Most people have had the experience of opening a kitchen cabinet and smelling something musty and old. Your selection of serving utensils for the meal has suddenly lost its appeal.
How to remove odor from wood cabinets? To get rid of any lingering smells, air out the cabinets, clean all of the cabinet surfaces and use natural odor removers.
There are more ways to remove it from your home! Keep reading.
Table of Contents
Why Do My Kitchen Cabinets Smell Bad?
There are many causes of smelly kitchen cabinets. Poor basic cleaning is frequently the root of all of these issues. If poor basic cleaning is the cause, the range of the problem could be anything from not thoroughly cleaning the entire kitchen to other rooms close to the kitchen cabinets that haven’t been cleaned in days.
The slobby cleaning explanation also includes not using deodorants, diffusers, or other room fragrances. This one is a self- and environment-related reason. Additionally, if you overuse the items that are supposed to mask odors, they end up giving off an even stronger odor.
Sudden fire or flooding from your kitchen and the rooms nearby are examples of outside factors that affect how your kitchen cabinets smell. Sometimes unwanted pests and animals show up out of the blue. So they might contribute to the smelly cabinets in your kitchen.
Before Your Start
Empty Your Cabinets
Remove everything from your cabinets as the first step in getting rid of the stale smell. You should take out any shelf liners or paper, as well as your dishes, bowls, and glasses. Your cabinets might be emitting a smell because of these shelf liners, which may retain moisture or odors.
Inspect Your Cabinets
You should check your cabinets after you’ve completely emptied them to make sure that there isn’t any mold or mildew growing there. There is a good chance that one of the two is the cause of the musty odor if moisture was trapped in your cabinets. By using water and very mild soap to scrub the mold away, you should be able to do so. To avoid leaving the area wet, be sure to wipe up any water that may have lingered. Moisture will only worsen the situation. Wet spots in your cabinets might be an indication of a leak, in which case a plumber needs to be called.
Tips To Remove Odor From Wood Cabinets
Air It Out
Whatever the cause of the smell, opening the cabinet to let some air in can help. To remove everything from the cabinet, open the drawers and doors. Air out the kitchen as well if the odor is related to cooking or smoke, such as a burnt-popcorn smell. Then, turn on the ceiling fan. If necessary, place a box fan in a window and direct it to remove air from the space. Place a dehumidifier in the space or turn on the air conditioner to remove extra moisture from the air if the odor is musty and the cause is damp conditions.
Wash All Surfaces
Use a soft cloth or sponge dipped in warm, soapy water to wash the cabinets both inside and out. If necessary, use mild dish soap or plant-based oil soap as the cleaning agent. Follow up with a second slightly damp cloth while keeping the first cloth or sponge damp but not completely wet. With the doors and drawers open, dry the cabinets with a towel or let them air dry. Additionally, this cleaning aids in removing any leftover materials from spills on shelves or inside cabinets.
Baking Soda
Placing baking soda in a bowl and stirring it is the simplest way to use it to eliminate unpleasant smells from your kitchen cabinets. After that, put the bowl inside your kitchen cabinets and don’t touch them for a few weeks.
As an alternative, fill an empty spray bottle with equal parts baking soda, vinegar, and water. To get rid of the bad odors, spray them all around your kitchen cabinets.
Deodorize While Cleaning
On occasion, the cabinets’ surfaces and interiors will retain the odor. Use a slightly damp sponge or lint-free cloth to thoroughly clean the cabinets with a solution of equal parts water and white vinegar. The Maid Brigade claims that vinegar reduces greasy buildup and eliminates odors.
Odor Obliterators
The smell should disappear once the cabinets have been cleaned and dried both inside and out. If not, or if washing is not an option and the smell is coming from dry, recent paint or varnish, earth easy suggests putting a bowl of vinegar, baking soda, or coffee beans in the cabinet and leaving it closed overnight. These materials all work to eliminate odors.
Things You Will Need
- Box fan
- Dehumidifier
- Soft cloth or sponge
- Plant-based oil soap or mild dish soap
- Vinegar
- Baking soda
- Coffee beans
Replace The Odor
Why not replace the previous musty odor with something you actually want to smell when opening your cabinets after you’ve gotten rid of the old one? Lavender oil or other essential oils in your preferred fragrance can be very reviving. Another excellent option is a bowl of coffee beans. As they absorb smells, they also release their calming scent.
How To Remove Musty Smell From Wood Cabinets?
Health risks associated with musty smells include them being unclean, stale, and moldy. Molds are frequently to blame for musty odors. Molds release microbial volatile organic compounds (MVOC) gases as they develop, spread, form, mutate, and adapt.
These natural gases are more frequently found in wooden cabinets, which are related to kitchen furniture. This situation occurs because wood cabinets can be weathered in any room with around 30-40 degrees Celcius temperature.
The best way to get rid of musty odors from wooden cabinets is to use the “magic” recipe, which calls for mixing vinegar and water in a spray bottle. If you choose to use baking soda, you should prepare a sponge by soaking it in hot water before dipping it into the substance. Apply those to the areas of your kitchen cabinets where you notice musty odors.
Make sure to turn on fans or dehumidifiers to help you get rid of odors when you clean your kitchen cabinets. When your health suffers because of the smells, cleaning out your kitchen cabinets with masks and other health protection tools can help.
Tips To Remove Cigarette Smell From Kitchen Cabinets
Some of the most prevalent smells we encounter are those of cigarette smoke, including in and around kitchen cabinets. The most obvious explanation for their presence is that there are smokers in our homes. Or, we might invite smokers while neglecting to deodorize the kitchen cabinets.
Strangely, cigarette smoke odors can still linger in our kitchen cabinets even if we don’t have any smokers in the house. The smell of cigarette smoke coming from our kitchen cabinets may be caused by cooking over a large fire or placing charcoals close to the cabinets.
The smell of cigarette smoke can be removed from our kitchen cabinets with the help of bleaches. Don’t just put a bowl of bleach inside the kitchen cabinets. Instead, bleach the areas that smell like cigarette smoke. Next, clean up using a damp cloth and a vinegar-and-water spray.
One of the most popular ways to get rid of the smell of cigarette smoke from our kitchen cabinets is to use as many deodorants as you can. On each corner of the kitchen cabinets, people typically apply two or three deodorants with the same scent. Smoky-scented deodorants should be avoided because they only intensify the smells of cigarette smoke.
What To Do If Cleaning Doesn’t Remove The Musty Smell?
It might be necessary to call a professional in the worst-case scenarios or when a water leak is the source of the odor. A mold remediation company might be able to solve your problem if you think there might be mold growing but there isn’t a leak.
You might think about getting in touch with a kitchen remodeling specialist if there is a water leak or if you think your cabinets’ old wood is to blame for the musty odor. This could be the ideal time to update your kitchen to reflect one of the newest trends in interior decorating!
In addition to being annoying, smelly cabinets can also be very embarrassing. It’s critical to take quick action to eliminate the odor. Mold in your cabinets has the potential to spread to other areas of your house. We hope the straightforward procedures described in this article give you the assistance you require to permanently get rid of the unpleasant, musty cabinet odor!
The Bottom Line
Your kitchen utensils and ingredients are kept in kitchen cabinets. You can deodorize the smelly areas, use baking soda or vinegar, rub alcoholic substances on your kitchen cabinets, or any combination of these.
You now know how to eliminate unpleasant smells from kitchen cabinets. So, are you prepared to put the advice and instructions into practice?
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