Tips for helping you choose a kitchen worktop
Lifestyle

Tips for choosing a kitchen worktop

This is collaborative post. 

For those of you who have been following my blog and social channels will know that we have just completed our kitchen extension and nearly finished our house renovation.

When we moved into our home in March 2018 one of the first things we did was to put our minds to our kitchen extension, opening up the back of the house to create a huge open plan living, dining and kitchen area. To be honest it was our dream as soon as we saw the house on our first viewing in the summer of 2017. It was crying out for a renovation and the layout suited a kitchen extension perfectly.

Fast forward nearly two years and our kitchen extension and kitchen is complete. When I first started talking to builders I already had the style of the kitchen in my head. It needed to be modern and I wanted a dark kitchen, leading us down the route of black kitchens. My Pinterest boards and Instagram saved collections quickly became filled up with black or dark grey kitchens, with various different worktops, layouts and flooring solutions.

Once we had selected the colour for the doors and decided on the flooring for the space, our next step was to think about the worktop. And do you know what, it is a minefield when it comes to worktops. There are so many, so many different materials, different colours, different thicknesses and different veins. The aim of this blog post is to share with you my tips for choosing a worktop, that meets your needs and also works with the kitchen that you are creating, and hopefully it will make the process easier for you.

Budget

The first thing that you need to think about is your budget. Worktops are expensive, but it is one area of the kitchen where you want to be spending money. It is something that is seen and used everyday, and also needs to stand the test of time. So before you start shopping around for worktops think about how much you have to spend. Just to give you an example we spent about 30 – 35% of our kitchen budget on our quartz worktop.

Material

The next factor to consider is the material for your worktop, which is ultimately linked to cost and your budget. Worktop materials include granite, quartz, marble, corian, glass, concrete, slate, laminate and wood. There are probably some that I haven’t even listed here and HC Supplies have a huge range for you to peruse and to help you decide.

Firstly think about the style that you like and how tough you would like the worktop to be. Granite and Quartz are super strong; the material will take a hot pan and isn’t likely to stain and scratch, which is perfect if you’re creating a family kitchen. Marble is stunning, but it can mark and scratch more easily than quartz. Wood looks great in more traditional kitchens but isn’t so good around the sink. Laminate is easier on the budget and is available is many styles to make it look like the real thing.

Our Quartz kitchen worktop in our kitchen extension

Style and colour

Just like the material there are hundreds of different styles and colours you can choose from depending on your design aspirations for your kitchen. You need to consider the pattern; would you like a worktop that is plain, with a slight pattern or vein, or with a bold pattern or vein. It comes down to personal choice and how bold you want to be.

For our worktop I wanted the pattern to be fairly striking, yet I also had in the back of my mind that it needed to be something I didn’t hate in a years time. So we opted for a light white quartz worktop with a dark vein that matches the colour of the doors and drawer fronts. So my advise here is to really consider all the different styles and colours, what appeals to you and what doesn’t appearl you. Shop around and see as many different varieties of materials as possible at places like Stone Synergy.

In addition to the style and colour, you also need to consider the thickness. Our worktop is 30mm thick as I wanted it to have impact in the room. You can also go thinner or thicker. Thinner worktops generally look slightly more sleek and modern. Whilst thicker worktops also look modern if they are flush with your door fronts or used in a more traditional styled kitchen.

A close up our Quartz kitchen working showing the colour and the veining

Installation

This might be a bit of an odd point but when choosing a worktop you need to think about the installation. I’m sure that most worktops can be installed in your kitchen, but do you have the access to get a huge slab of stone in? When purchasing a worktop access to the property is something to discuss before handing over your money. You should also understand what lengths the worktop comes in and whether you will need to have any joins in the worktop, and where these will be.

Along with everything else when it comes to a home renovation there is so much to think about when choosing a worktop, it is a big and expensive decision, so don’t rush it. My best advise is to shop around, consider all your options, take home samples, see how the sample copes with red wine stains and a fork scraping across, and lastly think about will it stand the test of time from a practical point of view and also from a style point of view.

Are you in the middle of a kitchen renovation? If so I hope that this post has helped.

Claire x

Tips for helping you choose a kitchen worktop

 

 

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