When designing a kitchen, it’s easy (and perfectly natural) to get carried away with how it’s going to look. One thing people often overlook is how easy the kitchen will be to maintain and clean.

Designing an easy-to-clean kitchen will save you countless hours and effort. There are two main areas you need to think about to design a low-maintenance kitchen, hygienic surfaces and hands-free elements. We’re going to get specific below…

Sinks and Taps

The kitchen sink is a key part of keeping your kitchen clean. It’s a place to wash hands, wash dishes and prepare food… but you don’t want to spend ages washing the sink every other day. You want it to be functional but also practical.

When designing a low-maintenance kitchen, think about what the sink itself is made from. Choose a non-porous material that’s resistant to stains, scratches, chips, acid and heat. Also bear in mind that whilst black sinks can look beautiful, if you live in a hard water area you’ll be in constant battle with limescale marks.

When it comes to the tap, look for brass or stainless steel fittings as these offer great durability and longevity. Pull-down taps are also easier to clean and if you go for a hands-free faucet, there’ll be no need to worry about wiping fingerprints.

Cabinets and Drawers

If you want a low-maintenance kitchen, our top piece of advice is to choose flat cabinets with few/no handles or hardware. The moulding and panelling that you see on Shaker-style kitchens does look beautiful, but it tends to collect dust and cooking debris. Cabinets with handles will also be more difficult to maintain.

Soft close doors are great for reducing touchpoints and some cabinets will have hands-free opening features which are ideal for greasy handprints and fingerprints too. In terms of finish, high-gloss cabinets are the easiest to clean and maintain.

A note on open shelving:

Open shelving is an increasingly popular kitchen design trend. Open shelves look beautiful when displaying luxury glassware, eclectic crockery or your ever-growing list of cookbooks, but they can be a pain to clean.

If you have your heart set on open shelving but you’re worried about cleaning it, you could look at glass front cupboards to reduce the dust and grime build-up (and to reduce your cleaning time).

Speak to Our Kitchen Designers

If you want to design a low-maintenance kitchen, but you’re still feeling overwhelmed with where to start, contact our team of expert kitchen designers.

We have loads of tricks and tips when it comes to designing a beautiful kitchen that won’t become a chore to clean! Book a visit to our showroom to start planning your dream kitchen.