Try These Bathroom Remodeling Ideas to Make Cleaning Easier
These fixtures, features and materials will save you time when it comes to keeping your bathroom sparkling
Recently I told a Houzz colleague that I actually enjoy cleaning my bathroom now that I’ve renovated it. If you know me, this is kind of unbelievable, so she asked if it was easier to clean now. I hadn’t thought about it before, but I realized it is. The features and materials for my bathroom renovation made a difference. Here are lessons I learned from my renovation experience and from Houzz pros about designing a bathroom that’s easier to keep sparkling clean. Many of these ideas don’t even require a complete renovation.
1. Install a handheld shower sprayer. Handheld sprayers make rinsing out the bathtub easy-peasy. This also is an option for the shower.
2. Consider quartz. Quartz is an engineered material that can be patterned to resemble natural stone — but without the porosity that makes stone more prone to scratching and staining. Quartz is easy to wipe down with soap and water.
3. For faucets and fixtures, select a finish that’s resistant to fingerprints and water spots. Or choose a finish that gets a better patina from these things, if that’s your style. The finish seen here is oil-rubbed bronze, which is resistant to both. For a thorough list of finishes and their ease or difficulty of keeping clean, check out A Crash Course in Bathroom Faucet Finishes.
4. Use a frameless glass shower surround. I found that the metal shower frame was one of the biggest grunge-collecting culprits in my bathroom. Stuff would collect between the frame and the glass and was almost impossible to extricate, and a piece of gummy sealant between the glass and the frame would peel off if I tried too hard. Get rid of the frame and all of that grunge is never even born.
5. Use a shower base instead of tiling the floor. Architectural designer Alison Strickland was not a fan of having to clean grout lines in the shower. So she used a shower base for the floor of her shower stall and designed the space around it. The ledge and the base seen here are made from a material called Krion from Porcelanosa.
6. Use a large-format tile or large porcelain slabs. The larger the tile, the less grout you have to clean. And in the case of large slabs like those you see here, no grout at all. This shower surround looks like Calacatta marble but is actually composed of thin porcelain slabs.
7. Choose a water-spot-resistant glass coating for shower dividers. When I remodeled my own bathroom, the shower glass pros let me know about Clarvista, a protective coating for shower glass that resists water spots and is guaranteed for life. I still squeegee after every shower to keep things looking clean and use glass cleaner to give it a thorough cleaning about twice a month, but after eight months there are no signs of water spots.
8. Pick a toilet with a skirted base. A skirted toilet has a base with a smooth profile all the way to the floor. This means none of those pipe shapes along the sides or other crevices where dust and toilet paper lint can collect. Those nooks and crannies often require some serious yoga positions just to reach them and are tough to get clean. Skirted bases make for a much easier and smoother wipe-down so you don’t have to hold your yoga position for very long.
9. Find a toilet seat with an antimicrobial surface. This is an easy addition you can make whether you’re renovating or not. (Even this DIY disaster has successfully swapped out a toilet seat herself!) Today’s toilet seats are much more resistant to staining and fading than the old ones were. For example, American Standard’s EverClean toilet, seen here, features a permanent glaze additive that inhibits the growth of stain- and odor-causing bacteria, mold and mildew inside and out.
10. Choose a toilet with a slide-off seat option. Many toilet seats now allow you to remove the plastic covers on the screws that affix the seat to the bowl and easily slide the seat off to clean this crucial spot. Most manufacturers offer this option; just read the fine print when choosing a toilet seat. This photo shows Kohler’s Quick-Release seat.
11. Consider a wall-mounted toilet. Wall-mounted toilets leave the space underneath clear, making it easy to mop, vacuum or sweep the floor. This means no more getting on your hands and knees trying to reach those tricky spots behind the base.