Worktop Edge Profiles And What They Say

Where this works

• Contemporary handleless kitchens
• Traditional and shaker kitchens
• Islands where the edge is seen from all sides
• Households with small children where sharp arrises matter
• Matching an edge to an existing worktop elsewhere in the house

How we install it

1. 1
   The profile sets the visual weight

   A twenty millimetre pencil round edge reads light and modern. A forty millimetre mitred edge reads solid and expensive. A bullnose reads traditional. None of them are wrong, but they need to agree with the cabinetry: a bullnose on a handleless slab kitchen looks borrowed from a different project, and a shark nose on a shaker kitchen looks equally mismatched. Decide the character of the kitchen first and the edge choice follows almost automatically.

2. 2
   Mitred edges and the trick they play

   A mitred edge takes a thin slab, cuts a forty five degree angle at the edge and folds a strip down to create the appearance of a much thicker worktop. It is how most chunky looking modern kitchens are built, because a genuine forty millimetre slab is heavy, expensive and harder to handle. Done well the join is invisible. Done badly you see a hairline along the top arris in raking light. Ask to see a previous mitre in daylight before committing to it on an island.

3. 3
   Durability and chipping

   The sharper the arris the more likely it chips. Shark nose and square edges in quartz and granite chip if hit with a heavy pan at the wrong angle, and a chip on a plain colour never repairs invisibly. A small radius, even a two millimetre eased arris, dramatically reduces this and is barely visible. In a family kitchen or a rental, a pencil round is the sensible choice. In poured microcement the edge is formed and rounded by hand, so there is no brittle arris to chip in the first place.

4. 4
   Cost, and where it is worth spending

   Standard profiles such as pencil round are usually included. Mitred edges, waterfall ends and complex profiles are extras charged per metre. The highest value spend is on the edges people actually see and touch: the island, the run facing the room, and the return by the door. A perimeter run behind a sink, largely hidden by taps and a window, gains almost nothing from a premium profile. Spend the money where the eye lands.

Common pitfalls we prevent