When you’re moving into a new house or apartment, you’ll definitely wish that place to be as clean as it possibly can. Oftentimes, the kitchen is the heart of a home, so having a clean kitchen is the very first step to having a clean and tidy home. What’s more, the kitchen will be one of the first rooms to unpack and set up right after you move in.
Since the immediate post-move period will be extremely busy with all sorts of emergency tasks, you won’t really have enough time to deep clean all individual kitchen items. You can do that a bit later, but you must find the time to do an overall deep clean of the new-home kitchen.
Remember – cleaning your kitchen is a must-do task when moving into a new home. After all, it’s the place where you’ll be preparing delicious meals so your kitchen has to be spic and span from the start.
Here’s how to clean a kitchen before moving in all your kitchen items.
Clean the room from the top down
It’s best to start from the top space of the kitchen since you won’t want the dust there to fall onto the kitchen areas you’ve already cleaned.
Dust the ceiling, overhead lighting fixtures, fans, vents, and all corners. To reach those high places in the new-house kitchen, you should use the telescopic attachment of your vacuum cleaner.
Using a duster can also work but it’s not the recommended way to dust the high areas of the kitchen since the dust will only get blown into the air and will eventually settle down again over time, even onto the high spots you’ve already dusted.
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Clean the kitchen walls
After the high kitchen spots, it’s time to turn your attention to the kitchen walls. The wall areas that are likely to be dirty in the kitchen are the zones immediately around light switches (including the light switches themselves) and the corners.
If the new kitchen has painted walls, use a sponge to apply a bit of liquid dish detergent mixed with water to the stained areas. Then, scrub gently, rinse well, and dry with a clean towel. Never apply too much pressure when cleaning kitchen walls with a sponge – if you do, then you run the risk of taking the paint off the wall.
If the kitchen walls have wallpapers, then you should first remove the dust that may have settled on them (use the brush attachment of the vacuum cleaner to suck it in), then wipe the wallpapers gently with a cloth soaked in a mixture of liquid dishwashing soap and water.
If you do come across sticky spots on the kitchen wall, then what you can do is apply a bit of fabric softener on those sticky areas, wait roughly 15 minutes, and then rinse them well with water and a clean soft sponge.
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Clean the kitchen cabinets
In order to clean a kitchen thoroughly after moving into a new place, you’ll have to make sure the kitchen cabinets are wiped clean as well – there’s no way around it.
The best way to clean kitchen cabinets is to use a mild all-purpose cleaning product – just spray in over the surfaces of the cabinets and use soft paper towels to wipe them dry. Go over the top of the cabinets and all cabinet doors as well. Don’t forget to wipe clean the inside of each drawer and its corresponding handle.
Most of the time, the cabinets in your new kitchen will be made of wood and if that’s the case, then you can choose to use an all-purpose cleaner that’s designed specifically for wooden surfaces.
You may find the kitchen cabinets rather soiled with grease that’s almost impossible to remove using a universal cleaner. Luckily, even such extreme cases of dirtiness have a simple solution: make a fine paste by mixing baking soda and water, apply it gently to the greasy zones of your kitchen cabinets, leave it like that for 5-10 minutes, then wipe down the grease with paper towels.
Clean the kitchen countertops
The kitchen in the new home will never look clean enough if the countertops are not sparkling with cleanliness. Regardless of the type of material used for making the countertops – granite, marble, quartz, natural stone, ceramic tiles, etc., you have to make sure the worktops are spotless before you start using the new kitchen.
In most cases, you’re recommended to use an all-purpose cleaner and paper towels to wipe down the kitchen countertops. You may have to use a putty knife to remove any instances of residues, stains, or grime along the smooth surface of the kitchen top. Be careful not to scratch the delicate top surface when using the putty knife.
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Clean all glass elements
To clean your kitchen properly, you just have to ensure that all glass elements inside the room – windows, doors, cases, panels, tabletops – are perfectly clean. Bear in mind that any stains on those glass elements – especially greasy fingerprints – can be spotted from far away.
Get a universal glass cleaner, spray it on all glass surfaces, then wipe it dry with soft paper towels. And then, take a step back and marvel at the brilliant shine of perfectly clean glass surfaces.
Clean the major kitchen appliances
If you’re renting the new place, the major kitchen appliances such as a refrigerator, a cooking stove with an oven, and a dishwasher should already be there.
While you’re cleaning a kitchen after moving into a new home, you can’t just ignore those kitchen appliances, so here’s how to clean them:
- Refrigerator. Assuming that the fridge is empty, unplug it from the power and defrost it. Remove all shelves and drawers from the inside, soak them in soapy water and then wipe them clean. Also, use a wet cloth to wipe the interior of the appliance, then let the fridge door open to let it air-dry. If you happen to smell any bad odors coming from the inside of the refrigerator, leave a saucer inside filled with baking soda – it seems like a simple trick but the soda is supposed to absorb the bad smell.
- Stove. The cooking stove and its oven will be one of the most difficult things to clean in the kitchen. Why? It’s because of the inevitable accumulation of grease and grime when cooking.
Take out any oven racks, grills, and drip pans from the stove and soak them in soapy water. Apply oven cleaner to the top surface of the oven, wait a bit so that the cleaning product can take effect, and then scrub it down with a sponge. Then, wipe the front of the oven with an all-purpose cleaner or diluted dish soap. Clean up the oven knobs as well. - Dishwasher. The dishwasher in the new place should be empty inside. Place a bowl of white vinegar on the top rack and run an empty cycle to clean and disinfect the interior of the dishwasher. Use an all-purpose cleaning product to wipe down the exterior of the dishwashing machine so that it looks nice and shiny.
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Clean the sink and faucet
How to clean a kitchen sink and the faucets? You’ve got a couple of good choices.
The first one is to use a good powdered cleaning product that will scrub away any grime off the sink and faucets thanks to their fine abrasive particles. Rinse well the sink and faucets, then use a sponge or a specialized cleaning brush to deep clean them to a shine. Finally, rinse everything with hot water.
The other sink cleaning method is to pour chlorine-free bleach into a spray bottle, add some water, and then spray it all over the sink and faucets. Wait about 10 minutes, then rinse thoroughly with hot water.
Vacuum or mop the floor
The final step to cleaning your kitchen before moving in is to sweep and mop the floor.
If there’s a carpet installed in the kitchen, then you only need to vacuum it with the vacuum cleaner to get all the fine particles and dirt that must have settled down on the floor during the kitchen cleaning process.
If there are smaller area rugs positioned strategically on the kitchen floor, vacuum them, and remove them and mop the floor surface underneath – be it hardwood, tiles, or linoleum. Use a safe floor cleaning product for the job.
See also: How to clean a bathroom before moving in
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