This week we have fabricated this stunning and very large set of  kitchen worktops for a project in Alderley Edge.

The kitchen worktops consist of a central island wrap with sharknose edge detail, 2 under mount franke stainless steel Peak 110 45 sinks , bookmatched back panels and marble window sills , we have pattern matched the island wrap with mitred sharknose end panels and top.

Workbenches full with this job, awaiting hand finishing after Waterjet cutting. This is to ensure the edges are perfect and to remove any machining marks, no machine can ever replace hand finishing and so is something we will always have to do on certain parts of our jobs such as sharknose or ogee edges an drainage grooves and under mounted sink cut outs.
Drainage grooves both side of undermounted sink cut out. 6 grooves each side, these have a gradient ranging from around 3 mm running to 7 mm. and Bookmatched backpanels for behind cooker, these were slimmed down to 20mm in thickness and will sit on the top of the marble upstands.


Is Marble ok for kitchen worktops?

Marble as perhaps most of us are aware is a porous material and there is a lot of stuff out there on the internet suggesting and advising people not to use marble in the kitchen, but what is the reality of it and why do some people have it if it’s supposed to be no good? 

Well here goes…..The marble worktops we have produced here are in a honed finish and have been sealed using ‘Dry Treat’ a stain proofing treatment that we apply to any marble being used in a kitchen. The Dry-treat sealer contains nano particles of sealer that enters inside the stone via the capillary tubes due to the size of the nano particles, these particles have no way of escape and constantly push water or liquids away from the stone, the stone becomes hydrophobic this helps massively with the maintainace of the surface. 

This doesn’t mean that the marble is now totally non porous but it is so much easier to look after now, also nothing is the same as having a unique piece of natural stone and for some people thats enough, we don’t always buy stuff because it’s necessarily the most practical and so we make allowances for having something real, something millions of years old, unique in fact. Whenever I travel to Italy on buying trips and I speak to the people who own/work at the huge granite processing companies and slab wholesalers i always ask “what do you have in your kitchen?” The answer is always the same the all have marble!, I suppose they have a passion for real stone and when you see some of the materials and projects it’s not hard to understand why.