As long as the puddling curtains drag on hard wood not carpet I guess it is ok. :)

i went with freestanding furniture in my bath room spaced so a vacuum could fit entirely under and around it and had my plumber place the toilet the exact width of my vacuum away from the wall for ease of cleaning. I was surprised how much stuff got under my built in kitchen cabinets when we removed one. I guess I kinda think it is less maintance to deep clean with free standing vs built in.

I also do not know that our society isn't too clean and am trying to embrace more dirt. My first born had terrible food allergies and most of my research showed that food allergies and immune disease is far more rampant in first world nations overly concerned with hygiene.

i think the Internet has killed unique design. Although there are too many choices now ( I am overwhelmed and unable to choose a simple chandelier) but yet every interior some how looks the same to me.

The dramatic postwar shift in hygiene and sanitation coupled with bottle feeding were in part responsible for the polio epidemics of the era.

I am pretty particular about keeping the bathrooms clean --and dry I suppose: everything gets wiped down after use. And we are clean in the kitchen. But I'm not fanatical about expiration dates or leftovers and I would eat almost anything I dropped on the kitchen floor. But I know we have lots of dust because of books and rug and belongings and we live in a city. I don't know that there's much that can eliminate it except to not have things.

I have a therory that staying neat keeps me from wanting to redo my house every few years. With dual income households pro cleaned only bi-weekly things look dull faster then they did when we had full time homemakers. That and more disposable income has lead to an incessant need to stay "on trend" perhaps.

I am a clean as I go gal. I dry my shower tile, floor and glass with a squeegee after each shower, toilets and sinks get wiped every am and again pm and wipe water drops off counters whenever they fall. My kids know to put one thing away before taking out another and dishes go straight from table to dishwasher. We sweep after each meal and I use a lithium battery vac daily.

With this routine I have to admit I have only disinfected my showers a handful of times in the last year and there is not a spec of mold and my grout, even in my 90 year old bath, looks very new and clean.

Less than fifteen minutes of extra work a day keeps my home with pets and young kids drop in ready and my finishes do not look tired and for me it keeps the need to redo at bay. I think trendy vs dated is mentally more about old vs fresh. If our things still look new we will not tire as quickly of them.

I grew up with hardwood floors and Persian/Oriental carpets, and I think that's why I've always liked them, for the look and also ease of maintenance. I also grew up wearing slippers in the house (European parents and grandparents), and still have the habit.

I was so happy to discover the GW kitchen forum and the "kitchen obsessed". Drawers in base cabinets make so much sense to me. I wouldn't have doors again if I could help it, certainly don't want cabinet curtains, and especially not the puddling variety. It's bad enough having to get down on hands and knees to search to the back of a shelf in a base cabinet, but having to shove aside acres and swaths of linen on your way in AND out? Nope.

In my twenties in a dismal rental apartment, I did try to fancy up a bathroom and create more storage by Velcroing fabric around a pedestal sink. No puddles, though. Ever since that time, too, I've had a weakness for the early Smallbone/Johnny Grey unfitted kitchens. Still remember first seeing baskets used as drawers, and I still have the 1988 brochure from their NY office,

coving the floors up onto the walls and base of the cabinets

My husband is a builder and this is his approach, inherited from his builder father before him. I'm not crazy about the look, but it is practical and there are other hills on which I'd prefer to die...

I think the coving can be done in various ways that are less institutional looking. But I did use 2x2 in the bathrooms which is institutional but also the sort of thing the original architect used.

I designed a coved wood baseboard that my carpenter could make but installation was too tricky.

I was thinking something like black Corian cove in the kitchen if I do slate floors. Don't know yet

For me it's not that it's institutional looking but that it can look like the flooring is trying to climb up the cabinetry : ) .

It was more of a problem in my current kitchen, in an earlier incarnation, when the flooring was horrid white/gray/mauve vinyl sheet (my husband picked out shortly after we met but before we realized we had a future together, and that the flooring would be in it) and the 1950s wood cabinets were painted off white. Much less of a problem in the new house we're finishing, which has medium brown wood-look vinyl plank flooring and the medium brown Ikea kitchen cabinetry; and the vinyl plank flooring is much sturdier than Ikea's ready-made plastic toekick (and $25 for 84" to boot, too).

Black Corian with slate floors sounds as if it should work very well.

I also do not know that our society isn't too clean and am trying to embrace more dirt.

roarah, we live in a rural farming community, and while I had knew the saying, "You have to eat a peck of dirt before you die" I'd never had anyone actually give me that piece of advice. But I did, when my eldest was born and we were invited to tea with the matriarch of one of the oldest families in the nearby town. There's actually a lot of wisdom to that, and I recall news not too long ago the farm kids have fewer allergies and less asthma than their urban counterparts.

For me, it's not just a battle keeping the mud, snow, and straw at the door, but also the fact that between farming and our other home-based business, we're around the house much more than other people are, so furnishings tend to get well-used, which means there's constant tidying as well as cleaning.

I've always loved the look of an unfitted kitchen - especially if the ceilings are high enough to have a big French armoire. Alas, my armoire would not fit in the current house without massive expense, so I went with a fitted kitchen.

For bathtubs, I see no point in anything other than an old cast iron footed beast. They are more work to clean around and under. I have mobility issues, so the bathroom remodels included a longer modern tub for the bather and a shower stall for me.

I had seen the dirt on the floor when carpeting was removed, but thought that was just poor maintenance or a disintegrating pad. My aversion to carpet came from what I saw under my own rugs. No shoes inside, frequent vacuuming, etc. I spotted something the cat had probably pushed under the rug, lifted the edge and was mortified. It looked like I had been sweeping dirt under the rug! At first I though it might be the rug backing, but the dirt was clearly what had worked its way through the pile and the backing. Buying a new vacuum didn't help. I started taking up the rugs several times a year, vacuuming the backs and cleaning the floors underneath.

I can't wait to see your kitchen Pal! I really love the soapstone I put in the shower as the threshold with the faux slate tile I did. It might work for the cove in your kitchen. I am sure there all kinds of corian, but the ones I saw didn't look great with the tile and the soapstone just seems to work.

I was just thinking of replacing the washable rugs in my bathroom now you have me rethinking it!

I love carpet in bedrooms but DH has allergies and really thinks it makes a difference in not having it. He doesn't even want throw rugs :( we have those dust mite covers too. My son has the same dust mite allergy.

I had a house that had a drain in the kitchen floor. It was an awful kitchen though :( and we never actually used the drain! I often wondered why it was there. if I was smarter I would have figured out how to clean the commercial range and hood the PO put in with a hose using the drain. I know for sure they never did that because It took me so long to clean that range when we moved in. It was disgusting and I am sure had never been cleaned :(