Marble countertop for kitchen

Mar­ble coun­ter­tops for the kitchen fit into any inte­ri­or, both clas­sic and mod­ern. Noble nat­ur­al stone goes well with wood, glass, ceram­ics, met­al, and with the high skill of the design­er — with plas­tic. Mar­ble slabs have indi­vid­ual pat­terns that nev­er repeat, so a coun­ter­top made of this mate­r­i­al will not only be spec­tac­u­lar, but also unlike oth­ers. This mate­r­i­al demon­strates the sta­tus of the own­er and at the same time cre­ates com­fort­able con­di­tions and cozi­ness.

Benefits of marble kitchen countertops

Mar­ble coun­ter­tops for the kitchen have sev­er­al advan­tages:

1. They are beau­ti­ful. There are many options for unique col­ors and pat­terns of coun­ter­tops. The stone has white, cream, red, gray, pink, blue, green, black and brown col­ors and shades. With cor­rect­ly placed light sources, the struc­ture of mar­ble becomes espe­cial­ly expres­sive.
2. Nat­ur­al stone does not cause aller­gic reac­tions. He is envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly.
3. The mate­r­i­al is resis­tant to mechan­i­cal dam­age.
4. Mar­ble is cool to the touch at any time of the year.
5. With prop­er care, this mate­r­i­al is quite durable.
6. The stone is well processed.
7. Grind­ing and pol­ish­ing mar­ble allows you to update its appear­ance.

There are also dis­ad­van­tages of coun­ter­tops made of nat­ur­al stone. The main one is the high cost of mar­ble prod­ucts. Even the cheap­est option will cost more than nat­ur­al wood or arti­fi­cial stone. Anoth­er dis­ad­van­tage of the coun­ter­top is the fragili­ty of the mate­r­i­al and sen­si­tiv­i­ty to high tem­per­a­tures. Due to its high poros­i­ty, mar­ble eas­i­ly absorbs dirt. There are traces of prod­ucts and acids on it, includ­ing vine­gar, cit­ric acid, etc. With age, the coun­ter­top becomes cov­ered with a pati­na and needs to be updat­ed.

Marble countertop in modern interiors

Light mar­ble is con­sid­ered the most ver­sa­tile — white with pale veins, light blue or gray with a pro­nounced pat­tern. The advan­tage of this type of mate­r­i­al is that scratch­es are invis­i­ble on the sur­face of the coun­ter­top. Such a stone fits per­fect­ly into the inte­ri­or of any col­or and style, but the white kitchen looks most impres­sive with such a table.

The uneven pat­tern of nat­ur­al stone veins har­mo­nizes well with the straight lines of a mod­ern clas­sic kitchen made of nat­ur­al wood. Light stone is cho­sen for the design of work sur­faces for the kitchen in coun­try or Provence style.

Kitchen mar­ble coun­ter­tops can be mat­te, glossy and antique. The mat­te fin­ish is silky to the touch, scratch­es and chips are not notice­able on it, and the col­or of the stone is mut­ed. At the same time, this treat­ment con­tributes to the open­ing of the pores of the mate­r­i­al, which reduces its resis­tance to con­t­a­m­i­na­tion.

The glossy sur­face empha­sizes the beau­ty of the stone, it is more resis­tant to dirt and dam­age, but it also has a high­er price. The tex­ture of the skin is inher­ent in the antique coat­ing. It is most often used for pro­cess­ing dark mar­ble. The sur­face of such a coun­ter­top has a beau­ti­ful ebb. It hides fin­ger­prints, chips and scratch­es well.

Soft silky mat­te stone looks good in coun­try-style inte­ri­ors, while glossy organ­i­cal­ly fits into baroque and art deco styles, com­bined with gold and stuc­co. Bril­liant mar­ble coun­ter­tops go well with a high-tech inte­ri­or, where it coex­ists with the bril­liance of met­al and glass.

The mar­ble work­top is com­bined with cast sinks made of arti­fi­cial stone to match the nat­ur­al and aprons made of the same mate­r­i­al.

