If you are considering refurbishing your kitchen, or perhaps are even having a new home built and need to choose the design of the kitchen, one of the most important considerations is that of the type of worktop that you will use.

Worktops come in many different types of materials – wood, stone, marble, granite, glass, concrete, quartz, stainless steel, limestone, porcelain, composites such as Corian, and very many more – so choosing the right one for your home can become complicated.

Obviously, you have to consider your budget, as prices can vary enormously, but the most important things are looks, function, and, of course, hygiene. You are going to be preparing your food on your kitchen worktops, so you want a material that is easy to clean and won’t harbour bacteria. It also has to be tough, because things can get dropped on to the surface, such as heavy metal pans, and ideally you want something that won’t get stained when the inevitable spills occur. Oh, and you want it to look great as well.

One material that ticks all the right boxes is granite. This is a natural stone which has been formed under intense heat and pressure. It consists of feldspar, mica, and about 20% quartz, plus other minor minerals which will affect the appearance and colour of the stone and will also result in variegated patterns and veining. So, every slab of granite is different from the next one. If you have granite worktops in Kingston, you can be certain that they will be unique.

There is a very wide choice of different colours of granite too, so there is bound to be the perfect match for your colour scheme. Granite can come in blues, greens, whites, grey, red, brown, cream, beige, black, and more.

A Very Hard Rock

Granite is also an extremely hard rock. However, that doesn’t mean that it is unbreakable. If you drop a cast iron pan on it from a height, it could crack if you are unlucky, and this is why you should not keep heavy pans in cupboards over the worktops. It could possibly chip at the edges as well. However, tough as it is, you should not cut or chop foods directly on to the surface, but that goes for any other worktop as well. Always use a chopping board.=

Granite worktops are also considerably heat resistant, having been formed under intense heat in the first place. Theoretically, this means that if you place a hot pan on granite directly off the hob, it should not have any effect. However, granite does have one small issue and that is that it is porous.

In common with many other kitchen worktop surfaces that means that it does need to be sealed with a sealant. It is the sealant that could be affected by a hot pan, so always use a trivet. Granite worktops are also very easy to clean, just needing a wipe over with a damp cloth.

Your granite worktops can have whatever type of finish you require, too. So, they can be polished, honed, brushed, or sandblasted as you choose.