Kitchen Benchtop Inspiration For Your New Kitchen Renovation

Kitchen benchtops are the key working space in your kitchen and one of the main design features of the overall look and feel of your design. 

Matching your surface material to your kitchen and your home isn’t just about syncing up your design elements, it’s also a practical consideration overlooked by many in the design and renovation stage. Your kitchen benchtop needs to perform for you every day, so it’s important to choose the right surface for your home that is both hard-wearing and stunning.

Choosing the right kitchen benchtop can be a tricky decision. That’s why our team of designers have come forward with answers – not just about which products are best, but also about how to integrate your design with the best kitchen benchtop ideas.

In this blog, we help you understand what kitchen benchtops are available to you when you’re renovating with us. We will also discuss some kitchen benchtop ideas on how you can apply these in your home.

Benchtop Selection Options

Choosing quality materials is an essential prerequisite when designing and renovating a custom kitchen for your home. When you renovate with us, you’ll gain access to a range of high-quality benchtop materials. Let’s take a closer look at which ones are making waves in modern kitchen design today. 

Caesarstone Quartz

Caesarstone benchtops are our number one choice because of their superior durability and strength compared to any other natural stone benchtop available on the market.

Caesarstone Quartz’s impenetrable surface is both nonporous and non-absorbent, making it impervious to stains and extremely easy to maintain due to its scratch-resistant strength and high-temperature resilience. You won’t be surprised that Caesarstone Quartz products carry a lifetime warranty. 

When it comes to daily cleaning, simply use soap and water for a sparkling-clean finish. 

Caesarstone has a huge selection of kitchen benchtop colours for every design, budget and home. In their standard range, colours such as Ocean Foam or Clamshell are well suited to a wide variety of kitchen styles. If you’re looking to custom design your kitchen and create a real wow factor, we recommend opting for the beautiful veined styles like Empira White or the timeless Statuario Maximus. 

Caesarstone also offers concrete, honed, natural, polished, rough and ultra rough finishes throughout their product palette. Visit our Bassendean showroom to view the full range of Caesarstone samples on display.

Natural Stone

No two natural stone kitchen benchtops selections are the same – making them a luxury and one-off selection for your kitchen renovation. That’s why natural stone is best suited to be the focal point in your design given its unique nature. 

Whether it’s Marble, Quartzite, Limestone or Granite, natural stone benchtops are a luxury inclusion that allows you to choose a specific finish like leathered, honed or polished to match your kitchen style. Compared to engineered quartz, natural stone isn’t as durable and is more prone to chipping and marking from heat or food and drink spills. It’s good to remember that these things can permanently change the appearance of the stone.

Concrete

Concrete benchtops make for a statement in your kitchen design. They offer a rough texture finish and a unique look and feel in your design. We recommend Caesarstone as they offer a brilliant range of concrete quartz selections with durability, strength and a lifetime warranty for your kitchen.

For a smoother and more subtle concrete look, you could select Fresh Concrete which pairs well with most cabinetry colour schemes. On the other hand, indulge in the dramatic selections like Rugged Concrete and a Maker favourite –  Airy Concrete (shown below) – which has a grey base with mineral splotches. No matter which direction you choose, some of the best kitchen benchtops are made from concrete and they are the perfect choice for a modern or industrial-style kitchen design.

Laminate

Laminate benchtops are another option for your benchtop surface, however, it lacks the hard-wearing finish found in Caesarstone benchtops. At the end of the day, your benchtop is one of the most hard-working surfaces in your kitchen, and opting for a surface that is resistant to scratches and damage from cooking utensils and appliances is a good idea.

For those willing to go the extra mile, we recommend upgrading to Caesarstone benchtops.It works out to be a very small cost variation to laminate, and is a far better return on investment as it will last you a lifetime. 

Wood

Timber benchtops can look spectacular in your kitchen design and work best as a feature section in your design as opposed to the main working zone in your kitchen. Being a natural product, wooden benchtops aren’t as durable and can be prone to stains, dents and colour changes from spilled food and drink. Just think about how your wooden cutting board looks after cutting foods like strawberries or meats. We love the appearance of wood to soften a style or complement an existing theme style such as a Hamptons kitchen. If you are set on including wood in your design, think carefully about how your everyday use might impact its integrity and appearance. 

Stainless Steel

Stainless steel adds smooth, clean tones to your design – perfect for an industrial style, or warehouse-inspired kitchen.

