Coming Clean

As part of my New Years resolution (which I do still plan to share, even if its a month late) our house is in a total cleaning/organizing transition. I had set my sights high and decided I was going to get back to getting things more organized and cleaned out. Having a baby in April, things had certainly gotten a little behind and no better way to start a new year and the later part of the cold winter than cleaning and purging.

I LOVE to clean and organize and bf (as in before kids) it was a huge part of my life. I organized everything from closets, to crafts bins, kitchen cabinets to our home office and everything in between. After kids, things defiantly took a turn, and I spent less time on it and while some areas are still holding pretty well, others are a mess. But I don't know many moms who'd rather clean than play and enjoy time with their kids.

So I am going to share some of the cleaning and organizing as I go along. Not necessarily big tips or how-tos, just some before a and afters and some things that worked well for me. Sometimes I just need a little inspiration from my favorite blogs to ignite a spark to dive into a project and get it done!

Today I share how I tackled my dirty oven. Not exactly exciting, but necessary.
We bought this brand new about 5 years ago and up until this past Easter, when we had family visiting, and a very messy unfortunate honey ham juice spilling incident, this baby was Clean. It was an accident, but the oven I had kept so immaculate was suddenly a disaster. And it stayed that way for 9 long months.

Then a while back I had read Jen's article about her making her own cleaning supplies and cleaning her oven here. I was inspired to give her home made cleaner a go and try it out.

I didn't have the lemon castile soap or lemon EO on hand, so to use what I did, I used the almond Dr. Bronners and some Almond oil I did have on hand. I picked up the spray bottle and rags at Walmart for about 4 dollars total.

1 cup distilled water

1 tbsp castile soap

10 drops tea tree or lemon essential oil

Spray first, let it set about 5- 10 minutes. Sprinkle on the baking soda and scrub. Scrub. Wipe the baking soda with clean rags and use one part water one part vinegar to get the baking soda haze out.

Before

I mixed it and followed her direction. It worked pretty great, all except for a few spots where there were big puddles of ham juice that had really been set in. (See below in the front middle)

Close up of before

After I sprayed the solution, I added the baking soda

After two hours and some major elbow grease and after the kiddos were in bed, I had had enough, I broke down and used some Easy Off  oven cleaner I had found in the back if the cupboard. It wanted the green cleaner to work, I really did. But in the end, it just didn't cut it. The Easy Off cut through those big stains with after two more coats and a few more hours of sitting it finally came out.

 

MUCH. BETTER

 

I put the racks in the tub overnight with some dish soap and really hot water and they were easy to scrub clean in the morning.

So there ya have it, I'm coming clean about trying to use my own green cleaner and ended up using the chemicals just to get the job done.
Did this happen to any of you? Did you pull out the big guns and use a harsh chemicals to get the grit out?
I'd love to hear what works great for you for next time around. Which I hope is WAY off in the distance :)

Have a great day!!
xo
Megan