How often do you clean the kitchen?

[Greenskeeper]

This may be kind of a crazy question to toss out there but I find that I spend more time cleaning that area than doing anything else. I've even changed the faucet to a taller one that fit my height and added a pad to the floor in front of the sink.. Here are things I've tried...

If I clean up after every meal then I'm not getting to the other rooms so that didnt seem to work.

If I clean it after lunch its a small mess and kinda quick but I feel like dinner is only a few hours away so I find myself just doing a quick clean then.

If I clean after dinner then I run into a time crunch with playtime/homework/baths etc..

What I've been doing is cleaning while the kids eat breakfast but my wife hates having the mess from the night before sit out.

](*,)

What are the rest of you doing?

[Muz]

I usually clean up dinner dishes after the little guy is in bed. I also try to get the sink cleared out during his nap in the afternoons. This doesn't happen every day as sometimes I have other, more pressing jobs to do. Sometime because I'm too tired to deal with it. :D

[tt3]

Gah, how funny is this. I let 'er go for a day and take a nap time cleaning up the mess. As it almost always happens, the day I do that my wife cooks dinner and the miss mystically appears again. ;)

[mnsahd]

Three times a day.

Breakfast.
Lunch.
Dinner.

[DarthDaddy]

Since I am the sole COOK... (Wife can burn water...) We tend to share the nighttime clean up duties. However I like to clean up as I cook now. This way when we are done eating the only real dishes are the ones we used to eat from and the final cooked item dish. I clean them of, slight rinse and into the dishwasher. then I give the kitchen a good once over with a sponge and or towel.

I have become more aware of my cooking habits in order to limit the clean up.

During the day most of the meals are low prep, min clean up. My 5 year old does not eat so cleaning is a snap. (Right now PeanutButter and Chocolate chip Sandwiches is pretty much his diet. He is REALLY SKINNY!! Wifes side.

Breakfast consists of a Whey Protein Shake and either Ceral or something easy like waffels.

Lunch tends to be sandwich with a PAPER TOWEL as a plate, salad and raw veggies. I REALLY try to avoid the big clean ups.

Then every SATURDAY Morning I do a FULL CLEAN DOWN of the KITCHEN... Bleach Cleaner the whole deal...


Darth-Daddy

[Patrickz]

Around 10am during nap time and then again late afternoon. and then finally before bed somtimes.if I fell crazy. On the weekends a magical mess does appear and wify says she has been busy with the kido allday.and didn't have time or I'm better at it or faster ect. ect. You guys know the drill. On the plus side she makes great breakfest on sat and sun but I still get the mess. Oh woe to me :lol:

[Weston]

Usually a good thorough cleaning once a day and a few *touch-ups* throughout the day

[Sonnie Bee]

a great question and even better replies!

myself, i am a clean freak, so my kitchen is always spotless... until the wife comes home and it becomes a dumping ground for coats, shoes, her purse, keys, glasses, travel mug, and whatever new trinket or leftover lunch she's brought in with her.

as for cleaning, i've taught my 3 and 4 yo how to clean their rooms and make their beds, though they typically need encouragement.

the hardest room to keep clean, for me, is the playroom. it's a whole finished basement and after one hour of play, it gets trashed! imagine Lego's, Barbie stuff, Rescue Heroes, and Playdough everywhere... ugh!

[Patrickz]

imagine Lego's, Barbie stuff, Rescue Heroes, and Playdough everywhere... ugh!

Sonuds like tons of fun to me!

[sao95]

the kitchen is an ongoing battle, everyday, seemingly all day long sometimes. I don't have a routine as it depends on what is happening to when I get a chance to clean, last night I was cleaning at 11 p.m., usually I try to get it done before nap time though. With the seond wave of dishes in the afternoon.

[homemongo]

Yes the dinner dishes get left over from the night before but the kitchen usually comes together fairly quickly.

I'm a big fan of one pan recipies (although it never seems to work that way).

