We carry a nice selection of natural stone slabs in all our Utah showrooms. But we also offer quartz, a manufactured stone material. It is a less expensive alternative to materials like marble, granite, and quartzite. Best of all, it is versatile in terms of aesthetics. You can get a quartz countertop in a solid color, for example.
Choosing a quartz countertop made to look like natural stone is pretty common. We have plenty of customers who love the look of natural stone but need to approach new countertops with a lighter budget. Quartz gives them the look they want at a lower price point. But quartz countertops do not have to look like natural stone. Because they are engineered products, their aesthetics are just about limitless.
How They Are Made
Quartz countertops contain a considerable amount of quartz minerals. But because quartz minerals don’t hold together well on their own, they are mixed with resins to create engineered countertops. Manufacturers also include dyes that give quartz materials their unique aesthetics.
A quartz countertop can start out as a very light material to which darker dyes are added. The dyes mimic the natural veining granite and marble are known for. The interesting thing is that manufacturers are not limited to just a handful of patterns. They can mimic virtually anything nature can come up with by modifying colors, tones, and veining.
Why Homeowners Might Choose a Solid Color
Manufacturers can just as easily make countertops in solid colors. Everything is up for grabs, including black, white, green, blue, red, gold, and brown. The bigger question is why a homeowner would choose a solid color rather than going with a natural stone look.
Every homeowner who chooses a solid color has their reasons for doing so. Here are some of the more common reasons we hear in our showrooms:
1. A Minimalist Aesthetic
Plenty of Utah homeowners are into the minimalist style. From their perspective, a solid color is more suited to minimalism than an intricate veining pattern. Quartz countertops mimicking natural stone are too visually complex. But a quartz countertop in a solid color offers the minimalist aesthetic they prefer.
2. Surface Consistency
One thing about natural stone is that it doesn’t necessarily offer consistency across large surfaces. If a countertop is large enough that it needs to be pieced together, there is a high likelihood of at least some visual inconsistency where they meet. No such inconsistencies exist with solid colors. Every piece in a countertop system looks identical.
3. Minimal Imperfections
Homeowners sometimes choose solid colors because of the minimal imperfections they are known for. In other words, provided that dyes are applied consistently throughout the court setup, the look of the finished product will also be consistent throughout.
On the other hand, it’s nearly impossible to accurately mimic natural stone well enough to fool somebody who knows what they are looking at. There will always be those imperfections that give away the fact that a countertop is made of quartz. For some people, that’s a problem.
4. Personal Preference
Last but not least, there are some homeowners who just do not like the look of natural stone. They love the durability and no maintenance requirements of quartz, so that’s their choice. But they would rather go with a solid color that matches the rest of the kitchen.
The beauty of quartz countertops this flexibility. You can get whatever it is you find most aesthetically pleasing. For some of our customers, it is the look of natural stone. Others prefer solid colors. It’s all good.
