January 25, 2012

CLEANING WITH MEL: Ammonia De-greaser!

Posted by Ethne~

Hey Dudes.  (Remember the show 'Hey Dude' on Nickelodeon when we were kids?  I just thought of that for the first time in like 2 decades.  I digress.)

We helped my bro and sis, Rich and Mel, move into their new FIRST house last Saturday.  I am super excited for them.  As in totally crazy jealous and at the same time genuinely thrilled.  They got a GREAT house and it has some genius features like a spice cabinet alongside the Jenn-Air stove/oven and almost all of the kitchen cupboards have pull-out shelves and drawers.  And heated bathroom floors.  Holla!

Happy Homeowners!

Naturally Mel is Queen Organization so by the time it came to moving on Saturday, we got the men doing the big furniture and then she and I sorted, assembled and organized drawers and such.  By Sunday, they were completely unpacked, put away, and had cleaned and turned in the key to their apartment.  That girl is CRAZY!  In a pretty cool way.  As in I will be delegating my next move entirely to Mel.

So since Mel is fully unpacked, she now has nothing better to do than pack for Mexico and scour Pinterest for ways to mega-clean her new house.  Here is one such example...

"Hi Wom-Mom followers.  I was so excited about my newest household tip that I kind of hinted to Ethne that it should be a blog post.  My intent was that she would write it.  But you know Ethne, always so savvy…she now has me doing her dirty work!  Speaking of dirty work.  Look at this before oven grate and see how sparkly they can become.


Before on the right: Grime City!

Recently my husband, Rich and I bought our first home (recent, like 1 week ago).  We are absolutely thrilled and could not be more excited.  My only complaint was that the previous owners did not treat my Jenn-Air Stove very nicely.  I mean really people!  Most people that enjoy cooking would kill for a Jenn-Air restaurant-quality stove that is both conventional and convection oven (gas & electric) and gas stove top. (Or at least they would sell their first born!)  Clearly the previous owners had no love in their hearts for “Jenni” so it was left to me to get her sparkling again.  {EDITOR'S NOTE: I won't be satisfied until Mel has named something totally cool after me.  Hand mixers and other such small appliances do not qualify.}

That’s where www.pinterest.com came in.  Here is the original sight I found my new tip on http://workmanfamily.typepad.com/our_life/
If you don’t want to waste time looking at the site (there’s a lot of extra nothing on there), here’s what I did.  Take a Ziploc bag (the site recommended a gallon bag.  My grates were on steroids so I had to use a Ziploc Big Bag (size XL).  I simply put the grate into the bag then added the magic.  The magic being . . . ¼ cup of ammonia.  Don’t be scared folks.  Ammonia is fine if you don’t sit and inhale it for long periods of time and mix it with other chemicals.  Plus it is only $1.19 at Target.  I also had a $.50 off coupon for the Target Up & Up brand.  Grand total: $.69.   And you read correctly, only ¼ cup.  It’s the fumes that do the work not the liquid, but it is ok for the grates to touch the liquid. 

So, you should now have your grate in the Ziploc with ¼ cup of ammonia.  Seal the deal and let it sit for a long time.  I checked at 12 hours and nothing happened.  This caused feelings of defeat.  Fortunately, I was too busy to deal with it at the time so I just stuck the grate back in the bag and left it.  When I finally remembered, it was at about 36 hours later.  I found lots of black crud floating in the bag.  I instantly got excited and thought, “Yay it worked!”  Then I realized, “Oh Crap!  That may be the paint peeling off!”

That wasn't paint peeling off - look at the gunk that came off!

All I had to do was rinse the grate off.  I had to use a washcloth in some of the corners but it took no scrubbing at all.  So simple and cheap!"


THRIFTY + CLEAN = WOM-necessity

Needless to say, these pictures show the before and after results are a success in the cleaning department.  The other 3 grates are already fuming as I type this.  I hope you find this tip helpful when trying to maintain your stove which should be both functional and beautiful.  “Jenni” is no longer ashamed of her exterior!"

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