One of the harshest realities about home cleaning is that the job never really ends. As soon as you finish cleaning one thing, another gets dirty—and in no room is that truer than in the kitchen. Between all the cooking, the eating, and the foot traffic the space gets, a kitchen is subjected to a pretty constant flow of mess-causing activity. So, it’s important that your kitchen design can withstand all the action and stay looking nice through it all, and some features and finishes do a much better job at this than others. Designers told us the design choices that can make a kitchen look much dirtier much faster. Keep these on your what-to-avoid list for any upcoming kitchen renovations.

Darci Hether , founder of a namesake interior design firm, found out the hard way that matte, solid-

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