If you were making a list of perfect ways to spend a weekend, I’ll bet that cleaning the house isn’t on there. Unfortunately, that’s often what you spend your free time doing. If you don’t keep on top of the cleaning, you’ll end up living in a dirty house that brings a whole host of problems with it. It’s not a comfortable and inviting place for you or your guests to relax and it’s also dangerous. Having a lot of clutter around is a trip hazard and if there is a lot of dirt around, you’re opening yourself up to illness. A messy house can also affect your mood and make you feel very low. Trying to get organized when your house is untidy is also a nightmare so it’ll make you inefficient as well. So, you can’t get around cleaning the house, it’s just something that needs to be done, but you can make it a lot easier for yourself if you consider cleaning when you’re designing and decorating your home. By making design choices that make cleaning easier, you can shave hours off the time you spend scrubbing and mopping every weekend. Here are some simple changes that make the house an easy clean home.
Simple Tips For Designing An Easy Clean Home
Wipe Clean Surfaces
When you’ve got a large kitchen with a lot of surfaces to clean down, the material that you choose for those surfaces makes a big difference. Wooden worktops often get cuts and dents in them and dirt will sit in there, making it difficult to clean out. However, if you use quality Granite & Marble worktops instead, you don’t have that problem. They’re a lot more robust. And you can easily wipe off any spills and dirt that might get on there.
The surfaces of your cupboards in the kitchen are important as well. Again, wood isn’t the best thing to go for because things stick to the porous surface a lot more than other materials. Glass is an option. If you’ve got kids in the house, they’ll quickly get covered in sticky finger marks that you’ll constantly be wiping off. The best thing to go for is a plastic fronted cupboard door in a fairly dark color. That way, it’ll be easy to clean off. Any marks won’t show up as much so you don’t need to wipe them down as often. This is another way to attain an easy clean home.
Flooring
When it comes to flooring, carpets are often the most comfortable and cozy. But they aren’t the best if you want to clean up quickly. Bits of dirt will get trapped in there easily. Any spillages are going to leave a big stain. That takes a lot of hard work to get out if you can even get it out at all. It’s much better to go for something that’s easier to sweep up and vacuum.
Stained concrete floors are a great choice, especially if you’re going for an aesthetic that combines traditional and modern styles. As long as you get a protective sealant on there, it’ll wipe clean easily and sweeping it is a breeze. If you don’t like the look of a stained concrete floor, laminate wooden flooring might be the way to go. It brings the same benefits as stained concrete but it gives you a different look. However, wooden flooring is more susceptible to scrapes and marks that are difficult to get out. So if that bothers you, think twice about getting wooden floors.
There are some places in the house, like the living room, where you might want to put carpet down. You can make the cleaning a lot easier for yourself if you use carpet tiles instead of a standard carpet. The benefit of tiles is that if you spill something, you can just take up a single tile very easily and wash it out. Carpet tiles also offer a bit more of an interesting look than a normal carpet. And you can change it up whenever you like it.
Choose The Right Paint
Nothing makes the house look worse than marks and smudges all over the walls. But it’s difficult to clean it off without cleaning chemicals stripping the paint off the walls. Luckily, paint companies have realized that this is a problem and come up with a great solution. You can easily get hold of wipe clean paints that are designed so any dirt or marks comes off easily with water and there’s no damage to the paintwork. They’re a little more expensive than normal paints. But they’ll make your life so much easier and make for an easy clean home. You should also think about the color of the paints that you’re using because lighter shades are going to show up dirt a lot more than something a little darker. In rooms where the walls are likely to get dirty, don’t go for a white or a magnolia paint.
Upholstery
When you’re choosing upholstery for your furniture, some are far easier for cleaning than others. A nice fabric upholstery might look great but if you spill stuff on them, they’ll stain. If you’ve got children or pets in the house, that’s always a worry. You might be better off going for something that’s easy to wipe clean like leather instead. If you are going to go for a fabric that is susceptible to staining, it’s always sensible to choose a darker color. If you get slipcovers that come off easily, it makes it a lot easier if there are any stubborn stains that you’re struggling to get out. This is because you can just take them off and soak them before putting them in the washing machine.
Cleaning the house is always going to be a bit of a chore and if you’ve got a big place, it’s going to take you a bit of time. But you don’t have to spend your whole weekend on your hands and knees, scrubbing the floor. If you make these simple design changes next time you decide to redecorate, you can make the whole process a lot quicker. And have an easy clean home in the process.