For property in Scotland, breakast bar worktops can add an exciting flair to any kitchen, but before ordering materials or paying for an installation, it’s important to take a few key points into account.
Wood worktops are an increasingly popular choice, perfect for any style of kitchen. Additionally, you may opt for one with texture or even colour accents to make the bar stand out even further.
Breakast Bar Worktops: Size
Breakfast bars are an effective way of adding extra work space and eating area to any busy household’s kitchen and bringing everyone together at meal times and for other activities. In order to achieve this goal, however, the ideal breakfast bar must accommodate everyone while still leaving enough space for food prep, cooking, and washing up duties.
At first, when choosing the size and shape of a breakfast bar, it’s best to measure its existing space and determine its width. Once you know this information, you can start planning how best to install it. Laminate can reach widths up to 900 mm, while granite and quartz come with various width options. Laminate may also save you money this Christmas, as compact laminate makes cleaning simpler than its more expensive alternatives.
Another important consideration in selecting a breakfast bar height is setting it to standard kitchen worktop height, between 90 to 95cm from the floor. This ensures comfortable seating with back and arm support. Some individuals prefer lowering it down for dining purposes; to do this, they require either an architectural corbel stool with back support or one that comes equipped with one.
Based on your home design, a split-level breakfast bar may also be an option for you. This arrangement makes life easier for households with children who can sit at an elevated work surface while adults dine on lower tables; wheelchair users will also find this design easier when trying to gain entry to dining areas.
If you are uncertain of the dimensions of your breakfast bar, taking some time and walking around your space with a tape measure and blue painter’s tape can help provide insight. Doing this will allow you to visualise how it will fit within the space while determining if it suits your home environment.
Breakfast Bars: Materials
Breakast bar worktops are an integral component of kitchen social spaces, where family and guests alike can gather over coffee or lunch. Their worktop needs to be durable enough for heavy usage while remaining attractive; there are various materials that can be used when building one.
Laminate worktops offer an affordable yet hardwearing and easy-to-maintain surface for breakfast bars, making a comfortable seating space at any width. They are available in an array of colours and finishes (some featuring attractive patterning) that can coordinate perfectly with a kitchen splashback idea for an aesthetically pleasing room.
Solid wood worktops are an increasingly popular choice for breakfast bars, providing natural warmth and beauty from sustainable wood species ranging from light beech and ash to dark walnut and cherry red. Available in various lengths, such as full stave or 40mm stave block options (the latter features carefully crafted blocks joined with V grooves for an attractive block pattern effect), these worktops can also be trimmed precisely to your breakfast bar’s specifications while being suitable for use around sinks and hobs.
Granite is another popular material choice for breakfast bars, being formed deep beneath the earth from compressed molten rock that cools at subterranean levels and then extracted via quarries in large blocks before being cut by specialist machinery into worktops and countertops. Granite’s durability and long-term use make it a highly customizable material that can be tailored to suit any design aesthetic or finish imaginable. It requires regular care to maintain its natural shine, but it is not suitable for households with small children as its smooth surfaces could scratch it easily.
Stainless steel breakfast bars offer an elegant, contemporary alternative to wood or solid-surface options for breakfast bars. Easy to maintain, these hygienic and easy-to-clean surfaces can also match any metal cladding idea for the kitchen splashback for a seamless look. However, due to limited heat or water resistance and wear resistance, it may require regular oiling in order to preserve its aesthetic appearance.
Breakast Bar Worktops: Design
Breakfast bars provide a worktop with extra space for food preparation and seating in a kitchen, providing extra counter space to prepare food and entertain. These long counters usually feature a flat back edge affixed to the wall (usually supported by timber battens) with a postformed laminate front edge kept for comfort, creating low-level seating areas where family, guests, or anyone interested can eat or socialise without interfering with the activities of the chef or his or her crew.
For optimal space usage, choose breakfast bar worktops featuring a longer laminate surface of at least 3.6 metres to extend your breakfast bar area. This option is especially advantageous in small layouts as it enables you to create dedicated dining and remote working zones without giving up valuable floor space.
Choose a worktop in the same hue and finish as your primary kitchen surfaces for an eye-catching effect that creates the illusion of more openness in your space. Doing this will make the room seem larger.
Breakfast bars can also provide an effective way of adding contrast to your design scheme. For example, if your main kitchen surfaces feature white laminate worktops, why not switch things up with darker materials like wood or quartz for your breakfast bar area to give it a little something extra?
Option 2: Combine a neutral-coloured laminate breakfast bar with a splashback or cladding in order to achieve a modern and functional look. This works especially well when paired with dark or light wood or stone worktops, as their contrast will highlight their unique qualities.
Make your bespoke worktop as functional as it is aesthetically pleasing by installing charging points beneath the breakfast bar for household electronics, including laptops and devices. This will enable your home office to coexist seamlessly with a casual dining space while helping to keep work commitments under control from home.
Breakfast bars not only add storage to a room, but they can also act as an attractive focal point in it by being the place for displaying art and ceramics you cherish. By selecting an eye-catching pendant light above it, they further enhance their presence as an eye-catching centrepiece of space.
Breakast Bar Worktops: Installation
Breakfast bars add convenience and ease to mealtimes in any kitchen design, seating family members comfortably in an informal environment. By creating this extra space for everyone to sit together at mealtimes in an unstructured manner, breakfast bars help reduce cooking and cleaning up times prior to and after each meal, enhancing dining experiences by giving more time for eating with loved ones than creating it themselves.
Though you could choose the same worktop material for your breakfast bar as it is used elsewhere in your kitchen, mixing things up by choosing a contrasting material or texture can really make it stand out and become a focal point of the room. For instance, adding a glass breakfast bar will give it a modern aesthetic sure to wow guests when entertaining guests in your space.
Installation height should also be carefully considered when setting up a breakfast bar, either to match that of your other worktops or slightly lower for a more comfortable sitting position. An optimal height for most people would be 36 inches; this gives standard kitchen chairs as well as wheelchair users more space when sitting down for meal times.
If you plan on lowering your breakfast bar, high-back chairs could provide more support than standard stools would. They may even help prevent accidents during use!
Laminate breakfast bars tend to be cheaper than granite and quartz alternatives, making them an appealing option for homeowners on a tight budget. Plus, they’re available in more width options compared to some types of worktops, making them ideal for smaller kitchens that may lack enough space for an island or worktop.
Before installing your breakfast bar, it’s essential that all pilot holes on both the bar and the worktop match up perfectly when connecting them together. This will ensure that the worktops will be perfectly flush when finished and reduce potential gaps or catches between their surfaces.