've added to the list occur after the overacheiver).So, the tasks are listed accordingly:

Scrub floors and counters
Clean and organize cabinets and drawers
Clean fridge and freezer with a mild detergent
Defrost Freezer
Clean inside of oven, stove burners and range hood
Change filter in range hood
Clean the outside of all small appliances
Pull fridge out from the wall and wash floor underneath
Vacuum fridge coils
Have knives professionally sharpened.
Take trash can to self-serve car wash and power wash.
Wax floor
Wash windows
Wash walls
Wash and install screens
Clean dog food container
Clean coffee maker
Handwash curtains.

Source: Maillardville Manor. Isn't this gorgeous? The link takes you directly to her post where she explains some of the containers she's using. I may have to get me some.

The Decluttering Tasks:
I planned these to take about 15 minutes per day. There are five in a week. The idea is to do one a day and save the weekend for the heavy cleaning.

1. Throw away old, expired food. Donate anything not yet expired and that you won't use to the food bank.
2. Inspect dishes for cracks and chips. Replace if necessary.
3. Get rid of old cooking pots and baking pans
4. Declutter cleaning supplies and shelves
5. Get rid of excess gadgets and appliances

Obviously, customize this list . Substitute what you need to do--and disregard anything you know is OK. (For example, I could have included going through my table linens, but I didn't.)


Looking Forward:
In the past, we've had discussions about this all or nothing approach and how, though it is great to do the Cure, we were left wanting to know what to do on a daily basis to keep our homes looking good. In the last year, I have managed to come up with a couple of great little routines to help me stay on top of the chaos that erupts many times a day in my beast of a kitchen. If there's interest, I share those later in the week.

source: BHG. I want a curtain almost exactly like this and plates on the wall beside the window in the corner of my kitchen where we have our table.

Good luck!

Week 1: Progress Report

Spring Cleaning and Cure tasks:

From the book, Apartment Therapy: The Eight Step Home Cure, by Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan.

Bones:
Make a complete list of repairs and solutions --done.
Vacuum and mop floors --not done, but should have.

Breath:
Remove one item from your home.--done!
(I am actually going to be more ambitious and do my best to clear out the area above completely): see below.

Pounds gone: approximately 100.

Heart:
Buy Fresh Flowers --done.



Head:
Sit for ten minutes where you never usually sit --not done
Look into earth friendly cleaning products --done, sort of.

Hybrid:
Create Mission Statement with supporting photos. --done
If you missed that post click here.

a collage of stylish inspirations

Type up cleaning checklists for each room. --done
Make up decluttering plan. --done

Flowers on Friday

We've had flowers fairly consistently since Christmas.
It surprises me.
Of course, my husband bought a few bouquets for me too, and that doesn't hurt!


I hadn't realised it would be all that hard to find nice, inexpensive, long lasting blooms like these mini-carns. I love them. Classic, in a simple way.


My mom gave me this pitcher at Christmas. The hand-made doily was a gift from the mother of a boy I lived with for a few years a long, long time ago. (Honestly, I think it was 20 years ago, now. How can it be that long ago?)



I think it's actually the first time I've ever put it out. I think it's perfect, here, now.

The Mission Statement and Cure Binder

The first page of my Cure Binder. It has my mission statement and a few inspiration pictures. On the back is the plan of action for the next 8 weeks printed from this blog entry. The Dry Cleaning coupons came in the mail today, so I tucked them into the inside pocket.

A mission statement is designed to function for a short period of time. I love it as a tool to help focus my activities when I'm executing a multi-faceted project like this. I was introduced to using them this way by Aby Garvey in her Simplify 101 class, Get Organized for the Holidays. (I forget the precise wording of the course title, but you get the idea.)

I've decided to adopt the following formula:

My home will be [qualities or attributes from the interview or any other adjectives you want] so that the people who live here will [feel a certain way or be able to do certain things] because I will have [the actions I'm taking over the next couple of months] by [date] .

To wit:

My home will be clean and pleasant, peaceful and comfortable, organized and tidy (on a daily basis) so that the people who live here will be content, secure, and supported in their activities and goals because (with the help of my family) I will have thoroughly cleaned the dickens out of each room, thought about what supposed to happen in the room and what it needs, and gotten rid of everything that isn't necessary by May 30th, 2011.

Well, for a first pass, I suppose it isn't bad.

source: chez larsson A functional and pleasant laundry room is vital to the goal of supporting our activities!

The idea of setting up a binder to hold all the necessary bits of paper is also from Aby's Holiday course. I've found it invaluable over the past couple of years to help me get through Christmas. Last summer, I also set up a binder for our vacation and it was a fabulous tool to have on hand.

So, seeing as this is my very own hybrid cure, I thought I would adopt these two tools to help carry me through the work of the next two months.

Here's the cover of the binder.

The binder is quite simple: just a regular ol' binder from Staples with a clear "pocket" on the spine and the front (for an insert) and (old) purchased page dividers. A few clear pocket pages and some page protectors are all I need to help make it as functional as possible. Take a look at what's out there for page protectors and customize your binder any way you want. Page inserts which hold business cards for example, may be useful to you. Baseball card holders may be just the thing to hold different paint chip cards.

Here are the divisions. I have 11 all together.
1) Repair worksheets
2) Floor Plans
(Here's a link to BHG's on-line floor plan generator).
3) Reference and Notes (this holds information about vendors and sources for items I may need: things like the phone number for the place I need to call for the foam to upholster a headboard, different prices on bathtub surrounds, a vacuum, and so on.
4-10) Then, I have dividers for each room with the cleaning checklist and the de-cluttering spots behind it as well as other information pertinent to the room in question, like window measurements (should I want to buy fabric for making curtains).
11) At the back, I have a "Progress Report" where I keep track of the pounds I've moved out of the house and a page protector to hold the receipts for the things I've purchased.

I'm using this hideous shade of orange only because that was the colour of the old index card I found.

Actually, you could use just 10 dividers if you put the floor plan of each room behind that room's divider.

I already have a lot of this information filed away already in another binder called my "Home Reference" Binder--I put it together during another of Aby's courses called Paper Clutter. I've transfered what I need over into the "Cure" binder (like the floor plans) so that everything is all in one place.

This is just what works for me: you may prefer a tray, folders, a box, or nothing at all--whatever works for you. But do give some thought to how you might like to capture some of your thoughts and inspiration along the way.

Here's an inspiration image. I decided to collect them and place them on the cover and the Mission statement pages of the binder. I may include some on the cleaning checklist pages as well. This one is on the cover (above).

Source: Jim Howard via Things that Inspire. What I love about this is how lush but simple it is, how colourful, yet still serene.