Is there anyone who fails to get excited when moving into a new home or after a complete renovation of their old one? Such a transformation costs money, takes a great deal of time, requires dealing with a variety of craftsmen, and the planning of numerous details. Everyone wants their home to look like the pictures they have seen in magazines or on interior design websites. There, everything is arranged, every detail is perfectly placed—from the colour of the walls and the floor to the furniture and the carpets, mirrors, cushions, curtains, and decorations. Everything is in the best possible position to match the overall decor and provide aesthetic pleasure, all sparkling with cleanliness. Of course, everyone dreams of enjoying the comfort and beauty of their home for the coming years, especially considering all the effort and money they will have invested in it.
Due to the nature of our work, we are the last in a long chain of services, which can include builders, bathroom fitters, floor installers, furniture and kitchen installers, plumbers, electricians, and painters. But only after our final cleaning, when the building debris, furniture coverings, packaging, and dust are removed and everything — the floors, windows, kitchen, and bathrooms —is sparkling clean, can the client live in it. Many times we have witnessed the joy of our clients from realizing their renovation project and have shared that pleasure with them.
It is clear that, having invested your hard-earned money in renovating your home, you will have done so in order to enjoy living there for years, if not decades, to come. Therefore, it is vitally important what materials, furniture, floor coverings, etc. will be chosen. Of course, this depends on the budget you have. But since there are a range of options available these days for both more expensive and cheaper materials, it’s good to know which are likely to be more durable and wear out more slowly. This is because, after the initial joy of moving into the new home, you will live there, cook meals in the kitchen, bathe in the bathroom, watch TV in the living room, children will play on the floor, and sleep in the bedrooms. In other words, your home will be the scene of a wide range of activities, all of which have the potential to cause a certain amount of wear and tear. Therefore, in order to keep it in its nice and shiny condition after the renovation for as long as possible, you will need to maintain, clean, and organize it your living space. We would like to share some observations here with our readers based on our long experience in cleaning various homes, and we hope this will be useful to you when planning to renovate your property.
The Kitchen
This is the room that is usually most used daily, and its surfaces and furniture are subjected to high temperatures, water and grease, vapours, spills, and splashes of oil and various foods. Preparing food requires maintaining higher hygiene standards in this room, so the surfaces should be suitable for daily cleaning with grease-removing and antibacterial agents.
The Kitchen Floor
In our opinion, wooden floors are not suitable for kitchens. Wood looks beautiful and gives homes a cosy quality, but unfortunately, it is also porous and absorbs liquids that change its colour. Even the most beautiful and water-impregnated wooden floor will eventually show stains from food, oil, or water, not to mention red wine or coloured soft drinks. No one can be sure they won’t break a glass or spill something on the floor while cooking. For this reason, we recommend laying tiles on the kitchen floor, preferably with only a small amount of grout even or without any grout at all, so food and dirt won’t get trapped in between them. This way, you can quickly and easily clean the floor with various detergents without worrying about the floor becoming stained if something spills. There are so many beautiful ceramic tiles on the market that you can even choose ones with a wood design, and it will hardly be distinguishable from a ceramic floor. Whatever you do, though, just don’t use black tiles, as every speck of dust or stain will be visible, and you will need to be constantly mopping or wiping.
Kitchen Cabinets
When designing kitchen cabinets, it is best to make them tall and have them connected with the ceiling. Yes, they will cost a bit more, but this will pay off over time, as it is an investment for at least 10 years. There are two reasons for this—first, you will have more space for items that you rarely use and can store on the top shelves of the cabinets. The second reason is that, if you don’t clean the tops of the cabinets regularly, a few millimetres of sticky grease layered with dust will form there. Over the years, this layer starts to smell and, the longer it goes uncleaned, the thicker it becomes. That’s why when you enter kitchens that are not cleaned regularly, you can smell the rancid grease. Moreover, it’s not aesthetically pleasing to see boxes, various grills, or appliances
placed on top of cabinets because there was no other free space available.
