3 Helpful Tips For a Beautiful Countertop Waterfall Edge

What is a waterfall edge?

A waterfall edge in a kitchen is identified by the countertop extending with a 90-degree angle down one or both sides to create a seamless, water-flowing effect.

This design has been in the market for the last decade and is still gaining popularity. It has also evolved to more sophisticated and complex shapes combining the breakfast or even the dining table with the kitchen island countertop.

The stone fabricator

If you don’t have a general contractor who is taking care of everything, you purchase the countertop stone from a supplier, but you still need a fabricator to cut the stone and install it in your kitchen.

The stone fabricator is the one who will either ruin the final product, install it in low quality, or do a great job in doing nice seamless cuts, and create beautiful book matching stone grains.

In many cases, you won’t realize how important is to hire a good fabricator until it is too late. Many fabricators who don’t do good job, tend to find excuses that may look reasonable when you don’t really know it is just their lack of skills.

What to look for in a successful installation

These are tips to give you an idea about what to expect and what to look for in a successful elegant execution of a waterfall edge:

1- The horizontal stone slab must meet the vertical one with a 45-degree angle to form a mitered edge, something a stone fabricator can make with a CNC laser cutter.

Beautifully executed continues stone veins in a countertop. — Beautifully executed continuous stone veins in a countertop.

2- Keeping the stone veining look continuous is critical. The fabricator must work that out to bring the waterfall movement to life by not interrupting the artistic waves.

It is important that you review the location of the seams, approve the layout, and make sure that the stone prominently visible veins are continuous, or book matched at every seam.

3- Stone natural patterns and veining can vary from high to low contrasts with the stone slab background color. That factor is crucial to the waterfall’s attractiveness; The more robust that contrast, the more critical the stone vein’s continuity is.

Stone slab sizes

Here are some stone slab sizes that can help in waterfall design. However, for more accurate information, it is recommended that you check all dimensions with the supplier/fabricator at the early design stage, which usually makes a difference in pricing.

Granite: 132″ x 78″. The most popular is 120 x 65.
Silestone: 128″x 63″
Quartz:
64.5″ (L)x 131.5″ (W). For jumbo quartz slab
79″ x 136″. For most giant quartz slabs.
120″ x 56″. Most popular

Scratch and heat resistance

Natural stone can tolerate scratch and heat in various capacities depending on the type of the stone.

That doesn’t mean a pan won’t leave an undesirable mark if it is too hot, or a coffee machine won’t cause surface color change if it was left for too long on the countertop.

That is why, it is recommended you try your best to protect your beautiful expensive countertop, by using a heat resistant mat, similar to the one in the link which is also reasonably translucent for better look! Heat Resistant Mat for Kitchen Countertop

Copyright © 2023 by TAYARA HOME LLC . All rights reserved. No portion of this POST may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.