A Quick Kitchen-Cleaning Mission for Your Monday

At the risk of sounding like a cloyingly optimistic Peppy Patty (which I can assure you, I am not), I never really understood all the pervasive hate for Mondays. I get that easing yourself from the freedom of the weekend into the structure of the workweek is a bit of a shock to the system, but I’ve always had a trick that makes me look forward to Mondays, and I’ll give it to you here for free (a bonus for being so great and following along on this spring cleaning journey we’re on): plan something for Monday night you can look forward to. A favorite dinner, a weekend show you put off watching, or maybe a standing coffee date with a friend you don’t see too often.

all-purpose cleanerIn fact, you can pencil something fun in your calendar right now. Because today’s cleaning assignment likely won’t even take the full 20 minutes that we’ve allowed for our daily cleaning projects thus far. To ease into this, the final week of our spring cleaning plan, I have what I hope is a simple task…

TODAY’S 20-MINUTE TASK

If you’ve got a messy streak (or just children—any children at all), this might be something you do often. But maybe not so thoroughly, and maybe not all over. Today’s task is just to focus on the kitchen cabinet doors and drawer fronts, as many as you’ve got, and give them a good, focused wipe and scrub.

Almost every cabinet material under the sun can stand up to a gentle wipe down with an all-purpose cleaner and a soft cloth, so I’d start there. For especially tough messes, you can try a few other things (with important caveats): Give stubborn messes a hard scrub, maybe with baking soda— except if you have latex-painted cabinets or metal cabinet doors. The baking soda and, in some cases, just the tool or motion of your scrubbing could damage the finish. And no matter what your cabinets are made of, be careful not to overwet the area.

Don’t forget the pulls and handles! They can get wiped with a cloth, too, or scrubbed with a small brush if they’re particularly intricate.

Just for fun, and maybe a little reader intel, how many cabinets do you have in your kitchen? I’ve got nine cabinets and three drawers, with 17 doors and fronts between ’em—and wiping down took me less than 5 minutes.