The Ins and Outs of Cleaning Interior Doors

While you probably don’t spend a lot of time actively thinking about your doors, your house has lots of them! Seriously, try to count them all in your head right now. Every interior door including closets, bathrooms, bedrooms, laundry and pantry. The average home has dozens. The question is, when was the last time you gave them all a good cleaning? 

Many interior doors are touched frequently throughout the day or week. Dirty fingerprints are a telltale sign that the door needs to be cleaned, but germs are there whether you see that evidence or not! If your doors have ledges, you may have noticed that they love to accumulate dust. Not cute.

Let’s do a walk-through and tackle them all!

Pro Tip: For all doors, always clean the door itself (front, back AND sides!) plus the surrounding frames and walls. We don’t skip steps around here. Check out this article for tips on cleaning your walls without wrecking them.

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Interior Doors

We are focusing on the inside of your home and your movement through it. Since every house is different, we will cover the basics, but take a walk through yours and make sure to leave no door untouched!

General Interior Doors:

If your home is a loft apartment with no doors then you’ll be done pretty quickly! But for others with many rooms and doors, it’s time to roll up your sleeves. We all know our general interior doors that lead from one room to another, but don’t forget about closet doors, shower doors and pocket doors!

For each door, start by vacuuming the frame and door with your vacuum (USA) (Canada) and horse hair brush (USA) (Canada), paying special attention to any ridges and grooves where dust likes to gather. Then make a batch of powdered Tide® and hot water (recipe below). Include a splash of bleach to your water and Tide® if you want to disinfect. CAUTION! Be careful not to drip any bleach onto your carpets or other soft surfaces. Omit it if you want to be safe from bleach stains. Wipe your doors down, including the handles, from top to bottom with a microfibre cloth. 

If you come across any crusty messes or pet goobers, spray some Mr. Clean® on them, allow it to soften, then scrub gently with a brush. Hinge dust is commonly missed but easily wiped away with WBT (water, bleach and Tide®) or Mr. Clean® if it’s particularly greasy hinge dust.

Another great option to sanitize your handles (instead of using bleach) is Microban 24® hour sanitizing spray. Spray down your handles, wait one minute and then wipe with a cloth or paper towel.

Here are some areas where you might want to consider bleach:

The Kitchen

• Food contamination and the spread of foodborne illness can happen here if you’re not careful. Wash your hands often! Especially after touching raw meats or spoiled foods, and avoid touching handles on any doors until you do. Include bleach when wiping those pantry doors. See this article for deep cleaning your kitchen.

The Bathroom

• We don’t need to tell you why bleach is important here, right? We’re talking about an entirely different kind of contamination here! Sanitize those doors and handles folks! For more on bathroom cleaning check this out. 

Shower Doors:

For shower doors + fixtures, we are often dealing with hard water! Check out our Dealing with Hard Water article which details how to tackle this.

For regular and routine cleaning use white vinegar + blue Dawn® dish soap. Spray on and let sit for at least an hour or overnight. Scrub with the soft side of a sponge, and rinse with hot water. Squeegee the glass or dry it with a microfibre cloth. Once fixtures are rinsed and dry, polish with Windex® or a carbon cloth (USA) (Canada).

You don’t need to clean all your doors in a day or all at once. Create a schedule to have them wiped and sanitized on a regular basis, and it will become a habit in no time. 

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