Do you remember that small window of time when we applied tiling to our countertops? What could go wrong?
The grotty grout catching, ever dribble and spill, the lifting, the chips to the edges, the horrible visual stutter. We even ran the tile over the edges for extra hassle. Relatively soft, cheap, ceramic tile was favoured for its easy installation, making it even more vulnerable to the rudely smashed pan. If you’re concerned by a return to a fired material going onto your counters, welcome to the wonderful world of vitrified porcelain.
A relative newcomer to the kitchen market here in Ireland, porcelain is a very old, honest, crafted, and luxurious material. It’s tough, beautiful and capable of glaze play and hypnotic, beautiful patterns impossible to conjure quartz and composites (a mixture of quartz, glass and porcelain). It’s been wildly popular as a countertop in US kitchens since the early 1990s and has been in use by humanity for 2000 years. Having nudged softer ceramic aside with its through colour and strength for our flooring, porcelain is now becoming a firm contender for premium worktops here in Ireland. Let’s get the practical features and comparisons firmly established before we lose our minds to a crystalline fabulous six metres that won’t come cheap. Here are the pros and cons to make your countertop call.
Pantry detailed with counter and cabinet backs in beautifully veined 12mm Xtone Porcelain slabs. Super slim Shaker doors finished in Cashmere. Courtesy of Celtic Interiors, St. Patrick's Woollen Mills, Douglas, celticinteriors.com.
Let’s start with the positives. If you think about a large porcelain slab as having all the endurance of large floor tiling, you won’t go wrong. First of all, fired at a very high temperature of 1400C-plus in finely milled kaolin clay, it’s an engineered stone that’s all but impermeable to liquid (0.2%-0.5%). What this means is that it won’t stain in the way that marble might if there’s the slightest ingress of water or chemicals. With regular spills, you won’t have to sprint across the room to save your counter from a blot. Bleach-based cleaners won’t bother it either (don’t leave anything like this lingering on any worktop), but keep bleach away from any grouted/sealed seams, as these can cause them to degrade over time. Porcelain slabs don’t need sealing once installed or resealing going forward, something you cannot say about granite and marble, which, once stripped of a protective top coat in a scuff or scratch, are porous and will mark. Just a swift wipe with a little soapy water or a spray of kitchen cleaner on your porcelain counter — you’re done. Physically, despite a slender profile, this is the Tom Hardy of counters - robust, impact-resistant and virtually impossible to scuff or scratch with normal use. If you drop a heavy dish on it, it’s the dish that will break, not the counter, as it’s around 30% harder than granite. It is also UV resistant, so it won’t fade or distort in consistent, direct harsh sunlight like quartz can over a lifetime of use. You could cut down on it (but we wouldn’t recommend it — use a board, especially with a tough ceramic blade).
Setting down a pan directly from the stovetop will not damage most porcelain unless it’s something wired in and emitting high heat. These characteristics make porcelain an excellent choice not simply for the counter but run up the wall as a decorative 6mm or 12mm splashback.
Some householders like to line an entire wall with their matching porcelain in kitchens and hidden pantries. It can also be used in panels and tiles to create matching flooring. Waterfalls “veneered” off the counter to the floor look amazing in porcelain. Because of its slender profile and light weight, it’s possible to secure your porcelain counter to an existing counter, disguising this flip with dedicated edging. Being light, it doesn’t require the structural support of, for instance, granite. You can add to its actual depth by specifying a mitre edge.
Comparisons within closely the same price bracket as porcelain? Look to Dekton Awake (polished finish also known as Reverie (velvet finish) - marble effect surfaces that mimic Paonazzo stone –a natural Italian marble. Prices on full range from €550 per metre, dekton.ie.
Aesthetically, porcelain is a semi-translucent beauty and a superb mimic. It can deliver highly convincing runs of marble, wood, stone, concrete, and metal, while doing away with the nuisance maintenance factors of these materials. Available in a gloss, matt, satin, or more honed natural texture, it’s particularly clever at playing colourful, luxuriant marbles with quartz seams — a real dandy that would be far more expensive and fussier to keep in the authentic article. Complex patterns can be book-matched from the counter to the wall and down through a waterfall, as the slabs are a manufactured material. Installing porcelain is relatively straightforward, but as with any large-format counter, it must be carefully handled to survive the journey. Once supported by the cabinetry, it’s relatively light but extremely strong. Your supplier will work out with the kitchen designer (if they are not one in the same firm) exactly where any seams will land, and on the whole, will blur seams and joins with carefully matching sealants.
Finally, in classic porcelain without any additional resins and polymers and synthetic inclusions, porcelain is an environmentally sound choice, composed largely of clay, quartz, feldspar, and water.
NOW to the cons, and this is a short list, and most of these caveats make perfect sense. First of all, if you take a bowling ball and drop it from a height onto a porcelain countertop, it will almost certainly crack. Remember, we’re talking about ordinary use, not dramatic vandalism. It has a relatively thin profile, and if it breaks, the whole slab may need replacing due to a large creeping crack.
The edges of porcelain can be rendered in various designs, but because it’s thin (that’s trending compared to our old chunky 28mm to 40mm laminate edges), quartz square edges are more usual. Expect to pay more for a bull-nose, round or bevelled finish to the edges. If you’re using porcelain with any fancy, mitred edge, choose a product with the colour going through it, not just printed on the top face. Talk to your supplier.
As with any kitchen installation, the skill of your team will be the difference between a tiny mistake that will drive you insane every time you notice it and seamless, soul-calming perfection. Pricewise, porcelain (depending on the complexity of the project and the brand) is usually less expensive than granite or real marble and some high-end quartz composites, coming in around €550 to €800 per metre excluding installation. That said, it is a bespoke choice, an investment beyond the price of a laminate counter. Joe Nash, founder and joint director of Celtic Interiors, says: “If you need your kitchen to take more of a beating, then go for Dekton. If it’s style and the latest trend you’re after, it’s porcelain — but be prepared to dig deep in your pocket.”
Comments (0)