Where and When to Spend
and Save on Stone Benchtops
8 Tips For Maximising Your Budget. Are you in the planning stages of your kitchen and trying to decide on the best design for your budget?
Our team of experts all agree that it is critical to set your design intentions and know your budget limitations upfront, to ensure you can achieve an effective and affordable kitchen design that excites you. With such planning, and the right product specifications in place, rest assured that you can affordably create a design that suits your budget.
Here are some industry insights which could be the key to delivering your stone bench top, within the confines of your budget:
1. Start with a plan
Understand the intentions for your home, ie. rental, holiday home or forever home and splurge according to how much value you will get back. Work through the plans in your home for where you will need your stone. Eg. If you are doing a full renovation and you need stone for kitchen, bathroom vanities, laundries etc it’s a good idea to work out the math of how you can use our slabs to make the most out of them. If you use the same colour throughout, then any left over parts of the slabs can be used in the bathrooms and laundry. Your kitchen designer will be able to help you maximise the application of slabs required.
2. Select from a range that fits your budget
BELOW
Designed by
Builders Wife
Builder
King Homes NSW
Amazing kitchen with a curved mitred island end. Looks incredible, but time consuming for the stone mason to create this profile edge and will cost extra.
3. Mix up the ranges
You can select from 2 different ranges. In the kitchen, you could use our Premium Marble or Marble range for the kitchen and our Deluxe range or Standard range for bathroom and laundry. Keep in mind that you may have some slabs left over from the kitchen, so in this case you could use the leftovers if possible.
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To deliver the Wow factor in your kitchen, but still stay in budget you could use our Calacatta Luxe™ from our Premium Range and our Neutural White™ from our Deluxe Range4. Perfect Pairing
ABOVE
Talostone® Calacatta Luxe™ on the island and Neutral White™ on the back bench. Leftover Neutral White™ from the back bench was used in the laundry and bathrooms.
Interior designer
LJW Design
5. Benchtop thickness
6. Edge Profiling
Your stonemason will be able to create a variety of edging profiles for your stone bench top, but the more detailed they are, the more time and money will be incurred.
ABOVE
Kitchen Designer
Vogue Kitchens Oz
LEFT
Elba White is in our Marble range. More cost effective than our Premium range
Interior designer
Three Birds Renovations
7. To add waterfalls or not to waterfalls?
Waterfalls are very popular and look gorgeous, but cost more due to extra slabs required and then the cost of fabricating the stone is an additional cost. Is this your forever home? If it is, then this could be a great option for you. If not, maybe you can give the waterfalls a miss.
8. Stone vs Tiles:
Having a mineral surface as the splashback instead of tiles is easier to maintain and can also save you money if you have enough to use with the slab you have purchased for your kitchen. The stone mason can install this while he is there, which saves money on tiling. 12mm Talostone® is perfect for a splash back and costs less than 20mm, but if you have left over slab from your 20mm kitchen bench top, it’s best to use that rather than buying another slab in the 12mm. 12mm slabs are also great as a feature wall in replace of tiles. You might like to have these as a feature wall in the shower. Super easy to clean, with no grout in sight.
ABOVE
Builder
King Homes
Joiner
Vision Kitchens & Joinery
Photographer
The Palm Co
TALOSTONE® COLOURS IN PROJECTS
Main image, top—kitchen island Calacatta Luxe™ 9030
Tip 2 — kitchen island bench Super White™ 9300
Tip 3 — kitchen island and splash back Calacatta Luxe™ 9030 backbench Neutral White™ 3020
Tip 4 — kitchens and bathroom vanity benchtops Neutral White™ 3020
Tip 5 — kitchen island and waterfall Calacatta Luxe™ 9030
Tip 6 — kitchen bench and island Elba White 8300
Tip 7 — kitchen island bench Super White™ 9300
Tip 8 — bathroom walls Super White™ 9300
ABOVE
Our 12mm Super White™ slabs used as a feature wall in replace of tiles
Designer
Metropoint Architects
Photographer
The Palm Co
When you break down your design priorities it will make your budget allocation much easier. We think you should dream big, because with clever design and the right product specification you can create the home you desire.
Hopefully we’ve been able to restore the dream of featuring the perfect stone in your next kitchen project. For more inspiration, have a look online at our product ranges or visit our City Experience Centre.