[Bollux]

My kitchen always looks like a tornado ripped through it. The standing policy was if I cooked, she cleaned. HA Fat chance of that. I grew up in a house where when you were done using something it was cleaned right up and it drives me a bit bonkers since she will leave it in the sink on the counter on the stove.. anywhere she can. I end up having to clean them cause I need them to make lunch or dinner the next day. Mind you my apt. kitchen is like 8' long and 4' wide from counter to counter. I am a huge fan of making grand meals on the weekend and having the left overs for days to come. (IE this weekend made alot of beef stew and chicken soup which will cover I would say 10-15 meals over the course of the next few weeks.) I love to try making new things and have been told I missed my calling as a chef...but thats a different topic. If I had my way the kitchen would be clean everyday.

[jeffus]

I got the Binford 9000 kitchen - cleans itself! :wink:

[Bollux]

Please have The Toolman come give me one too, lord knows I could use it.

[Anonymous]

This may be kind of a crazy question to toss out there but I find that I spend more time cleaning that area than doing anything else. I've even changed the faucet to a taller one that fit my height and added a pad to the floor in front of the sink.. Here are things I've tried...

If I clean up after every meal then I'm not getting to the other rooms so that didnt seem to work.

If I clean it after lunch its a small mess and kinda quick but I feel like dinner is only a few hours away so I find myself just doing a quick clean then.

If I clean after dinner then I run into a time crunch with playtime/homework/baths etc..

What I've been doing is cleaning while the kids eat breakfast but my wife hates having the mess from the night before sit out.

](*,)

What are the rest of you doing?

I'm the cook, always have been. She tries, but let's just say . . . well, let's leave it at that.

I grew up in a restaraunt family. First job, at 12, was pearl diving (dishwashing) in a rest. run by my uncle, a great short-order cook who knew all the tricks.

He trained me to do prep cooking and the first thing he taught me was "unless you wanna have pots and pans you gotta clean, piled up to the ceiling at the end of your shift, clean as you go." Best advice ever for cooking/cleaning in the kitchen. What this means is as you are prepping food, clean the cutting boards, mixing bowls etc., as you finish with them. As to during mealtimes, make sure pots and pans get into the sink to soak immediately, then you can clean them immediately after the meal.

Learn to cook some things ahead of time, and have them ready to microwave; learn to love the microwave...it is your best friend. If you are handwashing dishes, and there's something that hardens like concrete, make SURE to put a bit of water between each plate/bowl AS YOU STACK them in the sink. Despite what the old man believes, NOTHING needs to "soak over night" because nothing sucks worse than stumbling down at 4:30 a.m to a pile of dirty pots, pans and dishes staring accusingly at you over your only peacful cuppa.

Now, as to a thumnail on cleaning: when I was the SAHD, and therefore the ONLY one doing any cleaning I simply broke the week down into "cleaning projects," just as you would do at a "real job"(!) with the sorts of routine things you have to do such as backing up the harddrives, correspondence, filing, client maintenance calls, etc. Use your native male skills--focus, logic and organization--to tackle this. Set aside one day each week to give each "type" of room in the house the once-over.
Monday: Bedrooms (unless you have 16, then you are outta my league).
Tuesday: Baths (see above if you have 6 full baths)
Wed: Kitchen
Thu: Family room/den, basement, etc.
Fri: Take a day off
All of the time, of course, you are tidying.

As to actually cleaning a kitchen: Stove and sink area are naturally going to require the most work. Do not June Cleaver it every week. You do not need to do a full field stripping and cleaning of the fridge, including behind it, every week! I would do that maybe (BIG maybe) 2x a year, including a thorough, Que-tip cleaning of the cabinets .

Learn how to wipe as you go. No reason you can't save a little time by using your used washcloth to wipe down the tub after you use it--2 minutes save you 20, later. Despite what women want you to belive, scrubbing a tub and hunting down and killing dust bunnies, while monotonous, is not as tough as landing a $4million contract or capping a gas well, but you can make it easier, and faster yourself. Get at least one of those little cleaning caddies (like a tool caddy) for each floor, more if necessary. A few bucks at the dollar store or the SAHDad's friend, Wal-Mart, and fill it with the NECESSRY supplies. Have the necessary supplies for each TYPE of cleaning (hint: have at least a few old toothbrushes in the kitchen and bath caddies). You do not need furniture cleaner in the bathroom caddy. Again, use your native, male logic, focus and organizational skills. It's no different from preparing for ANY job.

