What is better to make an apron on the wall in the kitchen

When ques­tions arise, what is bet­ter to make an apron on the wall in the kitchen, you should first of all pay atten­tion to the mate­ri­als used. They dif­fer in cost, shade, dimen­sions. At the same time, there are a num­ber of oth­er para­me­ters, but the main ones are such char­ac­ter­is­tics as wear resis­tance and strength. When choos­ing an option, the qual­i­ty of the wall sur­face is tak­en into account. The rougher it is, the bet­ter the adhe­sion with the adhe­sive will be. This is tak­en into account when choos­ing tiles, MDF plas­tic pan­els, stone (nat­ur­al, arti­fi­cial).

What is a kitchen apron for?

This ele­ment of the inte­ri­or per­forms 2 main func­tions:

Requirements for kitchen aprons in terms of combining functionality and beauty

Choose a mate­r­i­al that is suit­able in terms of prop­er­ties and appear­ance for the room. For exam­ple, it is inap­pro­pri­ate to use wall­pa­per for this pur­pose, because. they serve for a short time and poor­ly cope with their main task. If the ques­tion is being decid­ed, what is the best way to make an apron in the kitchen, you should pay atten­tion to whether the select­ed mate­r­i­al meets the require­ments for an inte­ri­or item of this type:

1. Mois­ture resis­tant. If you install an apron made of hygro­scop­ic mate­r­i­al on the wall, it will not last long. The appear­ance of fin­ish­ing the work­ing area is large­ly deter­mined by such a prop­er­ty as mois­ture resis­tance.
2. The mate­r­i­al from which the apron is made must with­stand expo­sure to high tem­per­a­tures. This is due to the fact that the coat­ing is locat­ed in close prox­im­i­ty to the stove, the source of hot water, which means it will be in con­tact with steam. The apron must with­stand not only high tem­per­a­tures, but also sud­den changes in the val­ue of this para­me­ter, which leads to the appear­ance of con­den­sate.
3. Ease of main­te­nance. It is not nec­es­sary to use mate­ri­als with a smooth sur­face. Limescale, grease, water drops are eas­i­ly removed from them. How­ev­er, this sec­tion of the wall gets dirty pret­ty quick­ly. If the ques­tion is decid­ed which is bet­ter to make an apron, you should pay atten­tion to mate­ri­als char­ac­ter­ized by a fine­ly porous struc­ture. Dirt lingers on such sur­faces less inten­sive­ly.
4. Resis­tant to mechan­i­cal stress. A durable apron lasts much longer.
5. Attrac­tive design. With the help of this ele­ment of the inte­ri­or, you can dec­o­rate the room, affect its visu­al per­cep­tion.

Features and Benefits

The sizes of the apron can be dif­fer­ent:

• a large-sized inte­ri­or ele­ment occu­pies a sec­tion of the wall from the lev­el of the hood to the floor;
• a stan­dard apron is char­ac­ter­ized by a height in the range of 55–75 cm.

The sec­ond option is more com­mon, because. mate­r­i­al in this case is spent more eco­nom­i­cal­ly. If the kitchen cab­i­nets are locat­ed at some dis­tance from each oth­er, it is rec­om­mend­ed to make an apron from the hood to the floor. The choice of mate­r­i­al is deter­mined by the require­ments for it, per­son­al pref­er­ences and finan­cial capa­bil­i­ties.

Often, ordi­nary ceram­ic tiles are used for this pur­pose. More expen­sive ana­logues are nat­ur­al / arti­fi­cial stone, mosa­ic, glass. Wood-based mate­ri­als are used less often. Of this group, MDF is most often used. Econ­o­my class mate­ri­als include plas­tic pan­els. If the user is lim­it­ed in funds, or there is a desire to cre­ate an orig­i­nal apron, any avail­able options should be con­sid­ered, for exam­ple, a can­vas from wine corks, which you can make your­self from impro­vised mate­ri­als.

When choos­ing an apron for the kitchen, you should decide whether it is appro­pri­ate to fin­ish the work­ing area and take into account the pos­i­tive qual­i­ties of this ele­ment of the inte­ri­or:

• low mate­r­i­al con­sump­tion — you do not have to close the entire wall, but only part of it;
• pro­tec­tion of the par­ti­tion, which is more exposed to aggres­sive fac­tors than oth­er sur­faces;
• improve­ment of inte­ri­or design;
• mul­ti­vari­ant exe­cu­tion;
• pro­vid­ed that the apron for the kitchen is cor­rect­ly cho­sen, you can count on a long peri­od of its oper­a­tion;
• rel­a­tive­ly sim­ple instal­la­tion;
• ease of care.

