How to easily remove grease build-up from your cabinets

Diane Kaul
by Diane Kaul
Easy
This is just a simple little story about how I finally got all the grease off the cabinets above my stove.
I have had a dirty little secret!Everyone always tells me how clean my house is. It's not really. Not since I've had kids. You've seen those cute little signs, Excuse the mess, we are busy making memories or Excuse the mess, we live here? Well that's not really my style. In fact, my house is nothing like the clean it used to be before the kids. I've grown more accustomed to the mess, but so many little things tend to get over looked these days. Many people have exciting goals like running a marathon or skydiving (and I may have just become the biggest loser because I just googled Common goals people have, because I couldn't come up with 2 good ideas), you know what I've always wanted? To put my house on the market and have the ad say, "Mrs. Clean lives here". I'm not kidding, I actually told my realtor I wanted that on my add. She said, your house will sell itself. OK, she was right, but I really wanted that at the time. One thing I've been over-looking lately is my kitchen cabinets. I'm home cleaning today and thought, maybe today's the day to get that grease off the cabinets. Now keep in mind, these are just the cabinets over the stove, and grease is always building up on these cabinets. I wipe down my cabinets frequently, since they are white and show any dirt, but I do tend to "overlook" these top cabinets because I never could seem to get the grime off with much success. I have those god-awful therma-foil and for lack of a better term the surface is "pockey". That means there is a little texture that allows dirt and grease to accumulate. The picture shows best how greasy these cabinets were. I've tried many products before, but today I decided to go for some simple soft scrub and a warm dish rag. I love the lemon scent and use this for a lot of my cleaning. I poured it on my dishcloth and just rubbed it on the grease, and just like that, all of the grease and grime came off. I've tried many other cleaners and de-greasers and seriously never got such great results with barely any elbow grease at all. I might suggest if you are working over your head that you wear some protective eyewear, because trust me when I say, you don't want your break from cleaning to involve trying to get soap out of your eye! Just sayin. Check out the before and afters. It's really pretty amazing!
Before: you can actually see how greasy and dirty the cabinets had become
After: white and clean
Diane Kaul
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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  • Robin Berryhill-Johnson Robin Berryhill-Johnson on Sep 04, 2016
    My husband and I just bought a house a month ago. I have been trying to getting all the Heavy grease and grime off the cupboard doors without damaging them. I have tried the baking soda and veg. oil it's okay but it's not getting to the wood. These are Oak cupboards. Any Ideas??? Looks about 16 rs worth of grease
    • Cindy Cindy on Oct 19, 2016
      I pretty much clean everything with a few items: Borax, Murphy's, vingear or dish soap. I also make cleaners using combinations of these. For greasy messes I usually use Borax, just straight onto a wet sponge.
  • Gail Gail on May 24, 2017

    I use glass cleaner with vinegar made & sold for car windshields & glasses. It's made to not be harmful to car finishes but yet remove bug splatter & road oils & residues. Smell is nice & it does a good job & quite easily for me.

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