BUSY(WI)Cleaning a kitchen ceiling got to be too much for us through the years. Luckily, wood ceilings came into vogue. May not work for a kitchen in every rental, but even before they were popular hubby installed in 6 of our 11 kitchens. In our kitchen I just stopped frying.

The look is stunning. If you have the chance to have that done anywhere, it would save cleaning and painting a kitchen ceiling in the future. We didn't use expensive wood, thinner paneling that has held up for years. We stained the wood the color of grease, so any that gets up there never shows.

I don't understand the popularity of a white kitchen. Looks good when you walk into it. But let's face it, after cooking, you're either a slave cleaning it all the time or it looks awful.

Interesting. But does the wood smell? That is the thing I dislike most- old cooking oil smell.

Don't know how much most of my tenants cook in oil, but one unit did quite a bit. I know because others complained about all the oil in the garbage carts. I brought over jars to put it in, but they wouldn't use them.

Was just in that unit very recently. Current tenants now seem to wash their dishes when they're done with them and no smells. When the previous tenants hadn't done the dishes the kitchen smelled. So the pans with cooked oil in them was what was smelling.

I install a range hood over every stove, even when there's no exhaust. It doesn't catch all the oil, but it helps a lot.

Well, I washed the worst of my kitchen ceilings. Took several days, cuz I kept getting sidetracked with little projects. This house is one with inherited tenant, been with me a long time. Tenant has been extra busy lately; going to tech school as well as work, plus parenting teens.

The job wasn’t as bad as I thought, given how it looked. I found if I wiped an area with my soapy rag, then came acknowledge that spot later, more gunk will have loosened up. Used Spic nSpan liquid cleaner on the ceiling, upper walls. Had I been doing this in an empty house, I’d probably take a clean tank sprayer and put a mix of Dawn dish soap and water in there, to wet everything before I started. I’ve read online that vinegar with Dawn works well too, I just didn’t try that.

On the cabinet doors, with extensive routering on the face, I mixed a paste of Dawn and baking soda to smear into the grooves and let it soak. (White cabinets, melamine? on the cases and inside the doors, paint on face.) That worked well. On the toughest area of the ceiling, just over the stove, I wiped that Dawn and baking soda mixture too. That seemed to help. Though a lot of rinsing to get the Dawn off.

This house has a very rough texture on all the walls and ceiling. Like someone was trying to do a knock-down texture, but either didn’t know to knock it down soon enough, or just liked it at that point. Reminds me of when farmers didn’t blast the old cow manure off the walls before applying the fresh lime on the dairy walls. ( I’m such a farm kid!)

In the bedrooms and bath, I’ve already taken a drywall sanding screen, (with drywall dust vac) to reduce the nubs and nipples on the walls, but left it on the ceilings. Those ceilings have been painted multiple times since whomever sprayed this texture mess all over the house, and if I recall, the layers of paint evened the surface a bit, making it easier to clean. And, the paint on those ceilings had a bit more sheen, also making it easier to clean.