The kitchen is the heart of the home and even in today’s busy world of ready-meals in front of the TV, it is still one of the most used rooms in the house. In fact a recent study found that British adults spend 72 minutes a day on cooking alone, before you consider all the other activities that take place in your kitchen.
Your eye is immediately drawn to the surfaces when you enter a kitchen and will quickly spot the flaws. Which is why keeping your kitchen and kitchen worktops looking good is so important.
When It’s Past Its Best
The most obvious signs that a worktop needs replacing are going to be clearly visible. Laminate and wood worktops can become covered in cuts from knives and burn marks from hot pans, which provide impossible to clean homes for bacteria as well as being unsightly. Cheap worktops will warp and degrade over time so although it may look like you’ve kept it nicely if you look carefully it might no longer be flat and the laminate may be beginning to peel underneath where you can’t see it.
This could be the case especially around your appliances and sink where steam and water can seep in and damage the worktop as the seals age and fail.
If You Need a Fast Fix
Whether you need to improve your kitchen because you need to sell the house or you are simply impatient, installing new worktops can be a quick way to update your kitchen, with some companies available, such a Mister Marble that can measure, quote and install your worktops in as little as five days. Compare that to replacing the whole kitchen that could take a whole week or more from when they start work (let alone the time you have to wait whilst they order the cabinets). A week in which your kitchen will be barely usable. Once your new worktops have been installed and cleaned they are ready for use.
Working To a Budget
A nice kitchen could add 6% to the value of your home. Although completely gutting and replacing the kitchen might be your dream solution, getting a new kitchen can be incredibly expensive once you’ve added up all the various costs. Replacing just the worktops can be surprisingly cheap and with the vast range of types of worktop available like wood or laminate or beautiful stone or more modern materials like concrete or glass there is something to suit every wallet.
Change The Feel Of The Kitchen
Maybe you are starting with a worn out wooden worktop in a country cottage style kitchen. By replacing it with dark granite you could make it look homely. Or perhaps you have an all-white kitchen with a shabby laminate worktop. By replacing it with quartz you could turn it into a sleek, modern, minimalist room. Whatever you want to achieve, by working with your existing cupboards, your worktop designer can help you to choose the right one for the look you want.
Adding Gadgets And Gizmos
When you put a new worktop in your kitchen you can also take the time to add on little features you wouldn’t be able to retrofit to your existing worktop. A pop-up socket tower could solve that problem you always have of not having enough sockets where you want to cook. Heat-resistant bars next to the hob will give you somewhere to put hot pans and if you want more space for the washing up a draining board could be added next to the sink.
There are, of course, a multitude of reasons you may be looking for a new worktop, but with the additional reasons above in the forefront of your mind, you can see the benefit of taking you time to get the right one for your space.
