A few design tweaks can make your home lower maintenance, your life easier and your decor more beautiful, too. W hat’s not to love?
Take a pause, dear reader, and tell us what constitutes the perfect decor for you? Sure, everyone loves spaces suffused with luscious hues, the softest fabrics, perhaps a few design classics or artful modern pieces. But isn’t there one more factor that elevates a space into a dream home?
Design has recently taken on a new appreciation for how it needs to be liveable and pragmatic as well as beautiful. A space that doesn’t get consumed by the daily wear and tear, stains or bruises, but re-emerges every day like a phoenix from the ashes. We believe a happy home demands little, replenishes itself and gives aplenty. Essentially, we’re now looking to decor to be low-maintenance in order to give us more time to spend on enjoying it, less on sprucing it back up.
The secret to a low-maintenance space is the culmination of elements that not only look plush, but are also high in practicality and grow with you over time. ‘A home can be made of shiny, plasticised objects and surfaces, but sterile, polished materials [that have been in vogue a long time] demand constant care and attention in order to maintain their beauty,’ says Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen, founding partner at Norm Architects. Or in other words: collectively, we’re tired, and need materials that are inherently durable and require little upkeep.
Take kitchen countertops, for instance. Caesarstone reports anecdotally that more of its customers are turning away from its white marble-like surfaces that have been fashionable for a decade, and looking to darker, flecked surfaces, implying that our love affair with the (highly stainable) stone may be over as we look for a kitchen that takes less work to maintain. Step forward American brand Cupron, who has developed a surface embedded with copper ions which claim to stop pathogens from spreading, reducing the need to overly clean. Or Caesarstone’s recently launched 5121 Layalite quartz which stays perfect for generations to come, not requiring the sealing and maintenance of stone or wood. ‘Oversized veined streaks spread out over the surface, revealing mottled grey and ochre markings,’ says Mor Krisher, Caesarstone’s head of design. ‘What’s more, this quartz surface worktop is durable, flexible, scratch resistant and beautifully sophisticated.’
Advances in smart tech are keeping our homes clean, too. Robot vacuums are hugely popular, but what about building one into your house? The emergence of central vacuuming systems has been game changing –suffused into the structure of the home and with access through duct and pipes installed inside walls. British brand VacuSystems works by having a centrally lo
