My husband and I rent a charming apartment in a house that was built in the late 1950’s. And while the place has a whole lot of charm, there are some older aspects of the apartment that we have to live with even though they aren’t our preference. For example, our beautiful kitchen is outfitted with a porcelain sink. And if any of you Tip Heroes out there have porcelain sinks, you know that they can be a downfall for a few reasons; the major reason being that they tend to scratch and stain easily.

It doesn’t matter that I clean the sink after each dishwashing session. I still end up with a sink that looks like this if I don’t use harsh chemicals.

But I figured enough was enough. Just because I had a rental kitchen didn’t mean I had to settle for a sink that never looks clean. I decided to do some experimenting and see if I could get the porcelain to shine white once again without using bleach or any harsh chemicals. I grabbed up the following household cleaning rockstars:

White vinegar
Baking soda
Hydrogen peroxide
Lemon
Salt
Sponge

Then, I got to work. First, I wanted to make sure I started with a grime-free sink. I poured some white vinegar onto a sponge and gave the sink a good wipe down. Then I gave the sink a good rinse.

Next, I sprinkled a good amount of baking soda on a sponge. And for good measure, I sprinkled more baking soda directly onto the sink (because you can never use too much baking soda when it comes to heavy duty cleaning!) Then I used some serious elbow grease and scrubbed.

After scrubbing just the left side, I started to see a big difference. You can definitely tell which side has been scrubbed in this picture:

After rinsing the baking soda away, I could tell I was on the right track!

Next, I poured enough hydrogen peroxide onto my sponge to completely soak it. Then I scrubbed the entire sink once more. Instead of rinsing right away, I just let the sink sit like that for about 15 minutes.

When I finally rinsed, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had never seen the sink this clean.

Then, in an effort to whiten the sink up even more, I grabbed a lemon and poured some regular old salt all over it. Then I went to work scrubbing again. This picked up some of the stains that the rest of the cleaners left behind.

Next I gave it a final rinse and voila! It’s not perfect, but I’d say it’s pretty darned close, especially considering how old the sink actually is!

And here it is completely dry after the cleaning battle. I’m guessing if I repeated this whole tutorial one more time, it would look even better.

Do you have any great tips for cleaning porcelain sinks? Have you had luck with this kind of method?