Creating Your Ideal Kitchen With Marble

If you love spending time in the kitchen, it’s crucial to create a space that is both functional and visually appealing. Designing your ideal kitchen involves careful planning and research.

Choosing a high-quality work surface is one of the best decisions you can make for your kitchen layout. Pristine marble worktops are a popular choice among homeowners for their elegance and durability.

Here’s what you need to know about marble worktops and the key factors to consider when making your selection.

Marble & Porous Stones

Marble is a metamorphic rock primarily made of recrystallized calcite or dolomite. Historically, it has been used to build cathedrals, statues, and homes. Today, marble remains a popular choice in interior design, particularly for kitchen worktops and bathrooms. However, it’s important to note that marble is a porous stone.

When we describe marble as ‘porous,’ we mean that it contains tiny pores through which air and liquids can pass.

Microscopic Pores in Stones?

Indeed! The porous nature of marble is an important factor to consider when selecting worktops:

The wrong combination of stone and spills can damage your new kitchen worktop. While the porous quality of marble contributes to its beauty, it also presents risks. Solutions include opting for a robust, resistant finish or choosing types of marble that are less porous.

To avoid these risks, quartz is an excellent alternative since it is non-porous. This allows you to enjoy a beautiful worktop without concerns about spills. Quartz is highly resilient, so it’s worth considering if possible.

Honed Matte or Shiny & Polished Finish?

Selecting a marble worktop for your kitchen is a significant decision, and one key choice is the type of finish you prefer:

Shiny, polished marble worktops offer a pristine shine, adding a touch of glamour and luxury to your kitchen. While polished finishes have an extra protective layer that makes them more resistant to stains and spills, they can also be more prone to showing scratches.

In contrast, honed matte finishes are better at hiding imperfections and scratches, providing a sleek and subtle look. The Carrara Marble range, for example, features honed matte finishes that enhance any kitchen’s aesthetic beautifully.

Other Uses of Marble for Your Home

Marble isn’t limited to kitchens; it’s also a fantastic choice for bathrooms, flooring, and decorative elements. Its diverse range of colors and patterns, combined with both matte and polished finishes, makes it versatile for numerous applications, adding a touch of otherworldly beauty to your home.

History of Marble

Marble has been admired for its beauty since ancient times. The Greeks were pioneers in developing techniques to extract and shape marble for construction. In Greece, marble quarries have been in operation since the 3rd century BC, especially in the regions of Paros and Naxos.

Anatolia was another key center for marble, utilizing it for both trade and construction. This region was instrumental in marble trade during the Roman and Ottoman empires. Italy also has a rich tradition of using marble, particularly in the construction of cathedrals during the first millennium AD.

Today, advanced cutting technology and tools have made marble more accessible, enabling the creation of beautiful and durable structures and designs that were previously unattainable.