We select the color and design of the finish

There are such solu­tions:

1. With the help of fin­ish­ing the work­ing area, they cre­ate a back­ground for the kitchen set. Here the col­or of the apron should match the shade of the fur­ni­ture. Often they fin­ish the wall in light col­ors, and the front pan­els in dark­er ones. There is also the oppo­site option: the apron is a dark shade, and the head­set is light.
2. Focus on the apron. In this case, the fin­ish of the work­ing area stands out in col­or, con­trasts with the coat­ings of oth­er inte­ri­or ele­ments. The wall is dec­o­rat­ed with a bright pat­tern, pho­to­graph.
3. Orig­i­nal design. You can make an apron in the kitchen with your own hands, using impro­vised mate­ri­als. The unusu­al design of the work­ing area attracts atten­tion, dec­o­rates the room, makes the inte­ri­or unique.

If you use a neu­tral range (beige, white tone), such an apron is suit­able for a kitchen in any style. Fin­ish­ing with black mate­r­i­al is per­formed if the room already has design ele­ments in the same design. To visu­al­ly enlarge the space, the design of a small kitchen and work area is done in light col­ors.

What are kitchen aprons?

Fin­ish­ing the wall sec­tion near the stove / sink is car­ried out in dif­fer­ent ver­sions, dif­fer­ent in design, col­ors and mate­ri­als. The last of the para­me­ters is the most impor­tant, because the type of coat­ing deter­mines the prop­er­ties of the apron. Today it is pos­si­ble to fin­ish with lam­i­nate pan­els for the kitchen, and you can do it your­self. There are options from glass, tile, plas­tic, porce­lain stoneware, stone, use sheets of poly­car­bon­ate, ply­wood. If wood-con­tain­ing mate­ri­als are tak­en, then they must be mois­ture resis­tant. The sec­ond most impor­tant para­me­ter is mechan­i­cal strength.

Plastic

Pan­els of this type endure the impact of water. They with­stand mod­er­ate mechan­i­cal stress. How­ev­er, intense pres­sure on plas­tic of small thick­ness is fatal — the prod­uct cracks and can­not be restored. The advan­tages of this mate­r­i­al include low cost. In addi­tion, do-it-your­self plas­tic kitchen apron is rel­a­tive­ly easy to mount. It can be glued on liq­uid nails or oth­er adhe­sive com­po­si­tion suit­able for the type of mate­r­i­al.

In addi­tion, plas­tic pan­els hide sur­face imper­fec­tions well. They can be installed even on a curved wall. This pos­si­bil­i­ty is due to the flex­i­bil­i­ty of the mate­r­i­al. How­ev­er, he is not attrac­tive. The pan­els lose col­or in the sun, are exposed to high tem­per­a­tures, so they are not rec­om­mend­ed to be installed near the stove.

Budget from MDF

If the ques­tion is being decid­ed how to make an apron from MDF, the pos­i­tive qual­i­ties of this mate­r­i­al should be tak­en into account:

• low price;
• attrac­tive appear­ance;
• a wide range of options;
• sim­ple instal­la­tion;
• it is pos­si­ble to replace the cov­er­age area;
• envi­ron­men­tal friend­li­ness.

At the same time, MDF boards are not resis­tant to high tem­per­a­tures. Although slight­ly, they are still sus­cep­ti­ble to mois­ture. The ser­vice life of the mate­r­i­al in con­di­tions of high humid­i­ty will be short.

But in this case, there is no need to pur­chase spe­cial glue for instal­la­tion. If the ques­tion is how to install an MDF apron in the kitchen, you should know that for this it is enough to fix the pan­els on the wall using self-tap­ping screws / dow­els.

From ceramic tiles

The mate­r­i­al is durable, non-hygro­scop­ic, with­stands ultra­vi­o­let radi­a­tion, mod­er­ate mechan­i­cal loads. Due to these prop­er­ties, tiles are often used for fin­ish­ing an apron. The dis­ad­van­tage of this option is the need for care­ful align­ment of the wall. When installing tiles, sur­face flaws will be vis­i­ble.

In addi­tion, you need to choose an adhe­sive mix­ture. If the ques­tion is how to prop­er­ly lay the tiles, you should pay atten­tion to the uni­ver­sal com­po­si­tions. To fin­ish the work­ing area, you can use glue that can with­stand high tem­per­a­tures, because. the apron will be in close prox­im­i­ty to the hob.

From mosaic tiles

Such mate­r­i­al is rep­re­sent­ed by dif­fer­ent types, which dif­fer in the method of instal­la­tion, dimen­sions. There is a small tile. If you plan to make an apron for the kitchen from a mosa­ic with your own hands, you need to take into account that the instal­la­tion process of small-sized prod­ucts will take a lot of time.

