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What do you use to clean your painted cabinets?

13 years ago

Hello folks! I am hearing different stories about what to use to clean my new Medallion painted cabinets. I have heard - Mr. Clean, Simple Green, mild dishwashing soap, mineral spirits etc... What do you use? They were just installed and I really need to wipe them down well now and after they get dirty when I start doing some rreal cookin'!

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artemis78
13 years ago
Not sure how different modern painted finishes are, but for our much older painted cabinets, I clean them with a vinegar solution. (I use a 50-50 mix because it's the same multi-purpose solution we use everywhere else in the house, but you could easily drop that down to 10-90 for a much milder cleaning solution.) I sometimes add lemon juice if I have one handy, and that would probably help with the vinegar smell, which is the one downside---otherwise it does a really good job. I dilute it a bit, add a drop of mild washing soap, and use it on our wood floors when they need more than a vacuum, too, which works very well.
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In defense of the Murphy's...my cabinets are 22 years old. We moved in when the house and cabinets were 8 years old and used Murphy's for the last 15 years albiet not often. I have what you refer to as the "outdated" oak cabinets. Some people call them orange but my husband says that is probably people referring to varnish that has turned orange. Hubby has put polyurethane on our cupboards maybe twice since we've lived here and I've always gotten compliments on them. As for our lake cabin the knotty pine is original which is over 50 years old! Twenty to thirty years ago I used Scott's Liquid Gold (boy does that stuff smell good) as part of our cabin opening routine. But I use Murphy's now to keep the wood clean, shiny and not dried out. Both have worked well for me. Here is a link that might be useful:
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