Having a clean-friendly bathroom has many benefits. It saves you time and relieves cleaning headaches while keeping it mould-resistant, hygienic and safe to use. Modern, low-maintenance materials and fixtures lend themselves to both renovations and new homes, leaving homeowners with more time for more productive or enjoyable things to do. Let’s explain the essentials of a low-maintenance bathroom that is easy to clean.
Eliminate the unsightly features
Between the mouldy grout in the shower, grimy shower screens and trying to reach behind the toilet to scrub the six o’ clock section, cleaning the bathroom isn’t fun at all. To make matters worse, many bathrooms are bristling with undesirable and appalling features like standing vanities with water-stained cabinets that meet the floor, plastic toilet tanks that turn yellow after years of use, framed shower screens that keep collecting grime, mould and limescale, and last but not the least, ineffective exhaust systems that can’t extract the moisture from the air.
Keep it simple
No better way to explain your new clean-easy bathroom strategy than by using the proverbial phrase – less is more. The fewer corners, ridges, edges, seams, grout, touch points, nooks and niches you have, the easier it is to clean. Aim for modern designs with products that fit seamlessly. These include back-to-wall toilets that eliminate the blind spots in the back, frameless shower screens and walk-in glass shower panels that collect less soap scum and gunk. The more glass and less chrome or framing you have, the easier you’ll be able to wash them down.
Use nanocoatings
Today, there are products that you can use to coat glass surfaces with nanoparticles that reduce grime, dirt and gunk buildup, keeping your shower screen looking new, even resisting fogging. While some screens already come pre-coated, you can always buy the product separately and DIY it. Also, it’s a good idea to keep a squeegee at hand in the shower area so you can quickly wipe down the screen after every shower, keeping it fresh all the time.
Open the space up
Having more open space and unobstructed floor area makes your bathroom easier to clean. In addition, an open space also makes your bathroom visually larger. There are several ways to achieve this. Try to use fewer cabinets and cupboards in the bathroom, storing everything that can’t fit in the vanity into a single tallboy. Wall-hung bathroom vanities by Acqua Bathrooms give you ample space underneath to get in there with a mop and do your magic. If you need more storage space or are unable to hide the pipework, these vanities are also available in a legged configuration.
Dirt lies in details
Sometimes even unassuming details make a big difference. A detachable shower with a hose makes washing down the shower screens a piece of cake. Using traditional grout sealers on your regular grout reduces its porosity and mould growth, while the latest nano-tech and epoxy grout sealers go even further, making it impervious to water and staining. Also, as an upgrade to acrylic vanity tops so common in many homes, consider engineered quartz-based stone or even a classic ceramic top that is more resistant to hot wax, heat from a hair straightener, etc.
Optimise the toilet
By far the best type of toilet when it comes to cleaning is the wall-facing design with the tank built into a wall niche. These toilets look sleek, take up less space and have the least tricky areas to clean. Some toilets are designed with a rimless bowl, where the water flushes from a small section inside the pan, giving it a cleaner flush and leaving you fewer spots to worry about. An extra-glazed toilet is guaranteed to hold its look longer, as it is easier to clean and less prone to discoloration.
When renovating or building a bathroom from scratch, remember that simplicity cuts both ways – and both of them are good. Firstly, it makes it easier to choose the elements and secondly, it makes them easier to clean.