I would always give the full baths (2) in our houses a once-every-3 month thorough once-over, employing the toothbrushes on the grout, and going over the places with a microscope. Waring: be careful what chemicals you mix--do not use amonian AT ALL (you are not making mustard gas, you are cleaing a bathroom, AND there are children in the house--I have YET to find a use for this stuff). Have a bottle of APPLE VINEGAR for both baths and kitchen. Wonderful solution for cleaning floors and it smells good.

Kitchens and baths are obviously the toughest rooms to clean. If you tidy up and do light cleaning regularly, they will not become horrific messes, and so your regular weekly, full will go much faster.

Warning: your wife will begin to treat you just like you treated her before you became a SAHD: like a maid. However, she may treat you like a stupid maid, and believe that she has to "train" you how to do it correctly, even if she's never cleaned a toilet in her life. Treat her as you would anyone whose language you do not understand. Nod and smile, nod and smile. And then clean the things the way that works for you, when she's not around.

The upshot is this: without at least a loose cleaning schedule (nothing that needs to be written down, giving you a chance to miss it and then kick yourself the rest of the week), you are never going to believe you have a handle on it, because you won't.

T

[Thundercranium]

Please have The Toolman come give me one too, lord knows I could use it.

Me too!

It seems like a never-ending battle. I think that since I cook all the meals, my wife should at least clean up the dinner dishes. Problem is, by the time we get the little guy put to bed and have our dinner around 7, we're both too tired to get off the couch.

I find myself walking into the kitchen to make the first bottle of the day and heaving a large sigh :cry: . Someday it will be clean...oh yes, it will be clean!

[Bollux]

Thunder I feel your pain. I do all the cooking and end up having to clean cause my gf is not the most tidy of people. Then whats worse is I will clean it spotless and within 24 hours it goes back to the dirty mess.

[Anonymous]

Please have The Toolman come give me one too, lord knows I could use it.

Me too!

It seems like a never-ending battle. I think that since I cook all the meals, my wife should at least clean up the dinner dishes. Problem is, by the time we get the little guy put to bed and have our dinner around 7, we're both too tired to get off the couch.

I find myself walking into the kitchen to make the first bottle of the day and heaving a large sigh :cry: . Someday it will be clean...oh yes, it will be clean!

And I think I should be an inch taller and have the same hair I had when I was 17....

Before I became a SAHD, I did NOTHING around the house. Both of us worked, but I did virtually none of the cleaning, including my own laundry. I did the cooking because I LIKE to cook.

Why? Because my wife let me get away with it.

If I had a built-in slave, why on earth WOULD I life a finger.

When I went back to work (I work for myself) and now that the kids are in middle school, recognizing this as a HUMAN (rather than male or female trait) I just stopped doing some things. Like dusting. Haven't done that in several years. The wife makes the kids do it. I wash MY clothes, but nobody else's. I wash the towels too (but that's because I cannot convince my wife or my daughters that you do not pour bleach onto colors unless you WANT them tie-dyed and I am a cheapskate who does not want to buy new towels). The wife has taken over cleaning the bathroom SHE dirties the most because other than the toilet, I just don't clean it.

Stop doing all this stuff and she will get the point. If you have one of those TV-show/magazine article relationships, maybe you can sit her down over a candle-lit dinner and discuss how tired you are (don't all those mags suggest meeting her at the door wearing something skimpy?) and how you'd like her to carry a bit more of her own weight. Scratch that. Don't mention "weight" in any context, ever, under any circumstances.

Otherwise, stop doing some of it and unless she is an utter pig, she will either pick up the hint, or at minimum the scrub brush.

T