Detail Hacks - Know Your Countertop Slabs!
This blog post is a quick money-saving tip on how to design your kitchen.
When designing my kitchen, I knew I wanted a simple white quartz countertop to go with my new modern kitchen. Quartz is a man-made product made from the strongest natural mineral found on earth and mixed with resin. Quartz is nonporous, stain-resistant and easy to clean. (Note that although I am using quartz in this example, the same concept can be applied to marble or granite if that is your preference.)
Quartz manufacturers offer standard size slabs and jumbo size slabs. These may alter a bit from manufacturer to manufacturer. Below is a list of some quartz manufacturers and the various sizes of the jumbo slabs that they offer.
vicostone jumbo: 65" x 130"
cesarstone jumbo: 64.5" x 131.5"
cambria jumbo: 65.5" x 132"
hanstone jumbo: 65" x 130"
silestone jumbo: 63" x 128"
Notice the subtle dimensional differences?
top left: standard slab, bottom right: jumbo slab; image courtesy of Caesarstoneus.com
If you have a mid-size kitchen like myself. You may only need to purchase one jumbo slab. But if you do not design or plan your kitchen efficiently, you may be purchasing more than one slab. Since quartz is typically sold by the slab, you could be wasting money!
Kitchen Layout Example
example: kitchen plan for my house
Jumbo slabs are great because the dimensions work out perfectly for a wall flanking counter PLUS island counter. Counters that flank walls are 25” deep (24” cabinet + 1” overhang) and islands can be anywhere from 36” wide to 48” wide. In my house, I chose a 65” jumbo slab, so I knew my island should be 40” wide.
65” (total width of jumbo slab) - 25” (wall flanking counter) = 40” (island counter)
Included in the 40” island dimension is 25” for the cabinet + 4.5” for the pony wall + 11” for the knee clearance. If you want more knee clearance, you may need to find a larger JUMBO slab like the cambria or ceaserstone.
Next is the length dimension. I chose a 130” slab, so I made my wall flanking counters no longer than 130”. Now for the island length. If you have an “L” shaped kitchen countertop, you will need to take the total length of the quartz slab and subtract it by the counter depth. EX: 130” - 25” = 105”. This would be the maximum length of your island countertop.
example: red outline represents the jumbo slab
I hope this is clear and helps you save money on your next design projects! Want more detail hacks? Sign up for our newsletter below!