Love spending your weekends cleaning the bathroom? Neither do we. Here are some ways you can make your bathroom lower maintenance!
Performing chores around the house is tiring. Minimizing time and effort spent on these chores can give you extra time during the day to work on things more fulfilling than maintaining your bathroom. Having a low maintenance bathroom can be especially beneficial to people who have children or elderly family in the house. Many people also have an injury that makes cleaning a bathroom more difficult. And almost everyone else simply has better things to do.
Having a low maintenance bathroom doesn’t necessarily mean you need to sacrifice in looks, however. A beautiful and easy-to-maintain bathroom can have the best of both worlds: less time spent cleaning AND lovely ambiance!
So What Actually Makes a Bathroom Low Maintenance?
A low maintenance bathroom is all about less cleaning. And reducing time spent on this task mainly comes down to 1 thing: material choice.
Many factors can contribute to this end, such as countertop material, flooring choice, sink design, shower design, and many others. Making the right choices when deciding what kind of each of these features to use in your bathroom can save you many hours each month in cleaning time. So knowing what materials to use is crucial when designing a low maintenance bathroom. You’ll want to choose materials that are easy to clean, repel water, stain resistant, and very durable. This minimizes the work needed to keep your bathroom in premium shape.
What Materials Can I Pick to Make My Bathroom Low Maintenance?
Flooring Choice:
The biggest surface that will need regular cleaning in your bathroom is the floor, so choosing a simple to clean yet elegant material can save you a lot of time if you pick the right kind. Traditional tile flooring can require a lot of scrubbing due to the grout that seals the gaps in between each tile. These rough and easily-stained lines are tough to clean. So despite it being a popular choice, tile isn’t the best there is when it comes to a low maintenance bathroom. (Unless you know where to find the right grout during the initial installation!)
PRO TIP: Most grouts don’t come with a sealant included, so they require someone to come in and seal it after installation to prevent staining. But you can get a product known as “power grout” that comes with a sealant included. This means no extra money spent hiring a tile sealer, and you get a better product since it’s crack, shrink, stain, mold, and mildew-resistant!)
Stone might also be a tempting choice, but its porous surface will absorb liquids and accumulate grime if not thoroughly cleaned regularly. If not cleaned properly, the surface of a stone floor will begin to feel slimy after just a couple months.
Now if your house uses hardwood flooring throughout and you’d like to keep things consistent, you can opt for the easier-to-maintain engineered hardwood material for your bathrooms. It’s much more water resistant and requires less work to keep in good shape. The material holds up significantly better in hotter, more humid areas compared to hardwood, so if you don’t want to worry about your floor warping in a bathroom, engineered wood is a great option.
It is not the best option though. If you want the peak of low maintenance, luxury vinyl tile or luxury vinyl plank is the way to go. It’s completely water proof and can look exactly like natural wood or tile if you purchase a premium product. Since there are no seams in a properly installed LVT or LVP floor, cleaning one will be a breeze! It’s also warmer to the touch than tile, so if you want a more natural feeling and easy to clean floor, LVT/LVP are fantastic choices.
Countertop Choice:
Whether your bathroom countertop is small or large, having a low maintenance material will save you headaches in the future. There is a lot of moisture in a bathroom, and potentially many different liquids that can cause staining if spilled. This includes water, soaps, perfumes, sprays, contact solution, makeup, etc. So picking a countertop material that is resistant to stains and chipping, with low liquid absorption can make your life a lot easier. Stones such as granite, soapstone, and marble are all very porous, making them easy to stain. They also can be prone to absorbing spills if not sealed correctly, making them very vulnerable to bacterial growths, especially in the humid and warm conditions in a bathroom. These are bad choices for a bathroom.
However, man-made materials such as quartz and solid countertops will be a better choice to keep cleaning efforts to a minimum. These surfaces are virtually waterproof and require no sealing to keep the moisture out, making them great bathroom countertop choices. Glass is also a great choice if you’re willing to spend the extra money and enjoy the look glass has to offer.
Laminate is also a low maintenance choice if you don’t want to break the bank. It’s waterproof and can come in many different colors and patterns to suite any bathroom.
Bathroom Fixtures:
Small bathroom fixtures can have a surprisingly big impact on ease of cleaning. Shiny chrome metals are easily smudged and water stained. Matte finishes are much easier to keep clean and don’t leave fingerprints as readily. Using a matte-finished bathroom faucet and shower head will leave your bathroom looking cleaner for longer before they accumulate enough grime to warrant a cleaning. Picking a faucet that uses only one handle to control can also save you some cleaning time. With only one handle to clean, it will cut your cleaning time in half!
Rinsing a shower after a good scrub down can be tedious. To make cleaning your shower easier, you can install a flexible and handheld shower head to make rinsing the shower after cleaning a simple task. It also reduces the total amount of cleanings for your shower as you can rinse the walls down after every time you use it, eliminating soap scum buildup.
Each of these choices can save you many hours of cleaning time when it comes to tidying up your bathroom. Choosing just one material with low maintenance in mind can save you hours of cleaning time every month. And keeping low maintenance in mind for ALL of your bathroom choices can save you even more time! Not only that, but low maintenance materials will also be more durable and last longer due to their watertight nature. Save time, money, AND hassle? Yes please.
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