Homemade Cleaners

I just finished cleaning my kitchen in preparation to move.  I’m very glad for my menu plan, because it enabled me to know exactly what I needed to leave unpacked for the next three meals we will eat here.  All of those items are condensed onto two shelves in one cabinet, and everything else has been wiped down and scrubbed.  One less thing to do on Saturday!

I’ve been making homemade cleaners for a while now.  I thought for sure I had shared this on the blog, but I can’t find it right now.  Most of my cleaners consist of baking soda, washing soda, borax, vinegar, and essential oils.  Here is the solution for All Purpose Cleaner that I use:

All Purpose Cleaner
From: Elizabeth’s Kind Café

1 Teaspoon Washing Soda
1 teaspoon Borax
2 Cups Hot Water
10 Drops Essential Oil (Lemon, Lavender, Tea Tree, or Pine)
Small squirt of Dawn dish washing soap
½ c. white vinegar - addition from One Good Thing by Jillee

I use this in the bathroom with Tea Tree and Lavender essential oils.  In the kitchen, I use a couple drops of Lavender essential oil, and then lemon essential oil.  I was both surprised and pleased with how well this eliminated the grime in my kitchen today.

You know how everything gets kinda sticky & grimy & greasy around the stove?  One spray of my cleaner and a quick scrub with a scratchie pad quickly and easily removed all of that yuck.  No Clorox wipe ever did that for me! 

The house was built in 1905, and while the cabinets are surely not that old, they have definitely seen better days.  I have previously spent a lot of time trying to remove the layers of yuck in my kitchen.  A lot of scrubbing, almost to the point of removing the finish from the cabinets, left things no cleaner and no less sticky. I was not looking forward to cleaning the kitchen for move-out because of this, but the job was much easier than I had anticipated.

So ditch your chemical laden cleaners that cost a pretty penny, and try old fashioned baking soda & vinegar…you might be surprised!

Our new home has wood floors, so I found a DIY floor cleaner solution and mixed it up in a spray bottle.  I bought a microfiber mop with a washable pad to use with the spray.  Here is the recipe for the wood floor cleaner.

I have also pinned and tried a lot of DIY “recipes” for common cleaners, detergents, stain removers, etc. that I was spending a lot of money on in the stores.  Check out my Pinterest board here.

I will leave you with a little piece of advice.  You can file it away and thank me later.  Never rent an apartment where the landlord has painted the inside of the kitchen cupboards.  It would be bad enough if it was a good paint job.  It is a million times worse with cheap paint and a bad paint job.  I have been washing paint flecks off my dishes for two and a half years, despite scraping the paint off and lining the cupboards with contact paper.