Annual Home Maintenance By Room - Your Kitchen

Your Kitchen

​The thought of Home Maintenance is just too overwhelming. It's an all-encompassing, cumbersome, fund-draining word that takes up way too much space in our heads and on our to-do lists that make our hearts flutter with anxiety. I much prefer to break things up into manageable chunks, that help me breathe a little more easily. Instead of looking at the Entire Home, let's look at your Home One Room At A Time. All your room needs is a little TLC. Let's start with the kitchen.

The kitchen is where everyone in the home congregates and it takes on the brunt of abuse from a household. Think about the wear and tear of the fridge over time. In our household, I am convinced we probably open and close that thing at least 40 times each day! Don't even get me started on how often we open the cabinets when each member of our family is on the hunt for some special food to satisfy their craving. Kitchen maintenance is of utmost importance to make sure everything stays in tip top shape and running. Be proactive instead of reactive. Who wants a house full of hungry kids when the fridge stops working, the oven won't start, the sink starts leaking and the cabinets are falling off the hinges? No thanks!

Here are some quick and easy guidelines to follow for Annual Kitchen Maintenance. I also created a handy dandy checklist with examples to help you in your Annual Kitchen Maintenance journey!

1. Take an inventory and make a list of all of your kitchen items. This includes your foundational and semi-permanent items.

• fridge, oven, stove, dishwasher, microwave, garbage disposal, countertops, backsplash, walls, ceiling, doors, windows, screens floors, sink, cabinetry, screens, lighting

2. Write down the name, brand, serial number, item number, warranty info, and age associated with each kitchen item as applicable. 

• While this may seem like a time-consuming task, you will be so thrilled to have all of this info in one place and easily accessible. Things always break when you least expect it!

3. Make any notes about each kitchen item that you need that is considered, "important to note".

• For example, "stove - no gas hookup, oven - parts discontinued"

4. Indentify any problems with each kitchen item. Then, figure out what the solution to the problem is and the estimated cost of repair if known.

5. Discuss Kitchen Decor

• What do you like about your kitchen? What do you dislike? What would you like to  change?
• After reviewing your current kitchen problems, now is a good time to review things you might like to change or update. Are all the appliances 20+ years old? Did you note that each appliance has a problem with it? Do you like all stainless steel appliances? Maybe instead of making endless appliance repairs,  you slowly start upgrading all of your appliances. Maybe you want to change the paint color, but realize that you need to put your money towards fixing the cabinets that are starting to crack and break. It's all about balance and budgeting for the more necessary issues that come up.

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Your Annual Home Maintenance Plan for your Kitchen is complete! Do this check once a year. I recommend doing this in January after the new year. This is when we tend to have energy for a "fresh start" and getting our lives in order. Plus, once complete, you will see what your approximate costs will be for repairs. And with hopefully a nice tax return (can I use nice and tax in the same sentence?!) coming in the spring, you can use some of your return to complete the repairs. Put a date on the calendar and get started! 

Download Kitchen Maintenance Plan