Kitchen cleaning help

madkitty

I have just moved into my new home and the kitchen is a bit outdated - the metal boiler casing as a yellow tinge to it and the white kitchen cupboards also need refreshening. I have tried sugar soap but no real joy, any other ideas to get these looking a bit cleaner and newer?

Lizbetty

Stardrops! :j It works for most things I find, especially kitchen grime.

Another thing I use is these magic eraser pads (sort of strange foam) which I bought from Aldi - they remove really ground in muck. They cleaned the inside of my double glazing frames when nothing else would. Worth cutting them into pieces to save on them - you use them like you would a pencil eraser and they work wonders.

Thinking about it, the yellow tinge on the boiler might be a tough one - I'm not sure if that might be the paintwork itself which would only perk up with a respray? Which I would approach with caution - flames & aerosols etc. But it depends whether you're a risk taker as to whether you'd want to spray it (when the pilot light is out). I would have once upon a time, nowadays I would just box it in!

Hope this helps!

Lucy x

ellawood

mmm... paint

Lizbetty

There is some undercoat type stuff called Bullseye (you can get it water based) which you paint on and it allows you to paint over any surface. I painted my kitchen cupboards years ago and it was a real bu99er to do, mainly due to the prep (they were melamine) but if I'd known about Bullseye it would have saved me hours!

I got a big tin of Bullseye for about £25 from our local Crown trade shop (worth shopping around as some places charge £40 for the same size tin). Might be an option if you're thinking of painting your kitchen cupboards and they're not wood?

Lizbetty

http://www.decoratingdirect.co.uk/techdata/z/ZINBE/

There's the stuff!

balmaiden

Many years ago I had an all white kitchen that I used to keep sparkly white by the occasional wipe over with diluted bleach.

maman

That happened to my last kitchen. It's probably just that the paint has yellowed over time. I took a 'if you can't beat them join them' approach and painted it all in shades of yellow inspired by Monet's dining room! Even the boiler casing came up fine and helped it to blend in better with the cupboards either side.

It got another few years out of the units that way.

minniemaus1970

Hi,
I find the best thing on grey or yellowing whites is the white stardrops with ammonia, neat on a scourer for stubborn dirt, otherwise diluted is ok, it's available in HomeBargains , about 80p.
sometimes things yellow cause of the use of bleach, that can't be cleaned away, it means the coating has been damaged, in that case new doors or a re-paint is due