I'm kind of a clean freak. I admit it and I do my best to not be neurotic about it, especially since I live with roommates. It's different than living with a partner or your family -- you can be more honest about your cleaning eccentricities with the people you love. (And, ahem, make them clean up all their messes.) But while I'm living with roommates, I try to be as relaxed about it as possible.

Case in point: Our kitchen. Ay. Ok, maybe I relaxed a little too much. Check out our gross oven:

Pretty typical for an oven, right?

And, brace yourselves: This is our gross stove top (Note: this was after a particularly messy cooking night, and I purposely did not clean it for this post ... promise!):

Ok, I'm getting a little embarrassed showing off our dirty kitchen.

So, you can imagine that I was very excited when Seventh Generation offered to have their green-cleaning guru, Ivette Melendez from WAGES come to my kitchen and shine it up a bit.

Ivette has a few standard cleaning rules that I think are worth remembering, no matter what you're cleaning:

1. Clean top to bottom -- remember, dirt falls!
2. Go back to front for the same reason
3. Work clockwise -- cleaning systematically will help you not forget anything
4. Don't use or do more than you need to -- use a small amount of product;  you'll have less to rinse off later and you'll need less than you think
5. Look before you leap -- test out your products and supplies first before you dig in to save yourself a lot of unnecessary effort

Ivette and her partner Teresa tackled the oven first. Check out their video on how to clean the oven with just mufti-purpose cleaner (which you can make yourself using dishwashing detergent and water in a spray bottle), a microfiber towel, scrubby pads and a razor blade. I'll admit I was dubious. You're going to get that oven clean without any chemicals? Ok, I'll believe it when I see it.

But really, it was so much easier than it looks! It took Teresa all of 20 minutes to scrape and clean the nasty oven. Check it out after -- I'd never thought it'd be this clean. And the best part? There are absolutely NO chemicals involved:

I'd be happy to eat out of that -- wouldn't you?

Next, Teresa worked on my stove top. First, she sprayed multi-purpose cleaner and let it sit. Then, with a little bit of scrubbing and scraping with a razor blade, the gunk started to come off.

I was amazed. I'd scrubbed in vain with hot soapy water for ages and never thought I'd see pure white again. Here's the before-and-after (the left side is clearly still, uh, dirty):

The clean freak in me is pretty excited right about now!

Finally, Teresa and Ivette worked on the fridge and the microwave. Ever wonder how to get all the gunk out of the nooks and crannies in these appliances? Easy. Place a microfiber towel over every day tools, like a screw driver or putty knife, spray a little bit of multi-purpose cleaner on the towel and start scraping.

(Please note that our microwave is from the Ice Age.)

(Please don't judge me for my dirt.)

That's it! Thanks so much to Seventh Generation for helping me spiff up my kitchen in a non-toxic, eco-friendly way.

Want your own $5,000 green home makeover? Check out Seventh Generation's Mother Nature contest and you could get your whole house cleaned. (I'm jealous!)