I had a bit of a strop recently (most unlike me…!!) at the state of our house.
It is a mess. A big mess.
I have no-one to blame but myself. Well, and the lovely hubby. And quite possibly the Smalls too….
The Smalls are the best at making mess, I am not far behind, and hubby is actually quite tidy.
But NONE of us are good at tidying away.
I keep waiting for the ‘tidy-up fairy’ who would come and tidy up while I was at school when I lived at home, but someone must have forgotten to tell her I’ve moved, so she never comes. And I am still always slightly disappointed when we go out leaving the house a mess, and come back in and the house is still a mess….
So the lovely hubby took a couple of days off recently, and we farmed the Smalls out, and had a big tidy up.
But once you start, it’s hard to stop, and before I knew it, I was CLEANING THE OVEN….
ARRGHHHHHHH!!!!
The ‘before’ shot
Yummy….
I had put one of those clever pull out liners in the bottom, so the inside wasn’t too bad, just the door really. I am ashamed to admit that this is the first time I (or anyone else for that matter!) have cleaned the oven since we moved into the house over 2 years ago….
We didn’t have any oven cleaner in the house, and as this is My Make Do and Mend Year, I thought I should follow through, and give the homemade approach to cleaning a go….
This is what I was armed with:
White vinegar and bicarbonate of soda
And these….
I mixed the vinegar and bicarb into a paste, and then painted onto the oven door using my best party brush…
A lot of rubbing/scouring with steel wool little bit of elbow grease later, it was looking much better, but still quite smeary. I had tried polishing it with vinegar, but was starting to get cross, so I handed over to hubby at this point, who whipped out his secret weapon….
Atuo-Glym are not sponsoring this post….
And this was the result…
Hurray!! Sparkly clean
Needless to say, I am now full of resolve to clean it much more regularly, so it will be easier…
But we all know I won’t 
Vinegar and Bicarb – my 2 cleaning best friends! Though I also add Borax into the mix: a paste of borax; bicarb and salt – an awesome scrubbing agent for getting through those stubborn stains on kitchen surfaces. And even my non-eco fiance was impressed with how a cloth wrapped in vinegar powered through the limescale on his taps.
Thanks for sharing – bring on the natural cleaning revolution!
Thanks Janine. I do actually have some borax but it didn’t occur to me to use it-DOH! Will try this next time
Hate hate hate that job! Like the idea of using Malteasers to ease the pain though!
It is soooooo rubbish isn’t it..? Hubby was defrosting the freezer whilst I was doing the oven-not sure who got the worst job? Maltesers helped though. Maltesers always help
Your before picture would be like my after picture with huge amount of scrubbing, I now have oven shame.
Surely not! Must have just been a not very good picture….
Eat more maltesers….
wow…. that’s one clean door!!! I hate cleaning my oven
I’m getting a new one soon so I must keep on top of it. Think I’ll be investing in that glass cleaner x
I think the Autoglym stuff is just for polishing-stil need to do the elbow grease thing 1st..!
I did the vinegar and bicarb thing on mine, and like you, the glass still wasnt very clean. Nice tip about the Autoglym. I have found that soaking the chrome racks in hot water and laundry washing powder makes the crud slide off and they come up brillilantly. Maybe one day I will get round to doing mine (again). :O)
‘I keep waiting for the tidy-up fairy, but someone forgot to tell her I moved’ – LOL! She’s been shunning me since I moved out (er, 20 years ago) too – although she was a bit tardy even then. I have a tea-fairy now though, who makes sure I wake up next to a mug of tea every morning, so I guess I can get by. Am adding Maltesers to my cleaning basket ASAP, that’s genius.
Maltesers make everything better…
Blimey I bet my husband has got some of that in the garage, he is a car nut. Will have to give it a go!
I think it is compulsory ‘car-nut’ equipment..!!
Didn’t the auto glym smell funny and a bit chemical when you used the oven again? Love those bottom liners…just the trick!
Didn’t notice anything untoward-you only need a tiny amount!
Hi Jen, Where did you get your enormous contaner of white vinegar? E
Hi Emma. I got it online from Summer Naturals. Do you want me to bring it with me on Saturday?
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