Kitchen worktops

Kitchen work­tops are both a work area and a dec­o­ra­tive ele­ment of the inte­ri­or. There­fore, when choos­ing, it is nec­es­sary to eval­u­ate not only the tech­ni­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics of the prod­uct, but also its appear­ance. Depend­ing on indi­vid­ual pref­er­ences, you can choose a stove for every taste and bud­get.

What should be the work surface

When choos­ing a kitchen set with a coun­ter­top, they always pay atten­tion to the mate­r­i­al from which it is made, its appear­ance and abil­i­ty to fit into the over­all style of the room. Anoth­er fac­tor influ­enc­ing the choice is the price.

The main char­ac­ter­is­tics that a high-qual­i­ty coun­ter­top for a kitchen table should have:

1. Strength and reli­a­bil­i­ty of the mate­r­i­al, sur­face resis­tance to abra­sion.
2. Resis­tant to high tem­per­a­tures.
3. The mois­ture-resis­tant work sur­face does not dete­ri­o­rate, swell or crum­ble if it is reg­u­lar­ly exposed to water.
4. Hygiene. A high-qual­i­ty coun­ter­top does not absorb dirt and odors. It does not breed mold and microor­gan­isms.
5. The mate­r­i­al from which the work sur­face is made should not be afraid of mechan­i­cal and chem­i­cal influ­ences.
6. Anoth­er advan­tage of a qual­i­ty coun­ter­top is that it is easy to care for.

Color selection

Table tops come in a wide range of col­ors.

First of all, it is worth decid­ing whether the prod­uct will be light or dark. The light work­ing sur­face of the tables is suit­able for an inte­ri­or dec­o­rat­ed in any style. Today, the most pop­u­lar col­or for kitchen coun­ter­tops is white. Glossy white is com­bined with high-tech, min­i­mal­ism, loft and Scan­di­na­vian styles, mat­te — with clas­sic and Mediter­ranean.

If the white col­or is not suit­able, and you need a light plate, you can make it beige or choose anoth­er close shade: ivory, cham­pagne, baked milk, vanil­la, pow­dery. Such a work area will be the per­fect back­drop for a bright back­splash or head­set facades.

Sep­a­rate­ly, it is worth pay­ing atten­tion to the gray, rem­i­nis­cent of the col­or of con­crete. Thanks to the pop­u­lar­i­ty of Scan­di­na­vian style, loft and high-tech, light and dark gray shades have become lead­ers in fash­ion trends in inte­ri­or design. Such a sur­face will suit the kitchen in white or dif­fer­ent shades of nat­ur­al wood.

A kitchen with a dark work­top attracts with its prac­ti­cal­i­ty. The most ver­sa­tile in terms of style choice is anthracite black. You can choose from glossy, satin or mat­te black. Galaxy col­or is pop­u­lar — black with a spark.

Kitchens with brown coun­ter­tops are no less com­mon. It can be all shades of choco­late or cof­fee of vary­ing inten­si­ty. They go well with nat­ur­al wood and light facades. The choice is good for coun­try, clas­sic, Mediter­ranean styles and many oth­ers.

For the work sur­face, you can choose a bright, accent col­or. The most pop­u­lar: red, bur­gundy, orange, pink, yel­low, blue, green, turquoise, pur­ple.

The col­or and pat­tern of coun­ter­tops often depend on the mate­r­i­al cho­sen, for exam­ple, they can be made of nat­ur­al stone or arti­fi­cial stone iden­ti­cal to it: gran­ite, mar­ble, onyx, alma­dine, opal, quartz, mala­chite, traver­tine. For the man­u­fac­ture of plates, var­i­ous types of nat­ur­al wood are often used. In this case, the col­or of the prod­uct will depend on its breed.

Countertop materials: pros and cons

There are dif­fer­ent types of coun­ter­tops for the kitchen. The work­ing area can be divid­ed into frag­ments, when each pedestal has its own top coat. It’s quite ergonom­ic. The table­top can be sol­id. In this case, the work­ing area is a mono­lith­ic slab.

Depend­ing on what the coun­ter­tops are made of, they are nat­ur­al or arti­fi­cial. These are wood­en or wood-like mate­ri­als, nat­ur­al or arti­fi­cial stone, ceram­ics, glass, plas­tic or met­al. Each mate­r­i­al has a num­ber of advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages. Let’s take a clos­er look at what coun­ter­tops are.