An alter­na­tive option is to lay tiles in stan­dard sizes with a mosa­ic fin­ish. Such prod­ucts are mount­ed quick­ly, and in appear­ance it is dif­fi­cult to notice the dif­fer­ence. The mate­r­i­al is char­ac­ter­ized by sim­i­lar prop­er­ties as a tile, but requires more care­ful main­te­nance. This is due to the pres­ence of a large num­ber of grooves (seam joints) between the mosa­ic. The main advan­tage of the tile is the abil­i­ty to per­form any pat­tern or pat­tern.

From porcelain stoneware

The mate­r­i­al is char­ac­ter­ized by the same dimen­sions as the tile. Main advan­tages:

• increased strength;
• mois­ture resis­tance;
• easy care;
• long peri­od of oper­a­tion;
• attrac­tive appear­ance, resem­blance to gran­ite.

An apron made of porce­lain stoneware is attached with glue. The lay­ing tech­nol­o­gy is prac­ti­cal­ly no dif­fer­ent from the prin­ci­ple of installing tiles. This mate­r­i­al is offered at a low­er cost than the nat­ur­al coun­ter­part. How­ev­er, in appear­ance, these fin­ish­es are not much dif­fer­ent.

From glass

Pan­els made of this mate­r­i­al are called ski­nals. Plain or tem­pered glass can be used. The sec­ond option is prefer­able, but it costs more. Installing a glass apron made of tem­pered mate­r­i­al will pro­vide a reli­able coat­ing that is resis­tant to high tem­per­a­tures. Pan­els of this type are not afraid of aggres­sive agents, dam­age.

Sim­ple glass is cheap­er, but does not last long, because. sub­ject to mechan­i­cal stress. The main dis­ad­van­tage of this type of pan­els is the need for fre­quent main­te­nance. Do-it-your­self glass apron for the kitchen is not easy to install, because. you need to make holes for fas­ten­ers. The plus­es include an attrac­tive appear­ance, which is due to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of insert­ing a bright pho­to­graph, a pic­ture between the glass pan­els.

Made of artificial stone

Porce­lain stoneware is includ­ed in this group of mate­ri­als. This also includes acrylic stone. The last of the options is char­ac­ter­ized by a suf­fi­cient lev­el of strength, mois­ture resis­tance. The mate­r­i­al of this type is not exposed to high tem­per­a­tures, ultra­vi­o­let radi­a­tion, and is char­ac­ter­ized by a long ser­vice life. If the ques­tion is being decid­ed how to lay out an apron made of arti­fi­cial stone, you should know that with its help you can get a seam­less coat­ing. In addi­tion, there are a large num­ber of fin­ish­es of this type, excel­lent in col­or, tex­ture.

From natural stone

This is the most expen­sive option, so it is not used as often as its coun­ter­parts. This group includes gran­ite, mar­ble. The prop­er­ties of nat­ur­al stone cor­re­spond to porce­lain stoneware. Pan­els of this type dif­fer in shade. Today, a wide range of prod­ucts is offered in black, pink, red, yel­low, blue, gray, brown and white. The dis­ad­van­tages include the com­plex­i­ty of instal­la­tion. The fas­ten­ing of the apron made of nat­ur­al stone is car­ried out using a spe­cial glue.

Do-it-yourself installation

First of all, you need to remove the old coat­ing. Then the sur­face is lev­eled. If nec­es­sary, the wall is re-plas­tered. In the case when the sur­face is not smooth enough, and there are obvi­ous defects, they are elim­i­nat­ed by fill­ing with put­ty. Then the wall is treat­ed with a primer. At the next stage, the actions may dif­fer, it all depends on the type of mate­r­i­al that is used:

• a mount­ing grid is attached or notch­es are pre­pared on the wall, which will allow you to secure­ly fix the tile;
• holes are made in the wall for dow­els.

Installing an apron in the kitchen requires the use of a build­ing lev­el, with its help they check the qual­i­ty of the coat­ing. Holes for sock­ets in the kitchen apron are made before installing the fin­ish­ing mate­r­i­al. If it is planned to con­duct light­ing, wall chas­ing is per­formed at the stage of prepar­ing the rough sur­face.

Interesting ideas in interior design

The most orig­i­nal fin­ish­es sug­gest the need to use inex­pen­sive mate­ri­als:

1. peb­bles;
2. wine corks;
3. decoupage on a kitchen apron;
4. an apron made from frag­ments of var­i­ous types of tiles, plates and even cups;
5. slate paint fin­ish.

The choice of a suit­able idea should be done tak­ing into account your own capa­bil­i­ties and pref­er­ences. You also need to con­sid­er what mate­ri­als are avail­able.