Extractor Hoods
Another very important element for the aesthetic appearance and maintenance of your kitchen is the extractor hood. We are often struck by how rarely extractor hoods are connected with a duct to expel the fumes from cooking outside through the window or wall. In most cases, the filters of the hood are relied upon to capture the fumes. Yes, they do capture part of it, but the rest is expelled again through the side openings at the top of the hood, ending up on top of the cabinets. Therefore, if possible, the fumes should be directed outside. If not, the filters should be changed regularly— don’t let them get clogged with grease or they may even fall apart.
Kitchen Countertops
Cabinets and countertops play a key role in the design of the kitchen. There are so many colours and different materials available that everyone can choose according to their taste. However, it is still best to avoid using wooden countertops in the kitchen. Again, the reason is the porous nature of wood as a material. It is not suitable for a room that is so intensively subjected to water, grease, and hot liquids and vapours. There is no way to protect the wooden countertop around the stove or the sink. We have seen many countertops blackened by mould around sinks or stained from spilled oil or food. For us, wooden countertops definitely have no place in the kitchen. Quartz countertops are very beautiful and are our preferred choice for the kitchen; however, do not look for the cheapest ones as these are also porous and will get stained if, for example, you spill red wine on them.
Kitchen Backsplashes
The backsplash plays an important role in the kitchen design. It can be made from tiles, laminate, or another material. Yes, it’s cheapest to have no backsplash or just a 5 cm skirting board, with the wall painted behind it, but that looks unattractive. Within a month, or even sooner, the walls will be covered with grease stains that are hard to repaint because the grease seeps through the fresh paint. After that, to hide the grease stains during the next painting, you will need to use primer or undercoats. Therefore, it’s best to lay tiles, which likely won’t cost much as the kitchen area is usually small. If you lay tiles, again, you should buy ones without grout lines, or as they are sometimes called, seamless tiles, to avoid the build-up of grease in the grout.
We also recommend forgetting about mirrored glass backsplashes in the kitchen. They are just impossible to clean. If you want them to stay clean, you’ll have to wipe them with a cloth and degreaser after each cooking session. They look nice in pictures, but in reality, they are absolutely impractical.
Range Cookers or Ovens
There is no doubt that range cookers add style to kitchen designs, giving the room an aristocratic feel and a touch of luxury. They are suitable for large kitchens with long countertops and big islands. They look attractively shiny in photos with their chrome hobs, ovens, beautiful hob grates, and oven door glass. But it’s important to remember that kitchens are made for cooking family meals. This means splattering grease, and dropping water and food while boiling, as well as splattering grease and food residues while baking in the ovens. To maintain the shiny look and cleanliness of such a large cooker, you need to wipe it down after every cooking session, removing all of the grease, water, and food residues from the surfaces, grates, and oven glass, and washing the hob grates. We do not recommend installing such a large oven in the kitchen if you are not able to spend time cleaning it regularly. If you cannot do it yourself, you will have to pay a company to take care of it. It can be very sad to see such a beautiful cooker neglected due to irregular cleaning and covered with a layer of baked-on grease and blackened food around the hobs, oven knobs, hob grates, and inside the oven itself. Therefore, you need to decide whether it is worth installing such an expensive and large cooker or if a modern, self-cleaning oven with separate hobs might be a more suitable option.
Bathroom
Bathrooms are other areas with heavy use and are exposed to water, steam, and residues from soaps, shampoos, and similar chemicals.
Bathroom Floors
We won’t even discuss putting a wooden floor, carpet, or laminate in the bathroom. These floors are a definite no-no due to their nearly impossible maintenance and protection from water. Wood and laminate can mould and swell, carpet can stain, and the edges usually turn black. Ceramic tiles or various types of waterproof materials that are easy to clean and disinfect are suitable for the bathroom. Glossy black tiles on the floor are also a no-no. A major problem in bathrooms is the retention of moisture and the formation of mould on the walls and ceiling. Therefore, during renovation, it is necessary to make ventilation openings to vent the steam outside. The presence of windows with quality frames and thermal bridges to prevent condensation is crucial to avoid blackened walls. Strong fans that can be replaced if damaged will help protect this room from mould. Painting the walls with special anti-mould paint and using anti-mould silicone is also important for the appearance of your bathroom.