Plastic

For the man­u­fac­ture of a work­ing area of ​​plas­tic, the basis is a chip­board or MDF board. The HPL (High Pres­sure Lam­i­nates) plas­tic coat­ing is made in a hot process. It is dis­tin­guished by high strength, wear resis­tance and oth­er qual­i­ties nec­es­sary for a good coun­ter­top. Thanks to dig­i­tal print­ing, plas­tic imi­tates any sur­face and mate­ri­als. It can be glossy, mat­te and “sha­green”, have any col­or, pat­tern.

Plas­tic has a rel­a­tive heat resis­tance. The plas­tic sur­face with­stands con­tact with objects heat­ed up to 230°C, but for a short peri­od of time.

The dis­ad­van­tages include the fol­low­ing:

1. Glossy coun­ter­tops for the kitchen can cause some incon­ve­nience. It will have to be pol­ished all the time to get rid of fin­ger­prints.
2. Fea­tures of the base mate­r­i­al. If the joints and cuts are poor­ly insu­lat­ed, the base can swell and crum­ble, deform­ing the plas­tic. The same goes for dam­age.

Ceramic tile

The work­ing sur­face in the kitchen can be made of ceram­ic tiles of dif­fer­ent sizes. Most often, the same tile is select­ed for the table and apron. It can be a tile of any size, but most often they use frag­ments of 10x10 cm or a mosa­ic. Mosa­ic sur­faces in the kitchen look the best. She, in addi­tion to coun­ter­tops, cov­ers walls, win­dow sills and an apron.

Ceram­ics has all the char­ac­ter­is­tics nec­es­sary for work­ing areas. The main draw­back is the seams. The small­er the frag­ments, the more recess­es.

The ceram­ic coat­ing in the kitchen will have to be mount­ed on spe­cial mix­tures with anti­fun­gal addi­tives, and the seams should be sealed with sil­i­cone sealant. On a mosa­ic coun­ter­top in the kitchen, it will have to be changed reg­u­lar­ly. It is best to use a spe­cial rec­ti­fied tile with­out cham­fers for the top coat­ing, which is laid in a seam­less way.

Tempered glass

The best option for coun­ter­tops and back­splash is tem­pered glass. It is strong, does not scratch, with­stands high tem­per­a­tures up to 200 ° C and more, includ­ing from hot dish­es. When break­ing the sur­face, sharp frag­ments are not formed. It does not require spe­cial care.

A fea­ture of the mate­r­i­al is that it can­not be drilled and beveled, there­fore holes are made and dec­o­ra­tive pro­cess­ing is car­ried out before hard­en­ing.

Glass for coun­ter­tops can be col­ored, dec­o­rat­ed, trans­par­ent or mat­te. It will per­fect­ly fit into any style and design project.

Natural wood, chipboard and MDF

Nat­ur­al wood as a coun­ter­top mate­r­i­al has a num­ber of advan­tages. It is an envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly, durable mate­r­i­al, easy to process and amenable to restora­tion. It is best to use hard­wood: oak, beech, ash, birch, wenge. At the same time, nat­ur­al wood does not tol­er­ate con­tact with hot dish­es and burns out in the sun. Over time, scratch­es and stains may appear.

An ana­logue of nat­ur­al wood are wood-like mate­ri­als: chip­board and MDF. For the man­u­fac­ture of coun­ter­tops for a kitchen set, the plates are lam­i­nat­ed with PVC film, plas­tic or cov­ered with nat­ur­al veneer.

Syn­thet­ic dec­o­ra­tive lay­er can have any of 150 col­or options. From chip­board and MDF, you can make a durable, func­tion­al and beau­ti­ful work sur­face.

High-qual­i­ty MDF does not dry out, is not afraid of mois­ture and mechan­i­cal dam­age, and does not deform. Chip­board has worse tech­ni­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics. In addi­tion, poor-qual­i­ty mate­r­i­al can release formalde­hyde vapors for a long time. There­fore, you need to check with the sell­er before buy­ing the emis­sion class of the mate­r­i­al, which indi­cates the con­tent of formalde­hyde in it.

