Important Considerations Before Buying New Kitchen Countertops

Considerations Before Buying New Kitchen CountertopsAs you work your way through your kitchen remodel you can’t forget the importance of your countertops. This is where all your food preparation occurs so they must be durable, stain-proof, scratch-proof, heat-proof, beautiful, and economical. Of course, this makes choosing the “perfect” countertop material feel like a daunting decision. Fortunately, it doesn’t need to be so tricky if you start by asking yourself the right questions so you can establish your priorities.

How Your Countertops are Used

The most important consideration when it comes to your countertops is how you and your family use your kitchen. If you do a lot of cooking daily, you’ll want to make sure they can withstand various cooking and clean-up styles without requiring any extra vigilance from you. You should also consider whether you’re more concerned about scratches or food stains.

How Much Maintenance you can Handle

When you conduct a kitchen remodel you should aim to choose materials that don’t require much upkeep and that are also very resilient. You must be realistic here because different materials have different requirements. For instance, porous materials (e.g. marble, limestone, granite) need sealed yearly and wood requires applying Danish oil twice yearly.

What you Plan to do in Your Kitchen

As you take measurements for your kitchen remodel, make sure you know how many linear feet of countertop you’ll need and if there are any non-standard dimensions. This will help you create ballpark figures for your materials and make comparisons. Sometimes your design and budget will require you to use two different materials – like a wooden topped island with adjacent counters in more affordable marble or granite.

What Type of Budget You’re Working With

One thing you’ll learn while undertaking a kitchen remodel is costs vary widely depending on your local suppliers and builders. At the same time, some materials also cost significantly more money than others (e.g. high-end butcher’s block vs. low-grade granite). Fortunately, a well maintained, good kitchen countertop will last indefinitely. This is why you should always target your ideal material first before trying to find something like it that fits your budget. You may find it’s reasonable to spend a little more money than you’d planned since this is something you must live with on a daily basis for many years to come.

What Materials you Like

When you’re obsessed with design, you can’t ignore the aesthetics. However, you also can’t choose a countertop based on beauty alone because you may discover it doesn’t fit your needs. This is why you must work out why you’re drawn to certain materials. For instance, if you like white Carrara marble countertops but drink a lot of red wine and don’t want to worry about these stains, you may want to choose a white stone material like Quartzite instead because it’s durable, low-maintenance, and lower in cost. Regardless of how hard you think about your choices, choosing the counters for your kitchen remodel is still a big decision. Hybrid Construction can help you make this decision wisely. They’ll show you options that fit within your budget and work well for your needs. Give them a call so you can stop procrastinating about this decision.

Image credit: JamesDeMers