How to clean in between your oven door windows

Have you ever accidentally spilled food down the front of your oven door? Nice, huh? Or all over the inside of your oven door? Don't you love how it gets caked on baked on? UGH! It takes some muscle to get clean, but it's do-able, right?

Well, that is nothing! Have you ever demonstrated the amazing dexterity and skill that I did shortly after we moved in to this house (3 years ago!!) and not only spilled on the outside of the door... AND the inside of the door... but the IN BETWEEN part of the door too? Yeah, I did. Ain't this pretty?

Spillage in between the glass panels of the oven door - greeeeeaaaaat.

Yes, somehow I managed to spill something {A LOT of something} right into the small vent that is right behind the oven door handle. You can't see it in the photo above, but there is an open vent hiding behind the oven door handle. Frankly, I'm not sure why there is an opening in the door right there, but I am sure it serves some sort of important technical baking need. Regardless of why it is there, I spilled a whole bunch of liquid right down in between those two glass panels. What a mess!

So I could clean all I wanted on the inside of the door... and I could clean all I wanted on the outside of the door... but that mess was still there {in between} the glass windows with no way to get to it. Mocking me. Argh! So I considered trying to take apart the door, but something told me that was probably a bad idea. With my luck, I'd never get it put back together properly or I'd break something or ruin the heat seal or whatnot. So I continued to look all around that darn door for a clue as to how I could get inside to clean in between those glass panels.

Then suddenly... while feeling around the bottom of the door with my fingers, I felt a hole... a long gap of a hole. It wasn't very wide, but it was fairly long {That's What She Said}... hmmmmmmmm. So I removed the storage drawer from the bottom of the oven, laid down on the ever-so-comfortable tile floor and looked up... and LO AND BEHOLD... an opening... hmmmmmm...

Opening in the bottom of the oven door

It is kind of hard to visualize, but the photo above is a picture taken from the angle of lying on the floor and looking up into the bottom of the oven door (while it is closed). First I considered taking off the screws you see there thinking I could just pop the front panel off the door, but again, I was too nervous to take anything apart. But then I got the bright idea... what if I could stick something up there through that gap and wipe ~in between~ those glass panels??? Yes, that is it! Unfortunately, the gap really is quite small {TWSS} (I could only just put my fingers up there - not even the palm of my hand) {TWSS} so I would have to use something fairly skinny {TWSS}. Hmmmm...

OK, this post is just filled with way too many opportunities for a "That's what she said" moment! LOL! Sorry, I will try to refrain! ;)

I decided to create my cleaning weapon of choice using a wire hanger, a match-less toddler's sock and some duct tape.

Just call me MacGyver!

{As a side note, I am terribly ashamed to admit that I found that child's sock under the oven when I removed the bottom drawer. Seriously?? How the heck does a toddler's sock end up under the stove??? Hmmmm... maybe that is the end of the worm hole for all the socks that seem to magically disappear from my dryer?? Eureka! Then again, maybe we're just slobs with fire hazards and sockless children. Sorry, I mean half-sockless children. *sigh*}

Anyway, I became MacGyver and created this...

A beautiful wire toddler sock rose! LOL

You can't tell in the picture, but I also stuffed a small piece of paper towel into the sock before I taped it all up to try and give it a little more depth. I then sprayed the sock with some cleaner (Shaklee Basic H - degreaser formula) and stuck my sock-tool up into that gap at the bottom of the door. It took a lot of awkward maneuvering because the gap is so narrow and my sock-tool was pretty flat (because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get it up in there in the first place) {TWSS} but I did my best to rub that sock-tool back and forth along the messy spillage inside there. 

It didn't do a perfect job by any means, but all things considered, it worked fairly well and I was quite proud of myself. {sorry I don't have any pics of the sock-tool in action, but I couldn't manage it all by myself}. Here is the finished result...

Much better looking! A nice clean in-between oven window!

As I said, it isn't perfect by any means, but it certainly looks better than it did before! Let's look at a before and after comparison...

How much better it looks now that in-between the oven door windows is a bit more clean!

Not perfect, but much better! Not too bad for an amateur! :) And that's how you clean between the glass of your oven door!

Now... I am sure there is at least one of you out there with a spill issue in-between their oven glass panels! Thanksgiving drippings anyone?? ;)

{Note: as mentioned, I may have been able to just take off that front panel, but I didn't want to risk messing with all that dis-assembly and whatnot so this worked just fine for me. Do whatever feels safest for you!}

**UPDATE** - A few months ago, I did a DEEEEEP cleaning of the oven, taking the door of the hinges and crawling in there to scrub and everything. Since I had the door off the hinges, I decided to see if I could, in fact, get that frong panel off so I could more easily access the glass. As you can see in that one photo above, there were some screws along the bottom of that front panel so I decided to try those. I unscrewed them in the hopes the stainless steel panel would just lift off, but it seemed to still be attached somehow at the top of the door. There were no visible screws up there and the panel wouldn't easily just pop off so I decided not to force it. However, I was able to lift the bottom edge up (while the top edge was still attached) and create a gap big enough to allow me to more easily get in there and wipe those glass panels clean. It was definitely more easy to clean them than going the wire hanger/toddler sock route, but if you don't have panel screws on your door or are too nervous to mess with your door, just continue to enjoy the hanger trick! :)

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