Natural and artificial stone

Stone coun­ter­tops for the kitchen have a num­ber of unde­ni­able advan­tages:

1. Dura­bil­i­ty. Sub­ject to the rules of oper­a­tion of the select­ed min­er­al, a prod­uct made from it can last 17 years or longer.
2. The beau­ty. Each plate has a unique shade and pat­tern.
3. Most breeds are resis­tant to tem­per­a­ture extremes.
4. Stone, except mar­ble, does not absorb odors and mois­ture.
5. It is an envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly, hypoal­ler­genic mate­r­i­al.
6. The stone has no elec­tri­cal sta­t­ic, so dust does not accu­mu­late on it.
7. Prod­ucts made of nat­ur­al stone are char­ac­ter­ized by high wear resis­tance, and if nec­es­sary, the sur­face of the coun­ter­top can be updat­ed.

The dis­ad­van­tages include:

• Large weight and thick­ness of stone slabs.
• Instal­la­tion and cut­ting holes for built-in house­hold appli­ances will have to be entrust­ed to spe­cial­ists.
• Some breeds, such as mar­ble, are more sen­si­tive to harsh chem­i­cals.
• The porous struc­ture, because of which the stone needs spe­cial care. It must be reg­u­lar­ly treat­ed with sealants con­tain­ing wax to pro­tect against the pen­e­tra­tion of con­t­a­m­i­nants deep into the pores.

Arti­fi­cial stone is cheap­er and more prac­ti­cal than nat­ur­al. At the same time, it is char­ac­ter­ized by the advan­tages of a nat­ur­al min­er­al — strength and dec­o­ra­tive­ness. Pop­u­lar types of arti­fi­cial mate­r­i­al:

1. acrylic stone. Min­er­al filler in acrylic resin. The table­top from it does not with­stand high tem­per­a­tures.
2. Quartz agglom­er­ate. Quartz chips in poly­mer resin. The mate­r­i­al can­not be restored.

A dark kitchen with a light mar­ble top and a white kitchen with a dark coun­ter­top made of gran­ite or its arti­fi­cial coun­ter­part look espe­cial­ly impres­sive.

Stainless steel

A stain­less steel coun­ter­top is a great solu­tion for the kitchen. The mate­r­i­al has all the advan­tages of a high-qual­i­ty work­ing coat­ing. The thick­ness of the met­al sheets is 0.8 mm. They are attached to chip­board with liq­uid nails. Then the edges are bent, the cor­ners are weld­ed, the bends are insu­lat­ed from below with plas­tic. Stain­less steel top has a mir­ror or mat­te sur­face, can be dec­o­rat­ed with a pat­tern.

The stain­less steel top is suit­able for any size room and tables of dif­fer­ent widths. But not for the cor­ner head­set. When form­ing a cor­ner, sheets of met­al will have to be weld­ed, and the seam looks unaes­thet­ic. Dents may appear on the sur­face if used care­less­ly. For care, do not use abra­sive clean­ers, often you have to pol­ish the sur­face, get­ting rid of fin­ger­prints.

Designer Tips

There are sev­er­al options for the strat­e­gy of choos­ing the col­or of the coun­ter­top kitchen fur­ni­ture:

1. Under the whole set. In this case, the work sur­face is select­ed tone on tone. Such a mono­chrome com­po­si­tion will be a good back­ground for a bright apron.
2. Under the col­or of indi­vid­ual facades.
3. Under an apron. In this case, one mate­r­i­al is cho­sen for their man­u­fac­ture.
4. Under the floor It can be wood, stone, lam­i­nat­ed chip­board or tile.
5. Under the win­dow sill. Recep­tion is used if the win­dow sill is part of the work­ing area.
6. Under the plinth. If the coun­ter­top is bright in col­or, you can paint the base­board or plinth under it for har­mo­ny. But the bright col­or of work sur­faces for the kitchen can be a self-suf­fi­cient dec­o­ra­tion and can­not be repeat­ed any­where else in the inte­ri­or. This coun­ter­top will go well with gray, white or black fur­ni­ture.
7. In con­trast. A dark set looks great with a light coun­ter­top and vice ver­sa. A white kitchen with dark oak, wal­nut or wenge wood­en work­tops will look quite con­trast­ing.

Rating of kitchen countertops by price

The most expen­sive coun­ter­top mate­r­i­al is nat­ur­al mar­ble. Oth­er min­er­als are cheap­er.

Prod­ucts made of pre­cious woods are quite expen­sive (ebony, mahogany and cam­pas, teak, rose­wood, etc.). Cheap­er coun­ter­tops made of wood of less valu­able species (oak, beech, etc.).

Stain­less steel is an expen­sive mate­r­i­al. Next in price is tem­pered glass.

Arti­fi­cial stone is an afford­able mate­r­i­al, only prod­ucts made from chip­board and MDF are cheap­er.