Redesigning your kitchen can without doubt cost the proverbial arm and a leg if you are going to throw everything out and start afresh, which might be desirable, but for many people not affordable. So, for many people the answer is to make the changes which have the most impact but won’t cost a small fortune.
This means that you can really change the appearance of your kitchen simply by changing the cabinetry and the worktops.
And when it comes to the cabinetry, you don’t have to change the cabinets themselves, if you follow our reasoning, but simply change the cabinet doors and possibly drawer fronts. Yes, you can give a whole new look to your kitchen by leaving the body of the cabinets where they are and just changing the front! Does that make sense?
And you can improve on that by changing the worktops, and if applicable splashbacks, at the same time.
When it comes to considering the worktops and splashbacks, there is a very wide choice of different materials available. You can use timber, stainless steel, laminates, natural stone, glass, engineered stone, cement, and so on.
One of the toughest materials – and also the most bacteria resistant and easy to clean – is stainless steel. This is used in very many commercial kitchens for those reasons, but the problem with stainless steel in the home is the appearance. A tough material it may be, but you don’t really want your kitchen to look like a hospital.
Wood can look very nice indeed, and it certainly can give your kitchen a country appearance, but it is not all that practical. Compared with other materials, it is relatively cheap, although no worktop material can be said to be “cheap”, but it does need a lot of tlc and maintenance. In order to protect it, it will need sanding and oiling on a regular basis, and by that we mean several times a year. And of course, it can be very subject to scratches, which is not necessarily a good thing in a kitchen where you use knives and forks a lot.
Laminates are a cost-effective material, and they come in a wide choice of colours and patterns. However, they are prone to chips and cuts, and connecting joints can be prominent.
But today, more than ever, many people who ae refurbishing their kitchens are choosing stone worktops in London. There are different types of stone available, both natural stone and man-made stone. Natural stones include granite, marble, quartzite, and limestone, while the most popular man-made stone is quartz. Quartz can be confusing because it is a natural stone and is one of the most abundant minerals on our planet. However, when it is used in kitchen worktops, the natural quartz is ground down to an aggregate which is then combined with resins, and pigments for colouring. So, the quartz worktops that we provide consist of about 93% natural quartz stone with the rest being the resins and pigments.
This produces a worktop which is extremely long-lasting and is totally non-porous, so it never needs sealing as some natural stones such as marble and granite do. Since it is non-porous that also means that it is totally hygienic as well which is no bad thing in a kitchen.
However, many people love the beauty of natural stones in a kitchen, and of these the most popular are marble and granite, which is why we named our company after them. As natural stones, every slab is different, and although a lot of marble is white (think the Taj Mahal) it can also come in blues, greys, greens, browns, reds, and so on, all of which can have incredible graining in them, so you can produce some wonderful patterns by mixing slabs.
Granite, too, can come in a wide choice of different colours and graining, and it is also one of the toughest stones known to man. Whoever invented the term “hard as a rock” was probably thinking of granite. It can also be used out in the garden too, and we can provide granite sets, bespoke granite curbs, and granite stone flags for any project that you have in mind.
