Owning a home is a substantial responsibility, and it comes with a good deal of maintenance needs. On its own, each maintenance-related task may not be very extensive. However, when you add them all up, caring for your house can become quite costly and challenging. Simplify your life with these ways to design a low-maintenance home. By putting in some work now, you can avoid numerous frustrations in the future.
Protect Your Home’s Exterior
The largest changes you can make to your home to make it easier to care for relate to its exterior. Bad weather, debris, and animals can lead to accumulated damages over time if your home is made of fragile materials. Therefore, you may want to alter the siding and roofing of your home so that they’ll need fewer repairs and last longer. For the siding, vinyl is a strong choice because it doesn’t show wear as easily as traditional wood and because its color won’t peel off. Similarly, a metal roof is preferable over common shingles because it can stand up to wind and precipitation without breaking or rusting. With modern innovations, your metal roof can come in a range of colors and appearances as well.
Go for Quality Finish Materials
Moving on to the interior, an additional way to design a low-maintenance home is to choose high-quality materials for finishes. Cheaper alternatives may seem attractive at first, but they may show stains, scratches, and other signs of age and abrasion relatively quickly, prompting you to mend or outright replace them. If you go for materials such as wood and stone, your home’s finishes will look just as attractive after many years as they do now. They may even acquire a character that improves their appearance. Because of this, you’ll ultimately have less upkeep to do in the end.
Select More Carefree Surfaces
The surfaces of your fixtures, floor, and furniture should also be simple to clean. You want to avoid a profusion of grooves and small, hard-to-reach spaces so that you can easily wipe, vacuum, and mop surfaces without special tools. Smooth, plain surfaces are best for making maintenance easier. Tile or wood floors, solid countertops without seams, and cabinets that extend all the way to the floor are all examples of the carefree style you should look for. When comparing high-pile and low-pile rugs, pick low-pile versions, which won’t trap dirt and liquids as readily. As for fabrics and upholstery, try to find removable and washable varieties that won’t take much effort to freshen up.
