Harmonizing your environment is the philosophy behind Feng Shui, and whether you’re a cynic or a true believer, there’s something to be said about achieving balance in your life.
Often there is nothing more rewarding than looking over your freshly cleaned home environment. Let’s face it though, a cluttered space is not easy to clean. Have you ever thought about how arranging your furniture can affect your ability to keep your house clean? Well Feng Shui can be the answer to maximizing your space while reducing your cleaning time.
Arranging Your Furniture
Although it might look interesting to have an eclectic set up with a ton of pieces scattered oddly about in your space, an unorganized space is difficult to clean. Following Feng Shui principles, simplicity is crucial when arranging your furniture to create an easy cleaning space.
Placing your furniture up against walls not only maximizes your space and makes smaller rooms look larger, but it also makes keeping the area clean easier. It’s much quicker to vacuum a large, open space than to attempt to vacuum between (and under) numerous pieces of furniture scattered about. Another benefit is not having empty space behind your furniture to collect dust, leaving you with the necessity of squeezing between the sofa and wall to clean the area.
Using larger pieces of furniture also helps. First, it’s much easier to arrange less furniture in a uniform and easy-to-clean manner than a ton of smaller pieces. Second, larger pieces, such as your sofa and bed, look natural pushed up against the wall. If you’d like the ability to move larger furniture pieces to clean underneath then consider using furniture casters, which come in all shapes and sizes and make rolling your items out of the way to clean under much easier.
Easy-to-Clean Surfaces
The size and arrangement of your furniture is only half the battle. Some surfaces are simply easier to keep clean than others. While that suede couch might look elegant in your new living room, your Labrador’s fur sticking to it is going to quickly become a huge frustration. So, what surfaces are better for quick and easy cleaning than others?
If you have pets then you might already know that carpeting works better than hardwood floors for the simple reason that the fur sticks to carpet rather than floats around. Vacuuming a carpet cleans it quickly and easily, and acrylic and polyester fibres are generally the easiest to keep clean. Having your carpet treated with a stain guard also makes cleaning up unexpected messes a breeze.
You probably don’t want carpeting in your kitchen or bathrooms, so let’s talk tile surfaces. Sure, it’s nice to have the old-fashioned tile pieces spaced perfectly and held securely with grout… but what about that grout? When thinking easy-to-clean flooring surfaces (and countertops), think seamless, because nothing gets dirty quicker than tile grout. For your floors, stained and sealed concrete, linoleum, or sheet vinyl is the way to go. These surfaces sweep and mop easily and do not have hard-to-clean seams.
For your countertops, think granite, stainless steel, quartz, or laminate. Again, no seams, easy to clean with the appropriate cleaners, and if you set your sink low into them, you can just sponge spills and messes directly into your sink. It really doesn’t get much easier than that.
Cleaning is a chore, but it doesn’t have to be a huge burden. If you arrange your furniture with a sense that larger empty spaces are easier to keep clean, use casters to easily move the pieces once it’s time to clean underneath them, and select materials that are low-maintenance, you’ll find the perfect harmony between keeping your house clean and enjoying quality downtime.
Source: Busybee Cleaning Services
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