When renovating or building a home, most homeowners immediately go for more traditional countertop materials for the kitchen and bathroom. At Affordable Granite & Cabinetry, natural stone or engineered quartz are popular choices among our Hudson Valley customers. However, our kitchen and bath designers are suggesting our customers consider porcelain tile for their countertops and other surfaces, for excellent reasons.
Porcelain is an outstanding choice for kitchen and bathroom countertops.
When renovating or building a home, most homeowners immediately go for more traditional countertop materials for the kitchen and bathroom. At Affordable Granite & Cabinetry, natural stone or engineered quartz are popular choices among our Hudson Valley customers. However, our kitchen and bath designers are suggesting our customers consider porcelain for their countertops and other surfaces, for excellent reasons.
Porcelain is moving up from the floor to countertops and walls in kitchens and bathrooms because of its attributes of its beauty and long-lasting strength. In short, porcelain performs well and looks great. It is similar to ceramic in that both are clay-based materials, but porcelain has unique characteristics that make it shine in your kitchen or bath.
Attributes of porcelain slabs
Porcelain countertops in the kitchen or bathroom are the foundation of elegant looks you can create. Here’s why.
- Porcelain is extremely realistic looking—much more so than engineered quartz—with a high polish that adds luster and elegance to any room. The lines we carry at Affordable Granite & Countertops are available in distinctive styles that look like marble, granite, or quartz, concrete, and wood.
- Porcelain has the same color throughout the entire slab. Look at a broken or chipped piece of unglazed porcelain and you’ll see a uniform color throughout its thickness. Therefore, if a porcelain tile does chip a little, it will not be as noticeable as it would be with other materials.
- Porcelain also lends itself to more creativity in fabrication and installation because it is available in multiple thicknesses ranging from 6 millimeters to 20 millimeters.
- The thinner slabs provide application possibilities for vertical installations in shower enclosures, wall cladding, and fascia where lighter weight and ease of installation are concerns.
- The thicker porcelain performs well as kitchen or bathroom countertops, where durability is needed, as well as flooring and certain commercial environments.
- It is non-porous and scratch-resistant, making it a great option for kitchen counters and backsplashes.
- Porcelain’s durability equals that of engineered quartz and surpasses most natural stones because of its manufacturing process.
- It requires no special maintenance or upkeep. And who doesn’t love that?!
How is porcelain made?
Porcelain contains a mix of powdered high-density china stone and white china clay (also known as kaolin). The materials are pressed, dried to eliminate moisture, and heated at the extremely high temperature of about 1450°C. This vitrifies the china stone into a dense, highly durable material and the kaolin helps retain shape. The clay contains impurities, but rather than detract from the porcelain’s quality, they add to its strength and color. Porcelain slabs that are manufactured for use in countertops are coated with a pigmented glaze that gives them an aesthetic appeal similar to that of natural stone.
Porcelain tile selections at Affordable Granite & Cabinetry
At Affordable Granite & Cabinetry, we carry top lines of porcelain tile for any residential or commercial application, including Urban Stone, SapienStone, MSI, and Laminam. Our design team will help you plan out your kitchen or bathroom renovation, and show you the different brands and styles of porcelain available.
We have brought the beauty and durability of porcelain to homes throughout the Hudson Valley, in Orange, Dutchess, and Ulster counties. Schedule a consultation with our home improvement specialists in our Fishkill showroom or call us at (845) 564-0500 to make an appointment. Be sure to connect with us on Facebook, where you’ll find design ideas and see some of the cabinetry, flooring, and countertop products we love working with—and love seeing installed in our customers’ homes.