Stainless steel benchtops are durable and designed to look worn over time. This can help bring very very subtle textures into your benchtop finish. When designing a kitchen with stainless steel benchtops, we like to combine them with concrete or edgy stone selections to add interest and character to your design.

Benchtop design ideas

When it comes to designing your luxury kitchen, your benchtop selection is one of the most important elements you should be considering. Not only is it where you’ll spend most of your time preparing food and hosting, but it also accounts for a considerable amount of space. In this section, we’ll explore some of the kitchen benchtop ideas from a design perspective to get you thinking about how your space will look.

Custom is key 

At The Maker Designer Kitchens, a key part of our three step design process is for us to establish how you’re going to use your kitchen not only for cooking but for everyday home and family life. We get to the bottom of what kitchen layout is going to be best for your kitchen renovation. Do you want a kitchen island in your design? Does a galley layout suit your home or do you like the openness of a U Shaped Kitchen? 

If these questions sound familiar to you, check out our blog on our favourite kitchen layouts. Below are some kitchen design ideas to inspire the overall design of your kitchen benchtops.

Edging

Edging is one of the more overlooked elements in a kitchen design. But it’s one of the key finishing elements when designing your kitchen benchtops and should be treated with care.

Depending on your design needs and budget we can design your kitchen benchtops in a variety of thicknesses. 

Caesarstone edging begins at 20mm, which is the standard thickness of their slabs, and depending on the budget, we can manufacture an edge profile as thick as 100mm. With that versatility, we can accommodate multiple different designs depending on your budget.

Ultimately, the final choice should rely on what’s important to you as part of your overall kitchen design. We use aris mitred edges on our benchtops to ensure that you have a consistent flow of your stone from the top and onto the sides. This approach ensures that veins appear consistently across the design. This is one of the key differences you get with us when we renovate your kitchen to ensure that the details are perfected. Other edge profiles we can manufacture for your kitchen include shark nose, pencil round, and double half bullnose giving you plenty of design ideas to play with.

Waterfall Edge

One of the most striking ways to design a kitchen island is by incorporating the waterfall edge as a standout feature. The right angle at the edge of the waterfall is a potent design focal point that can add layers of class and strength to your space. Waterfall edges can be completed on one or both sides of your benchtop, depending on the look you want to go for. 

Waterfall edges allow you to embrace the standard 20mm Caesarstone stone thickness and wrap one or both sides of your kitchen island bench for that luxury look and feel. Waterfall edges can be done with thicker stone as shown below and look particularly spectacular when you select a veined style that creates movement over the strong edges. 

Layering

Embracing layers in your kitchen benchtop is a striking way to create a real point of difference in your kitchen design. This can be done by layering stone or stone and laminate together to create a visual impact. Contrasting materials in this way can greatly increase the design possibilities. 

In the kitchen below, we opted for a 86mm Caesarstone Vanilla Noir fascia top and then a 20mm layer that added a dedicated breakfast bar meal zone. Layering doesn’t just create opportunities to pair materials, it can also serve as a unique functionality in your design. 

The Vanilla Noir selection on this benchtop has been intentionally manufactured so that the stone of this island matches the creamy vanilla veins by displaying them flowing down and across the layers. Layering looks just as brilliant when you select different colours for showcasing colour selections in your kitchen design.

Dining Table

Luxury kitchens in 2022 are all about innovative use of space. It’s popular now to extend your kitchen island bench to create a dedicated dining section. If you have the space, an extra long island with a separate seated section can be a real showstopper. This creates continuity and reinforces the leading lines in your space.

In this kitchen displayed below, we have done just that using layers and created a beautiful and practical living zone for this family home. If space is limited this can still be done in smaller homes or apartment-style living where a cantilever design can replace your dining room table. To see an example of how this can be done, have a look at our Melville project. 

Curves

Aside from being one of the biggest trends for 2022, curves are a luxury selection for your kitchen that creates a beautiful visual impact by elevating your design beyond the ordinary.

Curves are used to soften the look of your design and can be completed on single sections or all corners of your island. In the kitchen below we have curved all edges of this island which makes it look more like a custom dining table.

Re-invent your kitchen today

With seemingly endless design options to choose from, not to mention the different materials on offer, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. 

As part of our design process, our team will help you discover what kitchen layout will best cater to your needs. When working with our team, be prepared to receive insight into practical and innovative ideas that may potentially reinvent the original layout of your kitchen to create an even better space. Reach out to our design team for expert advice on your kitchen renovation.