Looking For an Easy to Clean Kitchen Pull
If you are getting ready to remodel your kitchen, how would you like to make decisions that not only make it look better now, but keep it looking better and easier to clean in the months to come. Most people love this idea, but wonder just how they can do that while making simple decorating decisions. Well the key is in the kitchen pull selections you make.
Think about what you touch most often in your kitchen. Other than the appliances, not much gets more hands on time than the kitchen pull and knobs. You are always yanking on a kitchen pull or knob when you need to get into a drawer to get silverware or get into the pantry cabinets to get the ingredients for a great meal. Sometimes you are even getting into these cabinets and drawers when you are already in the midst of making a meal, meaning your hands are dirty, grimy and spreading that dirt and grime to the kitchen pull or knob.
While you may not change your dirty hand habits, you can change how each kitchen pull and knob deals with your dirty hands. There are all kinds of materials out there that cabinet hardware is made out of. Some of it deals better with dirt and grime than others. The more you know up front before you make a purchase, the better your chance to have cabinet hardware that looks great for a long time.
Do Your Research
The first thing you need to do is really get to know the materials that go into the kitchen pull or cabinet knob you are considering purchasing. You can find hardware made in anything from glass to wood, metal, plastic, stone and porcelain. Each one reacts differently to the environment around it.
For example, raw wood will suck in any liquids that you may get on them with your hands. So unless wood is painted or stained and sealed it may end up turning the color of that spaghetti sauce that was on your hand when you opened the cabinet.
Plastic, while many people think it is easy to clean, it is also easy to stain. Think about what happens if you pour some old colored sauces into a plastic bowl in the refrigerator for storage. Once you eat the sauce it seems that color never comes out of the plastic, does it? Well that can also be the impact on your kitchen pull.
Other materials have other problems. Metal can corrode with acidic items touching it. Porcelain can break with quick changes in temperature and can also absorb some things that come in contact with it.
All materials have their pros and cons. The key is to get to know what you are buying and how you often are in your kitchen. Know what you will put the hardware through before making a selection. Also learn how to clean it and make sure you do so regularly. Often if you wash up any dirt or grime right away it will not have time to impact the hardware and you can enjoy that hardware looking like new much longer.