Marble or Ceramic Tiles
Another issue is using marble for walls and floors in shower areas, sinks, and generally anywhere with running or standing water. Over time, the gloss of the marble will wear off, and the surface will become covered with a layer of limescale due to hard water. Bathroom cleaning products cannot be used on marble because they damage its polish. These products are usually acidic to break down the limescale. Marble itself is a form of limestone. Using various marble cleaning products does not help much; generally, it’s just a waste of money, and the result is hardly noticeable. Creams and pastes like Cif can be used, but they also cannot completely remove limescale if it has been allowed to build up. Therefore, consider whether it is worth installing marble in your bathrooms if you cannot maintain it and are not willing to pay for periodic professional polishing to restore its shine. There are many materials that imitate marble and are suitable for bathrooms without the maintenance concerns.
Shower Areas
The shower area will be used daily by the residents of the home, so it will get dirty more easily. Therefore, cleaning this area—whether it’s a shower cabin or a bathtub—should be done frequently to avoid the build-up of limescale or dirt from soaps and shampoos. A big mistake is installing only a fixed showerhead on the ceiling or wall without a handheld showerhead. When choosing a shower or shower system, be sure to choose one that has a handheld showerhead with a hose. Can you imagine how difficult it is to clean a shower cabin if there’s only one fixed showerhead on the ceiling or wall? It’s practically impossible, unless you decide to do it while showering, with water running all over you. If that’s not an option for you, then you need to take a full bucket of water, or a jug, step inside the cabin, spray and scrub the glass, faucets, and floor of the cabin with a bathroom cleaner, and then rinse everything with the jug until it’s clean. Finally, you need to dry and polish everything. Naturally, after this, you’ll have wet feet at the very least. Hence, a definite “no” to showers without handheld showerheads, no matter how beautiful or futuristic they look.
Choosing Showers, Faucets, and Shower Enclosures
The choice of showers, faucets, shower enclosures, or glass panels is also very important. You should keep in mind that the water in London is very hard, and limescale builds up quickly on surfaces. The less frequently you clean, the thicker the layer becomes, and the harder it is to clean. Do not buy black showers and faucets, especially if they are cheap ones. The black is a layer of paint on the metal that easily peels and falls off even when cleaned with a sponge. If you they are not cleaned, they will turn from black to white due to the limescale. Yes, they are very modern, but as they say, there is nothing better than the classic style.
Choose high-quality metal fittings that are easy to clean and do not get scratched as you will be using them for many years. The same applies to glass panels and screens. The cheap ones are porous. Over time, limescale accumulates in the pores, and they turn white. Cleaning will not help, and you will have to accept that they will be stained.
Dining Room and Living Room Floors
There are exceptionally beautiful designs for these rooms, and you can unleash your imagination with various furniture, colours, floors, wall finishes, lighting fixtures, etc. However, it’s important to consider the design in relation to your family and your lifestyle. For example, if you have small children or pets, it’s good to evaluate whether to put a carpet in the living room, or if wood or laminate would be a better solution.
If you decide on a carpet, keep in mind that we are often asked by clients to remove stains from coffee, tea, or wine spilled around the sofa or table. Stain removal is difficult because the chemicals from the spill interact with the carpet fibres and often stain it permanently. Therefore, in such rooms, it’s better to use a synthetic carpet, which is much easier to clean, or at least a mix of synthetic and wool. A pure woollen carpet is not recommended.
Corridors
Here, our attention is once again directed towards the floor. We all know what the weather is like here in the UK, and that it rains very often. When we come home, we bring in water and dirt with our shoes, clothes, and umbrellas. We have noticed that near the doors, where we usually step with wet and dirty shoes, carpets or wooden floors become dirty and blackened. The traffic area is often visible. Therefore, we do not recommend such flooring for corridors.
Besides the floor, we must also pay attention to the walls. Usually, corridors are narrower than other rooms, which means that in everyday life we may have to move very close to the walls, often carrying bulky items. Therefore, the walls are more often scratched than in other rooms. In fact, there is almost no home we have cleaned where the corridor walls are not stained and scratched. For easier removal of such marks, we advise using washable paint in corridors.
Bedrooms
These are rooms where you can safely unleash your imagination. It does not matter what type of floor, furniture, curtains, paint, colours you choose. The important thing is that you feel comfortable in the bedroom and can rest well after a tiring day.
We hope our recommendations and advice will prove helpful before you renovate your home. We will be happy to hear your comments.