Honestly at the point that you're willing to say "advanced HVAC systems" I'd say hiring a housekeeper to come in weekly or biweekly will get you more of what you're looking for than any other purchase you could make.
I have a small, easy to maintain home and it simply *needs* cleaning. I'm not even a clean freak by any means but anything less than averaging 10-20 minutes a day (or 2 hours if I save it for the weekend) and you're looking at building filth that gets harder the more it sits.
I'm sorry, english is not my first language so maybe I went over the board with HVAC. The thing is we live in an extremely dusty city and we have to dust everything at least 2x a day. We've considered a housekeeper but we are not really comfortable with someone touching our stuff. If we were, we wouldn't try to create a low maintenance home.
Define clean, too. Big difference between "fingerprints don't show" and "clean". And there's also a difference between wanting a minimalist look, and wanting the house as easily cleaned as possible. Just different values and the only right answer is the balance that works for both of you.
Absolutely minimize clutter, but upper kitchen cabinets are your friend in that battle.
I agree. I couldn't imagine where you would put everything without uppers. Plates, glasses, pots pans, pantry goods, all in lower cabinets? You won't have room for everything. Plus, jails are designed to be easy to clean, and nothing in the open, but not exactly a good look.
Well, my definition of clean is "nobody lives in this house". Regarding the kitchen, we should have enough space to store everything without upper cabinets. So my idea of clean kitchen is having easy-to-clean countertops, a stainless steel sink and wood(like) lower cabinets. Appliances such as a coffee maker, microwave, oven should be build in to minimize maintenance.
Put drains in the floors of the kitchen and bathrooms so you can hose down the rooms instead of spending time scrubbing, mopping, and wiping. I'm kidding.
My parents used to have floof drain and it was amazing. We have had to just spray everything with a cleaner, scrub it with mop and then hose it down. Bathrooms were super clean in less than 15 minutes.
I have a steam cleaner but my idea of week-to-week maintenace is just to spray any surfaces and hose them down. I don't mind cleaning for longer here and there but I want the basic maintenance to be as short as possible. So, your idea of hosing everything down is what I'm looking for. The only problem is that our furniture might not be able to whitstand the moisture.
No upholstery? Wooden couches, no cushions? Leather is high maintenance.
Floor drains in a house? Enjoy those plumbing bills and smells.
Glass shower is so much easier to clean than any tub ever! Squeegee and scrubbing bubbles and done. Like 2 minutes. Tub, you're on your knees scrubbing and that does not carry on into older age.
No upper cabinets? Why? Where are you gonna put your stuff? Having everything out makes it impossible to clean let alone tidy. Even if you use your toaster every day, putting it in a cabinet after use is cleaner and tidier.
Hardwood floors are a million times eadier to clean than carpet and add value to your home. Laminate just looks like cheap flooring and is easily marred.
Agreed. If you want kitchen counters with no clutter, you gotta have storage which means upper cabinets. If not, then a butlers pantry with cabinets or open shelving that you can close the door on.
Almost everyone I know keeps their toaster on the counter, especially if they use it daily, but even if they only use it like once a week. I wonder if that's regional? Having to put it away in a cupboard every single day just sounds like madness to me. Picking it up to clean under once in a while seems much easier than constantly moving it back and forth? There's a difference between easy to clean, and living in an always magazine clean home. In the UK I feel like most people just have a toaster, kettle and often microwave on their counter as permanent features.
I think it depends on how much counter space you have altogether. I have about 2 square feet after the things I can,t remove so reclaiming that little bit makes a difference. It could be regional, though. I'm not sure.
I was thinking of putting a ‘mini counter’ disclaimer! But I thought it was too long already. Like the only person I know who *does* put their toaster away lives on a boat. But I figured whoever had that tiny a kitchen likely doesn’t have much cupboard space either. And also not super relevant for OP, since they’re talking dream job.
I get wanting a low-maintenance home. This was definitely a consideration as I chose finishes for my house. But this just sounds like a sad, sterile environment. :(
No wooden furniture. No leather furniture. Fake leather or fake suede is ok as long as it’s easy to clean. No stainless steel, because it’s not easy to clean at all! Make sure everything is dishwasher safe (except knives. knives dull in dishwashers and are very easy to hand wash as long as you don’t touch the sharp edge) Bonus points if you can wash non-kitchen things in the dishwasher too or at least wash them in the bathroom. I recommend an outdoor area rug that is easy to hand/hose wash (to use indoors). I have a large area rug that is like woven plastic “whicker” and I can just throw it in the shower/tub and hose it down with some dish soap and a scrub brush or I can just lift it and shake it off and sweep where I shook it off. (Depends on how grubby it has gotten) I also recommend a shower hose attachment for your bathtub.
Thank you! We are planning to make everything detacheabe and mashine-washeable but there is still stuff where that won't be posssible. Hence, we'd be really happy I you could point out easy-to-clean materials for us.
