The Ultimate Guide to a Spotless Chicago Kitchen: A Top-to-Bottom Clean

Life in Chicago moves fast. Between work, family, and trying to enjoy the city, finding the time and energy for a deep cleaning help session in your kitchen can feel impossible. But a clean, fresh kitchen is the heart of a happy home. Whether you’re tackling it yourself or need a hand, we’ve broken down a pro method to make it manageable.

Cleaning your kitchen doesn’t have to be a chaotic, all-day ordeal. The secret is a strategic plan. By working methodically from top to bottom and left to right, you avoid re-cleaning areas and ensure nothing gets missed. Let’s transform your kitchen from frantic to fantastic.

Step 1: The Pre-Clean Prep

Before you scrub a single surface, get organized. Gather all your supplies—cleaners, cloths, scrub brushes, garbage bags—and bring them into the kitchen. This prevents the frustrating back-and-forth runs and keeps you focused. It’s the first step to a faster, more efficient clean.

Step 2: Tackle the Time-Intensive Tasks First

Identify the jobs that need to “sit” or soak. Getting these started right away means they’re working for you while you handle other areas.

Conquer the Oven

If your oven needs serious attention, this is your first project. Place garbage bags on the floor to protect it from drips. Remove the racks—these will get a separate soak. For a thorough professional home cleaning of the oven interior, spray it completely with an appropriate oven cleaner (use fume-free for self-cleaning models). Turn on your hood fan for ventilation. Let the cleaner sit for at least 20-45 minutes before scrubbing. For tough grime, you may need to repeat the process in layers.

Pro Tip for Racks: Soak them in a sink or tub with a few dishwasher pods for 3-4 hours. Place a towel in the tub first to prevent scratches.

Refresh the Refrigerator

This is another big one. The fastest method is to work one shelf or drawer at a time: empty it, vacuum out crumbs, wipe it clean, and restock. This prevents food from sitting out too long. If the task feels too daunting, remember that a trusted Chicago cleaning company can handle these deep cleans for you.

Step 3: Work Top to Bottom, Left to Right

With the big projects underway, start your systematic clean. This prevents dust and drips from falling onto already-cleaned areas.

• Upper Cabinets & Light Fixtures: Wipe down cabinet fronts and tops where grease and dust collect. Use a duster or vacuum attachment on light fixtures.
• Backsplashes & Counters: A simple solution of hot water with a bit of bleach or dish soap works wonders on backsplashes, cabinet fronts, and counters. Always pull appliances and items away to wipe underneath—don’t just clean around them!
• Stovetop & Hood Vents: Clean your stovetop according to its type (glass, coil, gas). Don’t forget the hood range vents; they trap grease and can be soaked in hot, soapy water.
• Windows & Sills: Give the windows, especially over the sink, a good wipe to remove food splatter and water spots.

Step 4: Don’t Forget the Appliances

Your dishwasher and sink deserve specific attention for a truly deep clean.

Dishwasher Care

Locate and clean the filter if your model has one. Wipe down the door edges and gasket, then run an empty cycle with a cup of bleach or a dishwasher cleaner to deodorize and remove buildup.

Sink Shine

We save the sink for last since it’s used throughout the process. Rinse it thoroughly, scrub with a gentle abrasive if needed, and disinfect. For stainless steel, a final polish with a dedicated cleaner removes streaks and restores shine.

Step 5: The Final Floors

By now, the floors have likely collected dust, crumbs, and drips. Vacuum or sweep meticulously to get all debris, then mop. Starting with clean floors is the perfect finish to your kitchen refresh. If the thought of this entire process is exhausting, you can easily schedule a cleaning with experts who handle the hard work.

When to Call in the Pros

This method is perfect for regular maintenance. But for a move-in/move-out, post-renovation, or seasonal deep clean, the time and effort multiply. That’s where cleaning services in Chicago like Jikas Cleaning shine. We provide the thorough, top-to-bottom attention your home deserves, freeing up your precious time. Sometimes, the best way to clean your apartment is to get a little help cleaning my place from a reliable team.

