Choosing the best worktop for your new modern kitchen

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So you've decided to revamp your kitchen, or perhaps even create a new one from scratch: you've designed, planned and created the look and feel of the space, and how it will function, both as an independent space, and one that harmonises with the rest of the home interior. You've thought about the hardware, the cabinetry, the flooring and the trimmings… but have you given adequate thought to your preparation areas?

Kitchens are a crucial space to get right: they're the engines of our homes, the all-important meeting points, where the line between aesthetics and functionality are perhaps the most pronounced of any other interior space. In them, we need something that not only works well and provides the space and area we need to keep our lives running, but also looks great too – one that we feel comfortable about spending significant periods of time within, attending to our various day-to-day tasks. One of the most crucial elements of the aesthetic and functionality of any kitchen space is the worktop, and the materials selected in order to create it.

Today, we've come a long way from the traditional wood worktops and benches that our distant forebears used in their domestic kitchen. Modern technology has developed a wide variety of different bench and worktop materials, all of which provide brilliant solutions to the full range of modern kitchen needs. 

Today on homify, we're taking look at some of the more desirable and interesting kitchen worktop materials on offer: a basic working guide to some of the latest, and most resilient, worktop materials available. Take a wander through, and get inspired!

Decadent dekton

You may or may not have heard of 'Dekton', a robust, relatively new material developed by the group Cosentino. Dekton is a sophisticated blend of raw materials that are typically used to make glass, porcelain and quartz workspaces. However, by fusing these materials, Dekton provides a much denser and much more scratch resistant surface. It's also 100% UV stable, which means it won't fade or discolour under excessive natural light. 

As we see here in this neat, well-appointed kitchen space, Dekton can provide an immaculate, clean and alluring kitchen worktop. Easy to clean, effortless to maintain, and ultra resilient under almost any condition, it's one of the leading choices for modern kitchens today.  

With choice comes confusions, and the fact that we have so many options these days can make things even more complicated when it comes to making the right moves in the kitchen – especially for things like worktops, which employ such an advanced and complex array of new materials. If you need a little extra advice, why not chat to a professional?

Krion

Another material that you may not have come across before is 'Krion': a new worktop surface developed in recent years by SYSTEMPOOL. Warm to the touch, Krion provides one of the most convincing alternatives to natural stone, constructed with two-thirds natural minerals, and a low percentage of very high resistance plastic resin. Its hardwearing, resilient, easy to repair, and its lack of pores makes it naturally anti-bacterial.

The way it's constructed and set also lends itself to unique curved shapes and sections, just like this fabulous example here: a decadent, futuristic, clean and fresh kitchen worktop, contoured and classily designed without edges.

Natural wood

Of course, as good as all this modern advancement is, some of us will always gravitate towards the tried and true: a material that has been providing more than adequate kitchen worktop materials for centuries. For a rustic, country-styled or more natural aesthetic, there's no replacement for timber. Delivering a fine combination of robustness and warmth, timber continues to provide an excellent choice for any modern kitchen worktop.

True, it is a lot softer than many modern materials, and can wear out a lot faster, but the olds ways are, in many ways, the best, and natural aesthetics like this can be very hard to replicate with artificial methods. For something classic and hardwearing, timber continues to provides a fabulous worktop choice.

Marvellous marble

They say a good kitchen worktop should ideally be able to withstand a decade or more of heavy use before needing replacement. In the case of marble, it just might be longer. 

As one of the most robust and resilient worktop materials available, there are a lot of aesthetic and perfunctory benefits to implementing marble in the kitchen: as well as being rock solid, it's a very pleasing choice for the eye, giving any kitchen a decidedly elegant, monumental and spacious look. It's also effortless to clean, and retains a cool temperature even under high heat. As we see in this fine example, marble really strikes a fine balance: a material that is highly functional, aesthetically pleasing, robust and desirable.

Natural stone

Of course, marble isn't the only natural stone often worked with in the kitchen space. There are a range of different natural stone finishes that serve as excellent worktop materials, the most popular being marble, quartz and granite. Of these choices, granite is perhaps the most reliable, and certainly the most robust. It's considered the hardest structural stone available on the market, and one of the most versatile and decorative.

This example here is case in point for the virtues of a natural stone kitchen worktop: modern, sleek, yet something that offers a decidedly traditional and Old-world touch: the best of new and old, for a fine, contemporary kitchen setting.

Corian

We've heard about 'Krion', but have you heard of 'Corian'? While there's very little semantic difference between the two, they're two very different modern materials. Crafted by plastics corporation, DuPont, Corian is a solid, non-porous material made from natural minerals and acrylic resin. This material is typically glued together in pieces, however it looks effortlessly seamless from an aesthetic perspective, providing a fine worktop solution.

As well as being easy to clean, highly robust and easy on the eye, Corian is extremely heat resistant (though it's worth noting that it's not impervious to scratches and marks, especially on darker tones). As far as modern worktop materials go, it's one of the most appealing, cost-effective and desirable choices available: a versatile, and very attractive option for today's modern kitchen.

Did you enjoy that Ideabook? Let's keep the great ideas flowing with a look at Crafty kitchen storage solutions!

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