Kitchens

Your countertops, particularly the work top where you are going to do most of you food preparation should be designed around the height of the primary user. The standard kitchen countertop is built at 90cm but this will not suit everyone.

Basically as a rule of thumb the work top should be a few centimetres below elbow height for the main kitchen user. Industry guidelines indicate that if you are 125cm tall, the ideal worktop height is 65cm, whereas if you are 200cm tall, you’d be most comfortable with a 120cm height. The rest of us, starting at the 65cm worktop height, should add around 3cm to the worktop for every 5cm of height over 125cm, rounding up or down to a standard height as necessary.
Bear in mind that there are a couple of issues with this:

1. If you are an extremly tall or short person a kitchen customised to your optimal height may effect the resale value of the house.
2. In a kitchen with several family users it may be difficult to find a worktop height that suits everyone.

It may be worth considering multiple work areas, using plinths of different heights in kitchens with mulitple users.

Choosing the correct countertop for your kitchen is essential. The countertop is the area of your kitchen that will get the most wear and tear, so it’s worth thinking about the surface that you choose. There are a wide range of materials available for kitchen countertops including:

Granite
Quartz Stone
Corian
Stainless Steel
Wood

Granite is one of the most popular choices for the modern Kitchen countertop. Granite is a natural stone which is first quarried from the earth and then brought to our facility and polished and cut to suit your requirements. The stone is very durable and when polished correctly can give a really beautiful finish to your dream kitchen.
As it is a natural product it’s colouration is never completely uniform, which adds to the character of the surface. The colour of each piece of granite depends on the mineral composition of the rock it was quarried from. We source the best granite from all over the world to give a wide selection of hues and colours.
With our state of the art stone finishing facility we can cut sink openings, draining grooves and bevel the stone to suit your kitchen. Please consult one of our stone specialists to understand the full range of features available in a Granite surface.

Quartz stone is the perfect material for the modern kitchen countertop. It is a beautifull yet tough surface and is resistant to almost all the scratches, impacts and stains of typical household living. Quartz stone is made from the toughest of stones, quartz, and is a non-porus, material so it is doesn’t absorb bacteria and it never needs to be sealed or resealed. Furthermore unlike traditional stone surfaces it is resistant to household chemicals and is not susceptable to chipping or cracking.

Quartz Stone kitchens are available in a wide range of colour options and is therefore an ideal choice for the upmarket custom kitchen design.

Corian is ideal for the dream Kitchen Counter Top. It has been used extensively in commercial and domestic designs for over 30 year – so it has a proven track record. Corian is a man made surface which was invented by DuPont 30 years ago. It’s main advantage in Kitchen design is that it allows for great flexibility in the design of the beautiful surfaces. We have exensive experience in the engineering of complex Corian solutions and would be delighted to discuss your plans with you. It is available in a wide range of colour palettes to suit the tastes of any interior design.

Stainless steel surfaces are the preferred surface in commercial kitchens, primarily because of there durability. In a commercial kitchen where rigourous cleaning routines are part of the hygene regimen, stainless steel preparation sufaces make a lot of sense.

More recently there has been an move to encorporate stainless steel countertops into domestic kitchens. The clean lines of the stainless combined with more advanced fabrication techniques has meant that more adventurous and glamourous kitchens are now possible using this material. Gone are the associations with industrial kitchens as seen at the local hospital – it’s most likely to make an appearance in an architect designed kitchen with a high quality finish and a mixed material surface, including wooden details and butcher blocks.

Your kitchen is the heart of your home. We hope to help you select the best for your new kitchen. With expertise in Kitchen counter surfaces to appliances and units, KitchenForce.com will help you design and realise your dream kitchen.

There has been a re-surgance in the use of wood in kitchen counter tops. This is particularly true in the case of inlaid butcher block style cutting surfaces and trimming. The woods that are popular in kitchens at the moment are:

Ash
Beech
Cherry
Iroko
Maple
Oak
Walnut
These materials are often combined with more durable surfaces such as Granite, Corian, Quartz or Stainless Steel. A mixed material counter top will give you a kitchen which combines the warmth, beauty and usability of wood with the durability and cleanliness of a hard surface.