The gap between your stove and counter may be small but it can cause a big problem if you’re a whirlwind of a hash slinger who makes a veritable mess while whipping up dinner. And even if you’re a methodical cook who likes to keep your mise en place in tiptop condition, it’s unlikely that you can catch every pesky crumb before it makes its way down that tight gap and onto a floor that’s uber-tricky to clean. Luckily there’s an easy way to prevent fragments of food from escaping into the aperture with a sheet of aluminum foil, according to House Digest. Simply fold the foil into a boat shape and slot it into the gap on the floor to catch those annoying crumbs.
The small gap between the edges of your freestanding stove and worktop is essential to allow for installation and air circulation. While you can purchase products to cover these gaps they might not be the perfect fit or suit the existing fixtures in your kitchen. The problem is that food debris that has collected down the sides of your stove, whether it be toast crumbs or dried splatters of pasta sauce, shouldn’t be ignored.
Firstly, those scraps look unsightly and particularly discordant against the rest of an immaculately clean kitchen. Secondly, foods like grated cheese and shreds of meat can lead to bad smells and create unsanitary conditions. And finally, slivers of hidden food can attract pests, such as rodents, cockroaches, and ants.
How to make a foil insert to catch crumbs between your oven and counter
While it’s possible to use a broom to sweep your kitchen floor and access the crumbs between your stove and counter, it’s tricky to find one that’s small enough to fit into the gap and reach the back edge of the wall. Pulling out the entire stove to clean the floor beneath it is also a considerable mission that you probably don’t want to do every day. Instead, take a sheet of aluminum foil and cut it so it’s slightly longer than the distance between the front of the counter and the back wall to create a narrow strip. The breadth of this strip should be wider than the gap between your counter and stove.
Fold the foil in half lengthways, open it up slightly, and crease the ends inwards to create a boat shape. Finally, slide the foil along the gap on the floor until it reaches the back wall. The curved nature of the foil means every particle of food will be contained within it and won’t be able to get underneath the stove. Every few days, remove the foil boat and toss out any crumbs collected in the bottom. If it tears, becomes sticky, or begins to smell, simply discard it and make a new one.
