Design an Easy-Clean Kitchen

Design an Easy-Clean Kitchen

Is there a new kitchen on your future? When you develop the design, there are so many choices to create. Many of those are all about style, and in addition, you should think a great deal about the functionality of preparing food. This ideabook is around the design options you can make to reduce the total amount of time it takes to wash your kitchen. I like cooking. Cleaning up — maybe not so much. Something tells me I’m not alone.

Below are tips for choosing low-maintenance materials, placing things close to where they are used and choosing storage solutions — all with an eye toward rapid and effortless cleanup. Some are very big time savers, and some may only shave a bit of time away from your cleaning regimen. Add them all up, though, and you’re going to have a kitchen that is a joy to use and that cleans up quickly so that you can get on with the fun things on your day … like checking out a few more good ideas on .

Studio William Hefner

Countertops. Stay away from traditional 4-inch from 4-inch tile onto your countertops. Stainless steel, walnut, Corian and laminates are four good options which don’t have grout to scrub and never require sealing.

Granite is an all-time favorite because of its ease of care even if it does need occasional sealing. If you do not want laminate but you need a lower-cost, easy-to-clean choice, consider large-format through-body porcelain tiles. The massive size will maintain grout lines to a minimum. For any grout you do desire, use epoxy grout. The formula is extremely resistant to stains, making cleanup that much easier.

Vision Homes & Remodeling

Backsplash. Your backsplash substance also needs to be reduced maintenance and simple to wash. Full-sheet substances similar to this back-painted glass remove grout lines. You can use any stone slab for a backsplash. Laminate is just another large-sheet substance you can use that is very low cost. All are easier to wash than mosaics of any kind.

Debra Toney, AIA Assoc.

Flooring. Opt for floors which requires just damp mopping and that has no grout lines, such as Marmoleum, linoleum or sheet vinyl. Although hardwood is easy to wash with a sponge cleaner or a damp mop, then you must immediately wipe up any spills or splatters, which means you’re going to find yourself wiping more often.

Ziger/Snead Architects

Large-format tiles are just another fantastic flooring alternative. There are tiles as big as 24 inches by 48 inches. Glazed tiles are impervious to kitchen spills, along with the minimal amount of grout lines retains scrubbing to a minimum. As in your countertops, epoxy grout is a much better choice here than traditional grout.

Kristin Lam Interiors

Cabinet style and a bit more on flooring. Avoid elaborate moldings in your cabinetry. They’re fairly, but it requires extra time to wipe around all the nooks and crannies. Slab-front cabinets would be the easiest to wipe off. Shaker style is another good choice, and it blends with any kitchen style, from traditional to modern.

This flooring looks like wood but is actually porcelain tile planks. You can even utilize luxury vinyl tile planks at a wood appearance. They’re very persuasive, are resistant to both water and require nothing but damp mopping.

Kim Duffin for Sublime Architectural Interiors

Customized pot and pan storage. I hate crouching down to place away pots, pans and their lids in a standard cupboard. It requires time to pull the bigger ones so you can reach back into put away larger baskets — then you need to place all the smaller ones back in. Having an organized rollout drawer makes it effortless to put pots and lids away. Even the ones which go in the back.

Signature Designs Kitchen & Bath

Savvy receptacle positioning. Using a receptacle strip similar to this mounted under your cabinets retains the outlets as far as possible from splashes and splatters. It means less time cleaning the receptacles and also makes it easier to wipe off your backsplash.

Perhaps we are only shaving seconds off your cleaning time, but I like this idea. Another fantastic spot from the splash zone for electrical receptacles is at the end of your base cabinets.

How to Hide Those Plugs and Switches

Colmar Kitchen Studio

Appliance storage. This is an appliance garage on a grand scale. Anything that prevents you from needing to haul out appliances and then wind their wires and put them away again makes it easier to keep your kitchen tidy. And why stop at utilizing doors for appliance garages …

… when you can use them to hide all kinds of things. All these doors open and slide back into the sides so that this kitchen workplace can easily be concealed. That’s a whole lot quicker than putting papers and gear away, and it looks tidier anyway than having the typical office things sitting on a counter top.

