The effective design of a bathroom relies on a range of considerations, including not just the aesthetic, but the practical. As well as being a comfortable, bright, and welcoming space, you want your bathroom to be clean, as well. While this will depend on how much time you’re willing to spend cleaning it, it will also depend largely on how easy the bathroom is to clean. Here, we’re going to look at how you can make it easier to clean in a variety of ways.
Float things off the floor
This is a trend that has been becoming more popular in bathrooms for a variety of reasons, such as giving you more floor space to move around the place. For our purposes of making the bathroom easier to clean, it does a lot of good, as well. Where things like your sink, radiators, and furniture meet the floor, you’re going to attract more dust, because it’s going to get trapped against the edges and corners while the airflow cycles it around the room. The more you float things, the easier it is to clean, since you can simply mop the floor underneath them, while more easily running a wipe or cloth on all sides of the floated sink, shelf, or other fixture.
Think about minimalist designs
If you’re ever looking at changing your shower unit, your taps, or even your toilet or sink, then you should think carefully about the shape that you choose for them. Not only do more simplistic and minimalist bathroom shapes look more modern, but they are also a lot easier to clean. The basic principle is the same for the tip above: the fewer corners, nooks, and crannies, the less dust is going to be attracted and the easier it’s going to be to simply wipe it clean.
Watch out for discolouration
While it might not actually be a sign of poor hygiene or cleaning in the bathroom, if you have surfaces or materials that are discoloured, that’s the vibe that they’re going to give off. For that reason, you should try to avoid using any materials or colours that are likely to discolour over time. For the walls and any paint or wallpaper, this means avoiding pure whites, as they are the easiest to get dirty. The sink and toilet can get discoloured over time, but there are ways to prevent that, such as using a good toilet bowl cleaner or sink cleaner on a more regular basis.
Using the right products
In general, the choice of cleaning products that you make is going to make a very big difference in how clean the bathroom looks on a regular basis. Rather than just using general household cleaning products or wipes throughout the room, you should consider making the investment and getting specific bathroom cleaning products for different parts of the room. We’ve already mentioned the need for toilet cleaner in order to prevent discolouration of the bowl, but there are also mould removers, shower cleaners, tub cleaners, and more that can all make it a lot easier to restore the sheen of the parts that they’re made for. Make sure that you have a good squeegee for any glass parts of the room, as well, such as the shower enclosure and the window. They make a serious difference.
Be smart about storage spaces
Finding the right storage and decluttering your bathroom is going to play a big role in helping the room look a lot neater by making sure you don’t have quite as much stuff lying out in the open. However, adding storage spaces that organise your belongings also genuinely makes the bathroom much easier to clean, as well. Keeping with the principle we’ve been covering, having fewer things all lined up or bundled together means that they’re not going to attract as much dust. If you store them out of the way, especially in things like a wicker basket or any furniture with a door or drawer, they’re not going to need to be cleaned very often because dust doesn’t get into them quite as easily.
Invest in walls that require less care
Now, we look to where you’re likely to spend most of your cleaning time in the bathroom: the various surfaces around the room. Out of them, the walls are those that are likely to attract the most attention. Aside from cleaning your walls of dust, dirt, and general debris, you are also likely to be concerned about mould. Mould can grow easily on both drywall as well as between your tiles. However, by switching to plastic shower panels, you can eliminate the concern for mould at all. There are no seams between the panels and they’re designed to keep moisture out by forming an airtight seal over the wall, meaning that, at most, they just need a regular wipe.
Choose better flooring, too
The same principle goes for your floor. If you choose materials that don’t need as much care or as much effort to clean, then you’re going to be spending a lot less time cleaning them. In the bathroom, some of the best flooring materials are those that are designed to be resilient to wet rooms. Carpet is typically a bad choice. While wood can be treated to keep out moisture, it requires more work than the alternatives. Any PVC or composite floors have to be inspected to make sure that they’re not just moisture-resistant, they’re waterproof. Ceramic and porcelain tend to be better choices for bathroom floors, but they are a little more expensive so you have to ask if you’re willing to make the investment to make your floor easier to clean (not to mention enjoying the aesthetic benefits.)
Protect your ceiling from mould
The other surface that might not get as much attention all the time is the ceiling. While you can easily clean your bathroom walls and floors to prevent the appearance of mould (so long as you do it regularly), you might not immediately notice the mould that’s growing on the ceiling. There are mould-killing ceiling sprays that you can use to wipe down and get rid of the growths, but you should also look at anti-mould paints that you could apply to the ceiling as well. Your ceiling doesn’t need to be quite as waterproof as the rest of the bathroom, but you want to make sure that you’re still protecting it against the buildup of moisture and mould as best as possible.
Ensure the best possible airflow
If you are having a lot of trouble with condensation, moisture, mould, and even dust, then there’s a good chance that the airflow in your bathroom isn’t as good as it needs to be. To that end, you should look at what you can do to improve it. The single best improvement you can make is to install or replace the extractor fan. If you don’t have one installed, then you should do it as soon as you can. The best place to position your extractor is directly above the shower, where it will be able to catch and extract most of the steam right at the moment that it’s produced. Otherwise, even a ceiling fan and replacing the filters in your vents can make a big difference.
With the tips above, you can see just how much of a difference a little focus in bathroom design and renovation can make your bathroom much easier to clean. You still need to take the time to actually clean it, but the tips above will make a legitimate difference.
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