Cleaning An Electric Stovetop

When we moved into our new house we inherited some wonderfully ugly off white appliances. Hopefully we can replace them soon but until we can save up some money we are going to make do.  They add so much glamour to the kitchen don't they?

Not only do they have that great off white color but the stove top was a mess. It was covered in scorch marks around each burner. While it didn't affect the cooking it made the kitchen look messy.  I tried regular cleaner, vinegar mixtures, lemon and nothing was working. I even soaked it for a couple of hours with different mixtures, like a regular 4th grade science experiment, still no luck. This is when I realized that the gunk was not just going to wipe up, it must have been like this for years. I busted out some baking soda paste (baking soda and water) and covered each burner and let it sit for just about 5 minutes. I grabbed a paint scraper (a clean one) and started scraping off that paste. Well would you look at that....(name that movie)

The baking soda paste and paint scraper made the perfect team. You have to add in some elbow grease if the stuff is really on there. It worked best if the baking soda mixture was still a little wet and I had to reapply when the mixture would get too dirty. But it worked!

When I finished the first two I was amazing at how BAD it looked before. The project took me around 1.5 hours from start to finish. Longer than I would have hoped but I really think it was years of gunk. The end result was well worth it.

Looks great! The bottom right burner was so scorched there is still a tiny ring but it really is night and day.  Now when I cook I have been keeping a wet towel next to me and if a pot boils over (every meal) I just quickly wipe it up. 

One little disclaimer: I am pretty accident prone but I ended up with a couple cuts on my fingers from the scraper. I would recommend wearing gloves if you are going to do it this way. Next time I have to scrape my stove (hopefully never) I am busting out my gloves for sure.