When it comes to remodelling your kitchen, some people go the whole hog and throw everything out and start from scratch. There is nothing wrong with doing that, provided that you have the available cash, because when you add up all the appliances, worktops, furniture, cabinetry, and so on, it can come to a pretty penny. You could easily go through £25,000, or even much more, without batting an eyelid.
However, if you haven’t got a budget that large, you can nonetheless make a big difference to the look of your kitchen by changing the doors on the cabinets and replacing the worktops. If your budget runs to it, you might also want to tile the floor. Let’s face it: today many people use their kitchen for much more than just cooking and doing the washing up. A large majority of kitchens also house a washing machine and tumble dryer. Even more importantly, many families also eat in the kitchen and go so far as to entertain guests in there as well. To that extent, it has overtaken the dining room of years gone by, and this is another reason why people want their kitchen to look the bees’ knees.
One idea is to hide everything behind matching doors. So, you might have new doors on the cabinetry and at the same time install matching doors in front of the washing machine, fridge, freezer, and even the cooker.
When it comes to the worktops there are many different choices of materials that you can select from. For instance, there is wood, laminates, stainless steel, concrete, Minerva – which looks like stone – and then the real stones themselves including marble, granite, limestone, quartzite, and man-made stones such as quartz and sintered stone. In fact, there is so much to choose from that it can be hard to come to a decision.
If you want single-coloured worktops, then you might choose something such as a laminate: these are available in a wide range of colours. However, many people like the look of natural stone because many stones have waves and veining in them, and every slab is unique. When you use us at Marble & Granite for your worktops, you can choose the exact slabs that you want from our large stocks and we will craft your worktops out of them.
So you might go for granite worktops in Waltham Abbey, or perhaps marble or limestone, for example. Indeed, many people do choose marble because it has a luminescence all of its’ own and is like no other stone. Certainly, a lot of marble is white, but depending upon the minerals present when it was formed it can come in a range of greys and browns and have many striking different patterns. Marble is actually formed from limestone, which in turn is formed from the shells of sea creatures on the sea-bed and is basically the mineral calcite.
Calcite is about a number 3 on the Moh’s scale of hardness which means that marble is a relatively soft stone, and it will get scratched if you start cutting food up directly on the worktop. Marble will also etch if you spill anything acidic on to it such as vinegar or lemon juice. This leaves a slight change in the colour or lustre of the stone, and on a polished surface it will look dull. Etching can be polished out, or it can be left and accepted as part of the patina that marble will develop over time.
Marble is also porous, and while the porosity of all stones varies, it means that it can stain unless it is sealed.
Another stone that we have a demand for is quartzite. Unlike marble, quartzite is largely composed of quartz and is therefore a harder stone and more resistant to staining and acids than marble. On the Moh’s scale of hardness, it registers a 7 which is similar to granite. It comes in greys and browns, and even black, and has some incredible patterns and veining within it.
Whatever type of stone you might choose for your worktops – whether natural or man-made – at Marble & Granite we can help you. Come over to our showrooms in Hatfield and browse the slabs that we have available.
