Depending on your personal cooking style in the kitchen, whether it’s culinary whizz or baked beans on toast classic, the overall design and layout of your kitchen can either be a help or a hindrance to your culinary flow. When renovating a kitchen, many homeowners overlook a crucial element in cooking styles – the worktop. Choosing the right worktop for you cooking style is paramount as it will directly relate to how you use your new kitchen space moving forwards.
Kitchen designers Colwyn Bay can help you to decide which worktop is going to look aesthetically pleasing, whilst still being functional and a good overall fit for your lifestyle. Kitchen improvements can add significant value to your home if done properly.
With a huge range of materials on offer, ranging from wood to stainless steel; it can be a little overwhelming trying to figure out which worktop best matches to your needs. Being able to think clearly about how you intend to use your kitchen will allow you to make a more informed choice about your new worktops.
How Do You Use Your Kitchen
Before you get caught up in specific materials, it’s time to consider what exactly you plan on using your kitchen worktops for, and your overall cooking style.
Answer some simple questions:
- Are you going to be placing hot pans directly onto the work surfaces?
- Are you happy to spend time completing maintenance on your worktops? Including oiling wooden worktops or polishing glass.
- Have you considered potential staining? Are you prone to splashing wine or food around the place?
Getting a more in-depth understanding of how you intend to use the kitchen and what’s important to you, this will help you to choose the right material that will last in your kitchen.
Worktop Materials
Whilst there are a range of sub-categories, the main choices covered when it comes to kitchen worktops are; stone, wood, man-made composites, glass, stainless steel, concrete or laminate.
Natural stone gives a high quality finish, but this can be difficult to maintain as it requires regular sealing and maintenance. Man-made materials such as Corian or quartz are much easier to look after, but still give a nice high quality finish.
Laminate worktops are the most popular choice for most households investing in a new kitchen as they are easy to maintain and they come at an affordable cost. Alternatives such as glass or stainless steel are on the rise, although they come with a heftier price tag, but a contemporary look.
The Entertainer
Is your kitchen a bit of a social hub? A place where you gather your family and friends for socialising? If this is the case, you are probably looking for a worktop which has the wow factor, along with the ability to withstand those annoying drips and stains that go hand-in-hand with having potentially clumsy houseguests!
Stone materials including quartz, ceramics and granite can seamlessly blend the balance between looking amazing, but being durable enough to make allowances for the occasional spill. Avoid materials like glass or stainless steel, as these are more likely to suffer watermark damage.
Be aware that natural stone is a porous material, so you will need to ensure that it is treated regularly to avoid annoying issues with watermarks.
The Family Chef
Chances are, if you are cooking for the family, you’re going to need a kitchen worktop which is easy to keep clean, and is also highly durable. Avoid choosing high gloss kitchen units and easily cracked work surfaces as these don’t mix well with cooking with kids in the kitchen.
Laminate worktops can offer a certain level of durability which is mixed with practicalities; granite is also a good option for a predominantly family kitchen.
The Spice Fanatic
Do you enjoy getting fancy with the spices? If you love infusing your recipes with exotic, brightly coloured spices and experimenting with lots of colourful ingredients, then you should really avoid white, porous materials at all costs!
If you are regularly using ingredients like turmeric, paprika or chilli powder, which are likely to stain delicate surfaces, you should consider choosing a kitchen worktop made from stainless steel or glass.
Laminate worktops, are easy to keep clean, but they are easily damaged by heat – so if you like to put hot pans on the worktop, choose a different material or invest in a trivet.