How to choose a marble countertop

Choos­ing mar­ble for the kitchen with the help of cat­a­logs and sam­ples, first of all, pay atten­tion to the col­or and pat­tern of the stone.

To cal­cu­late the price and select the plates, you need to know the dimen­sions of the coun­ter­top. They use both mas­sive mono­lith­ic sur­faces for seam­less prod­ucts, and small ones, which is a more eco­nom­i­cal option. Large coun­ter­tops are assem­bled from sev­er­al slabs, the edges of which must be care­ful­ly processed and rein­forced before join­ing. Prop­er­ly pre­pared joints are prac­ti­cal­ly not vis­i­ble on the fin­ished prod­uct.

When choos­ing a coun­ter­top, you need to con­sid­er that mar­ble includes inclu­sions of oth­er min­er­als, which lat­er look like defects.

The thick­ness of the plate must be at least 1.9 cm, the width of the pro­tru­sion is stan­dard — 2.5–3 cm. The edge can be of var­i­ous shapes, but the most prac­ti­cal is rec­tan­gu­lar.

End pro­files are the fin­ish­ing touch to the design. They also have a prac­ti­cal mean­ing — they pro­tect the ends from chips. When choos­ing the end pro­files of coun­ter­tops, pay atten­tion to their pro­cess­ing. It can be a sim­ple pol­ish­ing, cham­fered pol­ish­ing, semi-roller, roller or shaped pro­file. It is impor­tant that the sur­face is smooth, with­out dam­age.

Mounting Features

They install a ready-made coun­ter­top, made accord­ing to the mea­sure­ments of the cus­tomer. The work is ham­pered by the large weight and thick­ness of the prod­ucts, so the instal­la­tion is car­ried out by a whole team of crafts­men and you should not do it your­self. In order not to dam­age the stone, the coun­ter­top is installed on the already ful­ly assem­bled fur­ni­ture in the fol­low­ing sequence:

1. Per­form a “dry” fit­ting and lev­el­ing the sur­face. Gas­kets are installed in places of dis­crep­an­cy with the lev­el.
2. Apply mask­ing tape to the seams.
3. The table­top is fixed at 4 cor­ners of the mod­ule from the inside and out­side and fixed around the perime­ter. For fas­ten­ers, use a set of dow­els, self-tap­ping screws and sil­i­cone sealant. Fill the seams with epoxy, tint­ed to match the stone.
4. Install wall plinth.
5. After the instal­la­tion is com­plet­ed and the glue has com­plete­ly dried, the stone is pol­ished, and the remain­ing glue is removed with dena­tured alco­hol.

If a built-in sink and house­hold appli­ances are pro­vid­ed, it is mount­ed simul­ta­ne­ous­ly with the coun­ter­top. The holes are pre-cut with a grinder.

Natural stone care

A mar­ble coun­ter­top kitchen needs spe­cial care. You will have to pur­chase spe­cial prod­ucts based on beeswax or syn­thet­ic wax, which, with reg­u­lar use, will pro­tect the sur­face from the effects of aggres­sive sub­stances and stains. Pol­lu­tion must be removed imme­di­ate­ly, not allow­ing it to be absorbed into the pores of the stone. First you need to rinse with clean water, and then wipe dry with a tow­el.

For clean­ing use spar­ing means. Pow­der and abra­sive, chlo­rine-con­tain­ing and oth­er aggres­sive sub­stances are not allowed.

Any prod­uct that is planned to clean mar­ble must first be tried on an incon­spic­u­ous area of ​​the stone. For dai­ly care, a solu­tion of dish­wash­ing liq­uid and a soft cloth made of cot­ton or vis­cose will do. For rad­i­cal clean­ing, spe­cial prepa­ra­tions for the care of the stone are need­ed.

To pro­tect expen­sive mate­r­i­al from scratch­es, you should always use coast­ers and a cut­ting board for cut­ting with a knife. Grind­ing is car­ried out at least once a year.