Cleaning the Oven

I thought that when we got our new oven I would feel comfortable using the self clean feature on it.

No. 

When Bill and I were living in our first little rent house we tried to clean the oven. A small fire broke out in the drawer underneath. It didn't do a lot of damage but we did lose the new pot holders that we had gotten as wedding gifts.

 

I have been a little paranoid about cleaning the oven ever since. This oven is only a few years old. I usually can keep the spills inside cleaned up but the glass was kind of a mess.

I saw a pin on Pinterest and that got me motivated to clean my oven door. I like to do some deep cleaning in January after all the Christmas stuff is put away.  

I used baking soda like the pin suggested but it didn't get all the gunk off. I realized too late that I didn't leave it on for for 20 minutes like the pin suggested.

So I squirted it with some Greased Lightening and worked on it with a scraper. I cleaned the front of the door with regular old glass cleaner.

I noticed a big drip on the glass.

It wasn't on the front and it wasn't on the back. 
It was in-between the glass. How on earth did it get there?

I hunted down another blog post about how to clean in-between the glass. 
This is not original to me but I thought I would share. 

There is a great post about it here at Mom 4 Real.  

I tried to do this myself on Friday but I couldn't find a screw driver that looked like my screw. 
I figured different manufacturers will have different screws because it wasn't the same as on the blog.
I decided to work on my grates instead. 

I used the same mixture of Greased lightening and baking soda. I cleaned and scraped until they looked like new and my hands looked worn. I really should wear gloves to clean. 

Bill helped me with the glass on Saturday.

He used just a regular Phillips head screw driver but these were tight so it kind of stripped the screw a little.  

I'm glad I waited for Bill because this job is better with two people. 

It helps to have one person hold the door pieces and one person grab the glass. 
We didn't have a third person available to hold the camera. ;)

It takes two to clean off streaks and make sure the glass is clean from both sides. This very important. We put it back together only to see a streak but we had stripped the screw. He was only able to undo one side. I had to use a back scratcher and a paper towel to clean the streak. 

It definitely takes two to put it all back together. 

I am completely taken aback that a big drip could even get in-between the glass.

Then we vacuumed out from under the oven drawer and out from under the fridge. 
I like to keep a pretty clean house, something that isn't completely possible with the amount of dog hair we have. 
I feel somewhat confident that when a repair man comes into the house he won't be grossed out. 
When the guys came to install the new stove and take out the old I was horrified to see not one but two old hamburger patties under there. TWO! 
I hate to blame my then teens but…
No hamburger patties this time. 

It is such a good feeling knowing that something is really clean. 
:)
What are you doing today?
Katie