Design Set Match

Undersink cleaning supplies. When it is time to wash, who wants to get down on hands and knees and feel around in the dark spot behind the trash disposal searching for cleaning products? A drawer below the kitchen sink allows you pull on everything into simple view and within reach.

Studio Zerbey Architecture + Design

Preventing pet messes. Can you have pet food bowls out on your kitchen? Do you wish you had a nickel for each time you accidentally kicked you, sending kibbles or warm water all over your flooring? Part of designing a kitchen that’s easier to wash is designing one which doesn’t get as dirty in the first location. This built-in spot for pet food bowls retains them securely from the way.

Paul Anater

Sinks. When you choose your sink, think integrated or undermount so that you may wipe countertop messes directly into the sink.

Battle Associates, Architects

Two kitchen sinks may make it easier to keep your kitchen fresh when one is employed for prep and the other for cleanup. After the meal is finished and prep is completed, in case you’ve got a helper, then cleanup goes twice as quickly when there are just two sinks.

Watch design ideas from two-cook kitchens

Drainboard. An integrated drainboard sends water down to a sink, helping to include water. Plus it prevents you from having to haul a drainboard and set it away when the hand-washed things are dry. A pleasant, high faucet which may move every which way is a real plus when it comes to cleaning those huge pots, too.

Lucy McLintic

Short path from sink to storage and dishwasher. The sink and the dishwasher are usually side by side. But getting your dish storage right by the dishwasher means that you can unload and put away in one simple motion.

Initially, you might think that open shelves would make a kitchen harder to wash. But if you’ve got them to the dishes that you use everyday and they are within easy reach of the dishwasher, then it’s very simple to quickly empty the dishwasher.

This also makes it effortless to hand wash an item, dry it and put it right back on the shelf. Put only up dishes here which you use often enough that they won’t have the chance to get dusty.

Farm construction corp

Dishwasher. Can you unload your complete dishwasher in one fell swoop? Or, when the dishes are clean, would you just pull them out as you need them?

Many men and women swear by the convenience of getting two dishwashers. You can be using the dishes from one while loading the other one. Anything that prevents dishes from piling up in the sink is a good thing in my book.

Also, if you entertain often or have a big family so that you regularly have more meals than can fit into a single dishwasher, having two makes sense.

IKEA

Recycling and trash. Getting your recycling bins and trash can on rollout shelves at one spot makes it a cinch to sort items. This is a big time saver if you can avoid a number of trips into the garage or outdoors, where recycle bins often reside.

Glenvale Kitchens

Cooktop. Although I love gas cooktops and think they are the best for cooking, when it comes to the easiest cooktop to wash nothing beats glass. You use a special cleaner to avoid scratching it, but there just is not anything easier than this to wipe down.

Paul Anater

Looking clean. This notion is not so much about making the kitchen simple to wash since it’s all about making it effortless to temporarily hide the mess so at least it looks clean.

Sliding doors protect one complete wall of the kitchen, thus if the cook is not capable to keep up with the cleanup, they can quickly cover the mess up when guests arrive, then handle it later. Some folks can not stand the idea of going to bed before each dish is clean and put away. Then there are others who find the whole thing easier to confront after a good night’s rest and a huge cup of coffee.

Bud Dietrich, AIA

Rollout pantry. It is easier to put the groceries away fast in the event that you don’t need to fumble about in deep cabinets trying to see what you have and where everything needs to go, or pulling out lots of smaller things so that you can place larger things in behind them. When it comes time to wipe down the shelves on your cabinets, these are easier to reach.

If you’re preparing to redesign your kitchen or designing a new one, I hope a few of these tips help you create a kitchen that will be a pleasure to use and a breeze to wash.

Tell us Which are your very best design strategies for earning a kitchen easier to wash?

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Design an Easy-Clean Bathroom

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