A hand painted kitchen is a great option when it comes to creating a high quality and distinctive style in your home. Hand painting offers a wide range of colour choices and its application is versatile enough to suit many design styles. From the classics, such as Hamptons and French Provincial, to more contemporary and unique styles too.
Regardless of the paint colour or design style, one thing remains constant across all hand painted kitchens. The key to keeping them looking amazing is proper care, in particular, regular attention to cleaning. Contrary to what some might think, it’s not particularly difficult to care for and maintain a gorgeous looking hand painted kitchen. With a few handy hints, you can use your kitchen and keep it looking good too.
Untouched beauty
Not surprisingly, the best way to keep your kitchen looking as immaculate as the day it was installed is to actually not use it at all. Of course, that’s not really very practical advice, is it? In fact, it kind of defeats the purpose of having a kitchen at all. No doubt, whilst we’d all love nothing more than an amazing looking hand painted kitchen, it does actually need to serve some practical functions too, like preparing and cooking food. There is no reason that you can’t have both.
It’s inevitable; your kitchen is going to get dirty
No matter how careful you think you are being, the process of cooking unavoidably creates tiny particles of steam, oil and other food products that become airborne and then land on the precious surfaces of your hand painted kitchen. If these surfaces are not wiped down regularly, dust will proceed to settle on those greasy particles, creating a delightful greasy residue on your cabinets that will usually only continue to accumulate over time if not routinely removed.
There is also the matter of more obvious markings such as splatters, spills and grubby fingerprints that are characteristic of any operational and functioning kitchen.
What you can do
Ok, so we know that even the most cautious cooks will not be able to avoid making at least some kind of mess in the kitchen, no matter how minimal or discreet. So, what can you do to ensure that you can still enjoy and get creative in your hand painted kitchen without creating a monumental clean-up situation for yourself?
When to clean your hand painted kitchen
To avoid the build up of daily grease and grime, we suggest incorporating the practice of wiping down your kitchen cabinets into your daily routine. Attending to this simple task each day will not only keep your hand painted kitchen looking its absolute best, but it will also go a long way to preventing the long-term build up of dirt on the surfaces. Allowing the grime to accumulate could potentially result in stains and long-lasting damage to surface. Not to mention that it is a much easier, and notably more pleasant, task to give it all a quick wipe regularly, rather than having to set aside a day to tackle the hefty activity.
Make light work of the situation
A simple idea to help establish and maintain this habit would be to grab the cloth after you have finished stacking the dishwasher or cleaning up after the evening meal.
Another way to stay on top things is to ensure that you are careful to clean as you go wherever possible. It is important that you don’t leave any notable spills or splatters to be taken care of later. The longer that these kinds of marks and blemishes are left unattended to, the greater the chance that they will become harder to remove and may also even cause permanent spoilage or damage.
Whilst daily cleaning is definitely a great way to keep on top of the situation, making regular wipe downs a part of your routine doesn’t completely eliminate the need for more intense cleans along the way. Depending on the characteristics of your kitchen such as paint type and colouring, as well as how often you use the space and the type of cooking and food preparation you do in there, you will likely need to carry out a more concentrated clean approximately once a month as well.
How to clean your hand painted kitchen
We have touched on when to clean your hand painted kitchen, and so the next thing is to look at how.
The recommended approach is to start with the gentlest method first. This means that you should use the least amount of products and pressure as is required to get the cabinets clean.
- First, remove dust from the surface with a damp soft cotton or microfibre cloth. Sometimes that may be all that you need, such as for your daily wipe down.
- If the damp cloth doesn’t remove all of the reside, use the same type of cloths but with some warm soapy water.
- For particularly difficult to remove grease and grime use a solution of 1 cup vinegar, 2 cups water and 1 tablespoon of baking soda
Other handy tips to know
After cleaning your hand painted kitchen it is important that you don’t allow the surfaces to air-dry as this will leave water stains. Be sure to always wipe the surfaces dry.
You should be careful not to use harsh abrasive chemicals, cloths or scrubbing techniques. These types of products, and practices such as scrubbing too hard, can scratch and damage the painted surface. Take particular care with polyurethane finished cabinets as this type of surface can show up imperfections quite easily and once damaged they are difficult to repair.
It’s inevitable that day-to-day food preparation activities will result in some amount of residue and dust settling on your hand painted kitchen cabinets. But there is no reason that you can’t keep it looking amazing. All it takes is a consistent approach to regular cleaning and you will have a stunning hand painted kitchen to enjoy for many years to come.
Highlands Handpainting have many years of experience creating amazing hand painted kitchens. They use the latest products and techniques to ensure each kitchen is of the absolute highest quality. Contact the professional team at Highlands Handpainting on 1300 662 112, submit an online enquiry, or visit us at 12 Graham Hill Road Narellan NSW.