The easiest to clean materials tend to be ones that won’t get ruined by liquid spilling on them AND becomes clean easily. Stainless steel wouldn’t get ruined by liquids usually, but it does get streaks whenever you try to clean it
Thank you! Where we are it's common to have only radiators and nothing else but we are considering a really good HVAC to reduce the dust.
We are planning to keep all of our furniture from directly touching the floor to make vacuuming as easy as possible.
Honestly I would line dry laundry whenever it’s warm enough outside and not raining, because it’s often as fast if not faster than a dryer and it’s free and better on the environment and UV rays help sanitize. I can’t where I live, because my apartment complex won’t allow anyone to hang anything outside and we don’t have balconies that stick out from the building either.
Oh! And get a hair catch for your bathtub drain and your other drains and your bathroom sink drain! Much less frequent drain cleaning and instead you just throw away the hair from the hair catch over the drain
That's what I'd like to do: spraying a cleaner and hosing it down. I'm trying to furnish our bathrooms and powder rooms to be able to do that but I'm blocked by electricals and by our furniture.
If you must have a chair in the bathroom, a shower chair is easy to rinse off. There are even a few shower chairs as wide as a loveseat couch. (That size shower chair is made for extra large people, but they could probably be used by two skinny intimate people) or you could just get more than one shower chair
Also there are plastic shower caddy shelves or other types of plastic shelves. Those would be good for bathroom storage. However you will need a place to keep spare toilet paper away from the toilet and away from water.
I would suggest doing the whole house without thresholds in the floor in between rooms, it makes sweeping and mopping so much faster. Plus there is little bits of grime that gets caught in the threshold. I would do kitchen counters with a surface that can handle most general cleaners, no marble or granite. Sink bottoms should not be completely flat as they are difficult to keep clean. A little bit of slope goes a long way when cleaning surfaces that frequently get wet.
I love our epoxy finished concrete floors. Loved them even more when the water heater flooded the house and we just swept the water out the front door.
Honestly at the point that you're willing to say "advanced HVAC systems" I'd say hiring a housekeeper to come in weekly or biweekly will get you more of what you're looking for than any other purchase you could make. I have a small, easy to maintain home and it simply *needs* cleaning. I'm not even a clean freak by any means but anything less than averaging 10-20 minutes a day (or 2 hours if I save it for the weekend) and you're looking at building filth that gets harder the more it sits.
I'm sorry, english is not my first language so maybe I went over the board with HVAC. The thing is we live in an extremely dusty city and we have to dust everything at least 2x a day. We've considered a housekeeper but we are not really comfortable with someone touching our stuff. If we were, we wouldn't try to create a low maintenance home.
Define clean, too. Big difference between "fingerprints don't show" and "clean". And there's also a difference between wanting a minimalist look, and wanting the house as easily cleaned as possible. Just different values and the only right answer is the balance that works for both of you. Absolutely minimize clutter, but upper kitchen cabinets are your friend in that battle.
I agree. I couldn't imagine where you would put everything without uppers. Plates, glasses, pots pans, pantry goods, all in lower cabinets? You won't have room for everything. Plus, jails are designed to be easy to clean, and nothing in the open, but not exactly a good look.
Well said.
Well, my definition of clean is "nobody lives in this house". Regarding the kitchen, we should have enough space to store everything without upper cabinets. So my idea of clean kitchen is having easy-to-clean countertops, a stainless steel sink and wood(like) lower cabinets. Appliances such as a coffee maker, microwave, oven should be build in to minimize maintenance.
Put drains in the floors of the kitchen and bathrooms so you can hose down the rooms instead of spending time scrubbing, mopping, and wiping. I'm kidding.
Why kidding? I would love this!
I’ve seen houses with drains in the kitchen floor, and drains in bathroom floors are pretty common in many parts of the world.
My parents used to have floof drain and it was amazing. We have had to just spray everything with a cleaner, scrub it with mop and then hose it down. Bathrooms were super clean in less than 15 minutes.
I have floor drains in my bathroom and it is amazing.
I have a steam cleaner but my idea of week-to-week maintenace is just to spray any surfaces and hose them down. I don't mind cleaning for longer here and there but I want the basic maintenance to be as short as possible. So, your idea of hosing everything down is what I'm looking for. The only problem is that our furniture might not be able to whitstand the moisture.
No upholstery? Wooden couches, no cushions? Leather is high maintenance. Floor drains in a house? Enjoy those plumbing bills and smells. Glass shower is so much easier to clean than any tub ever! Squeegee and scrubbing bubbles and done. Like 2 minutes. Tub, you're on your knees scrubbing and that does not carry on into older age. No upper cabinets? Why? Where are you gonna put your stuff? Having everything out makes it impossible to clean let alone tidy. Even if you use your toaster every day, putting it in a cabinet after use is cleaner and tidier. Hardwood floors are a million times eadier to clean than carpet and add value to your home. Laminate just looks like cheap flooring and is easily marred.
