Time for Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen

Here's how to do it right.

It is time once again to give your entire house a good scrub and get rid of those pesky little dust bunnies. But before you get overwhelmed with the prospects, take a deep breath and resolve to do it one room at a time, starting with the kitchen.

Inside your kitchen is an almost endless world of potential dirt, grime, and germs. If you want your kitchen to finally pass the white-glove test, start cleaning up your kitchen's act with the following steps:

Clean the oven. Thankfully, most of today's ovens will clean themselves. All you have to do is hit the switch and your oven will get to work. In the event your oven doesn't have a self-cleaning function, there are oven cleaning solutions at your local hardware store that allow you to get the grime from your oven's inner surfaces with ease.

Clean the stove. Once you're done with the oven (or while the oven is cleaning itself), gently scrub your stove's top surface. After cleaning the obvious grime, remove the dials from the stove and clean behind them.

Clean the fridge. If even the smallest amount of food is allowed to rot and fester in your refrigerator, things are going to start smelling bad fast. Regardless of whether there is rotting food in your refrigerator, pull everything out of the fridge and wipe down every shelf, corner, nook, and cranny. Place an open box of baking soda in the back of the refrigerator and return food and drink to their cleaned up spots in the fridge.

Clean the dishwasher. That's right - your dishwasher also gets dirty. Clean it up by scrubbing all over, from under the racks to over each little spindle. Need to give your dishwasher a better clean? Run it on regular wash with Tang instead of dish soap (don't put any dishes in for this one). Your dishwasher will not only look better, but will smell better as well!

Clean the sponges. As helpful as sponges are, they absorb germs just as well as they absorb water. Kill germs by getting your sponges damp and sticking them in the microwave on full power for a couple minutes.

Clean the floor. No matter how neat of a cook you may be, there will always be food hitting the floor. While an occasional sweep-and-mop job will keep the bulk of it from piling up, you'll need to give your kitchen floor a deep scrub if you really want that floor to shine. Before getting started, find out the best cleaning method for your floor surface to ensure a clean that won't damage the finish of your floor.

Clean the cabinets. Just like the refrigerator, the kitchen cabinets can become a place for unwanted food items to waste away. Get rid of unwanted items by cleaning everything out of the cabinets, give the inside and outside a good cleaning, and replace food items that are still in good shape. If there are non-perishable foods you don't think you will use, donate them to a food pantry.

Clean the disposal. If you've not cleaned your garbage disposal in a while, you may have some unpleasant odors rising from your kitchen sink. Take care of the problem by pouring some baking soda in the disposal and on a scrub brush and doing some intense scrubbing. Just be careful not to turn the disposal on while cleaning.

Clean the racks. Every day, you toss clean pans on a pan rack hanging overhead and stuff clean knives in a knife rack on your countertop. But what if those racks have dirt and grime? Give the racks in your kitchen a good cleaning to make sure your clean dishes stay clean. If you use a hard-to-clean wood block to store your knives, replace it every couple of years.

Clean the other stuff. You may not consider them kitchen appliances, but if you don't wash your windows and window seals, your kitchen won't look its best. Also, be sure to disinfect phones and door handles to help fend off lingering germs.