Today I’m going to teach you how to clean your kitchen top to bottom, left to right. A good tip is to get all your supplies together first in the kitchen just so that you’re not running all over the place like trying to find stuff. Now, we want to figure out any time inensive tasks. So things that need to be soaked like the oven racks, we want to start those right away. Spray the oven, check out the fridge, like things that take time, we want to hit those first, then we’re going to start scrubbing. My oven is selfcleaned, so I’m going to use the blue can. This is the safe for selfcleing ovens. It’s called fume free. This yellow one is a little bit more heavy duty. You can use it on non-self cleaning ovens. Put down some garbage bags just to protect the floors from any drips of the oven cleaner. Sometimes it can like leak through and damage your floors. Take the racks out of the oven so you can clean it. We’re going to soak these. For the oven racks, you’re going to fill up the sink or you can do like a Rubbermaid container. If you do them in your bathtub, put a towel down underneath so they don’t scratch the out of the bottom of your bathtub. And then just drop in like three or four dishwasher pods and let them soak. So, I’m not going to let them soak overnight, you guys, but like 3 or 4 hours can do it when we’re cleaning a house. Now, what you want to do is just spray the whole entire oven so it’s completely coated. Turn on the hood pan so that you don’t have to breathe in any fumes. Once oven cleaner has set, you can start scrubbing it. I let this sit for like 20 minutes. So, for the purposes of this video, I’m just going to do the whole entire oven so you guys know what you’re doing. But you’re going to spray the oven, go and like clean the fridge or whatever it is, the cabinets, and then you’re going to come back after 45 minutes and give this a scrub. Wipe it out. Spray it again if it’s really really bad because oven cleaner works in layers. So, you’re going to take the first layer off, scrub it off, wipe it off, do it again. Okay? And then wipe up all of the excess oven cleaner. You just want to wipe everything off. I’m just using some wet paper towel. You can use a wet cloth to get rid of any of the residue. Sometimes when oven cleaner dries, it dries white. Just wipe it off. You guys, if you’re really worried about the oven cleaner, if there’s any white residue, you can always just turn your oven rinse it really well. Wipe it to rinse really well. Then you can turn your oven on for a few minutes and burn it off. It’s not that it’s not that difficult, folks. Now, to get the glass nice and clean, I just windex it at the end. You can use a polish cloth or paper towel here. Makes it nice and shiny. Now, the next time intensive task is the fridge. So, you’re going to clean that. I’m just going to point out you can do the oven and the fridge like separate days than you do your whole entire kitchen deep clean. They take a lot of time, you guys, especially if you haven’t done it forever. The fastest way to do this is just to empty everything like one shelf or one drawer at a time. Vacuum it out, wipe it out, put it back. One of my favorite things to use to clean the kitchen is just hide in hot water. You guys, I add in a little bit of bleach when I’m trying to like disinfect stuff, but it’s good on the backsplashes, the fronts of the cabinets, the insides of the cabinets. You can use it literally everywhere. Now that I’ve done those two big tasks, I’m going to start top to bottom, left to right, doing my cabinets. Now, if I’m doing a really deep clean, like spring cleaning or fall cleaning, I would be taking everything out of my cabinets, organizing them, wiping them, and putting them back and purging. Okay, you can take out your hood range vents. These like catch the grease and everything when you’re cooking. They get really gross and and gunky. You can soak them. I would just soak them in some like Mr. clean or some Dawn power wash or just some hot water and dish soap. So, it’s so important to pull stuff away when you’re wiping off your counters and stuff. You guys don’t just wipe around stuff like remember we’re giving this a full clean Now, wipe down the stove top. I have a couple of really good videos because there’s a bunch of different types of stove tops. I’m going to link them here for you guys so you can watch ones which ones you need. But this one’s glass. I’ve just sprayed it with oven cleaner. Now, I’m wiping it off and then I’m going to Windex it. We’re working top to bottom, left to right. I like to just Swiffer off the light fixtures. You might have to use something the vacuum if they’re really dusty. Wipe them down because there might be greasy and that dust sticks to them, especially if they’re glass. Make sure you clean the windows. Get them really nice and clean, especially the ones over the sink. They always get splattered with gross food from doing dishes. Now, next in my left right would actually be my sink, but I’m going to hop over it because I always do the sink at the end, just because like the whole entire time I’m cleaning the kitchen, I’m cleaning other stuff in the sink. So, the sink is always just the last step. Now, we want to clean the dishwasher, you guys. So, first things first, figure out where your dishwasher filter is, which not all dishwashers have a filter. They kind of have like a carburetor built-in garbage disposal. So, don’t stress if you can’t find it. You can always look up your make a model online and see if you have one. And then we want to wipe down the outsides of it and run a bleach cycle. Final step for the stainless steel. I do it all at once. I just wait until the very end to do it. And then I just polish it with some Wyman stainless steel cleaner. This really helps get rid of streaks and drips or any like heat transfer stains. You don’t have to do it every single day, you guys. This is just like a nice condition and it brings your stainless steel really shiny and back to brand new again. There are a lot of different methods to clean your sink. I have a Blanco like siliconed sink. Um, but this kind of works for stainless steel, too. You guys, you’re going to rinse it out really good. Give it a scrub. And then we’re going to bleach it. The final step before I vacuum and mop the floors is I wipe down the counters. The floors are usually pretty dirty after you clean the whole entire kitchen. So, vacuum them really, really well. And then we’re going to mop. And that’s how you clean your kitchen. Top to bottom, left to right. If you guys have any like questions and you want to go a little bit deeper into it, I have a whole entire kitchen playlist where you guys can clean your Nespresso machine, your KitchenAid, all that stuff. You would just want to spend a little bit more time getting into the grind. >> THAT WAS A RHYME.