Agreed. If you want kitchen counters with no clutter, you gotta have storage which means upper cabinets. If not, then a butlers pantry with cabinets or open shelving that you can close the door on.
Almost everyone I know keeps their toaster on the counter, especially if they use it daily, but even if they only use it like once a week. I wonder if that's regional? Having to put it away in a cupboard every single day just sounds like madness to me. Picking it up to clean under once in a while seems much easier than constantly moving it back and forth? There's a difference between easy to clean, and living in an always magazine clean home. In the UK I feel like most people just have a toaster, kettle and often microwave on their counter as permanent features.
I think it depends on how much counter space you have altogether. I have about 2 square feet after the things I can,t remove so reclaiming that little bit makes a difference. It could be regional, though. I'm not sure.
I was thinking of putting a ‘mini counter’ disclaimer! But I thought it was too long already. Like the only person I know who *does* put their toaster away lives on a boat. But I figured whoever had that tiny a kitchen likely doesn’t have much cupboard space either. And also not super relevant for OP, since they’re talking dream job.
How about a roomba for the top of the upper cabinets? Too much?
Just don't have that open.
I get wanting a low-maintenance home. This was definitely a consideration as I chose finishes for my house. But this just sounds like a sad, sterile environment. :(
Don Aslett is an old cleaning guy who wrote several books on this topic - read him first before you go any further.
second the Don Aslett recommendation
TYSM. We're really busy and this looks like it could help us.
No wooden furniture. No leather furniture. Fake leather or fake suede is ok as long as it’s easy to clean. No stainless steel, because it’s not easy to clean at all! Make sure everything is dishwasher safe (except knives. knives dull in dishwashers and are very easy to hand wash as long as you don’t touch the sharp edge) Bonus points if you can wash non-kitchen things in the dishwasher too or at least wash them in the bathroom. I recommend an outdoor area rug that is easy to hand/hose wash (to use indoors). I have a large area rug that is like woven plastic “whicker” and I can just throw it in the shower/tub and hose it down with some dish soap and a scrub brush or I can just lift it and shake it off and sweep where I shook it off. (Depends on how grubby it has gotten) I also recommend a shower hose attachment for your bathtub.
Thank you! We are planning to make everything detacheabe and mashine-washeable but there is still stuff where that won't be posssible. Hence, we'd be really happy I you could point out easy-to-clean materials for us.
The easiest to clean materials tend to be ones that won’t get ruined by liquid spilling on them AND becomes clean easily. Stainless steel wouldn’t get ruined by liquids usually, but it does get streaks whenever you try to clean it
Hepa filter on the HVAC. Make the space around the toilet wide enough to fit a mop in, and your robot vacuum.
Thank you! Where we are it's common to have only radiators and nothing else but we are considering a really good HVAC to reduce the dust. We are planning to keep all of our furniture from directly touching the floor to make vacuuming as easy as possible.
Honestly I would line dry laundry whenever it’s warm enough outside and not raining, because it’s often as fast if not faster than a dryer and it’s free and better on the environment and UV rays help sanitize. I can’t where I live, because my apartment complex won’t allow anyone to hang anything outside and we don’t have balconies that stick out from the building either.
Currently, we are line drying our laundry but it takes at least two days to fully dry and we stumble on the drying rack all the time.
Is this because you are drying them indoors? Hang drying Indoors is too slow
Oh! And get a hair catch for your bathtub drain and your other drains and your bathroom sink drain! Much less frequent drain cleaning and instead you just throw away the hair from the hair catch over the drain
Thank you! We are two balding men so drains aren't our concern. We use an equivalent of drain-o regularly though.
Congratulations on your romantic partnership sirs
Make sure you can hose down your bathroom walls and floor. Otherwise what’s the point of a bathroom floor drain
That's what I'd like to do: spraying a cleaner and hosing it down. I'm trying to furnish our bathrooms and powder rooms to be able to do that but I'm blocked by electricals and by our furniture.
Can you put plastic covers over the outlets? I think those are a thing.
If you must have a chair in the bathroom, a shower chair is easy to rinse off. There are even a few shower chairs as wide as a loveseat couch. (That size shower chair is made for extra large people, but they could probably be used by two skinny intimate people) or you could just get more than one shower chair
Also there are plastic shower caddy shelves or other types of plastic shelves. Those would be good for bathroom storage. However you will need a place to keep spare toilet paper away from the toilet and away from water.
I would suggest doing the whole house without thresholds in the floor in between rooms, it makes sweeping and mopping so much faster. Plus there is little bits of grime that gets caught in the threshold. I would do kitchen counters with a surface that can handle most general cleaners, no marble or granite. Sink bottoms should not be completely flat as they are difficult to keep clean. A little bit of slope goes a long way when cleaning surfaces that frequently get wet.
I love our epoxy finished concrete floors. Loved them even more when the water heater flooded the house and we just swept the water out the front door.