This Cure-taker in Jersey City says she works on the pantry monthly but it gets disorganized again right away. The first thing I suggested was separate the cleaning supplies from the food.Part of this week's Kitchen Cure assignment is to do a deep cleaning of the kitchen. This got me thinking about the kinds of cleansers people use and where they keep them. As I read through the hundreds of submissions from Cure-takers, I saw a range of solutions, and lack thereof.
This Cure-taker in Birmingham had a mess under her sink. To be honest, I was surprised to see how many readers keep their cleaning supplies dispersed throughout the kitchen, intermingled with ingredients, and up on the counters. (To your credit, for the "before" shots I asked that you not tidy up, so I will assume some of you took these shots while you were actually using the supplies.)
These two Cure-takers are some of the many who keep their supplies under the sink.Aside from the obvious point of not wanting to mix fumes or spills with your ingredients, cleaning supplies and food have such different purposes, they should be kept apart. Food is the thing you put inside your body every day, to nourish you and bring you pleasure. Cleaning supplies, even non-toxic ones, have a very different purpose.
My preferred method it to snuggle them into a metal bin (like this one from Ikea). With a child in the house and a very small under-sink area, I started keeping it on top of our stacked washer/dryer along with laundry detergent and dishwasher detergent. If we had more space under our sink, it would probably go there, but for now our recycling and trash take priority.
How do you store your cleaning supplies? Do you have suggestions for the Cure-taker in the top image?
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I keep my cleaning supplies in the teeny cabinet next to the cabinet under the sink. It's awkward to get to, and if it's open, our bedroom door can't be, so it couldn't hold anything we use all that often. Also, I have a LOT of cleaning supplies. When I moved in, I purged litterally dozens of bottles that had been around for something like 20 years (my fiance doesn't really clean...). I'm slowly using up the remaining random stuff; it was still good, so I didn't want to just dump it.
My little cupboard has room for all the random bottles and polishes and laundry soap, etc. as well as space for a tub of clean rags. It's also childproofed (not my doing, but convenient nonetheless).
view deliriumsama's profile
We dont have many cleaning supplies. I keep it pretty basic. Baking soda, vinegar, borax and a variety of squirt bottles. I keep them in our laundry room.
view blue87's profile
I keep them close to where they're used; some in each bathroom, under the sink, and some in a non-food cabinet near the kitchen. And some with the washer and dryer.
view How Green Is My Valley's profile
Our house has a mudroom with a sink and some cabinets. Most of our cleaning supplies are stored either under the sink there or in one of the cabinets. Toilet-cleaning supplies are stored in the bathrooms; stainless steel polish is under the kitchen sink (only place we have stainless). Like deleriumsama, combining households left us with an overabundance of cleaning supplies, so we're trying to use up what we have before buying anything new. Eventually it would be nice to get the array down to a few bottles that will fit in a bucket that can be carried from room to room.
view virtuallori's profile
I store my cleaning supplies on a shelf over the washer and the dryer, but I also try to use non-toxic cleaning supplies. Vinegar, baking soda, and some non-toxic cleaners (my faves are the J. R. Watkins because the bottles are pretty. Lame, right?) as well as some home made air fresheners, laundry softeners, etc.
I have a baby who gets into EVERYTHING, so it makes sense for these to be stored up high out of reach.
view florimell1919's profile
Never in the kitchen, except those used in the kitchen. I store all my cleaning supplies in the bathroom (my bathroom is bigger than my kitchen, I'm not kidding).
view Yasmine's profile