Worktop Express Blog

With spring firmly in full swing our fabrication team have been producing some exceptional bespoke solid wooden countertops for customers across Britain – in fact over 500 custom worktops have passed through their hands this month!

Here are three of our favourites from May:

Maple

Maple is an unmistakable timber with a bright hue and delicate grain, which is incredibly dense and hard-wearing – perfect for a bespoke kitchen worktop.

This worktop was created by cutting one extra-wide 960mm down to size and making a large rectangular cut-out so as to create a breakfast bar area at the far end of the worktop. This portion had two large radius corners applied, with a soft pencil edge profile finishing the front edge.

If you think maple worktops would be ideal for your kitchen, they start at only £140 for a 2M x 620mm x 40mm worktop.

Beech

Our beech worktops are always incredibly popular, and we’re not surprised: it’s a beautiful timber at an unbeatable price. This particular beech worktop was created to accommodate an especially wide ceramic sink; our team made a large rectangular cut-out and applied a pencil edge profile on the internal edges to create a soft transition between the wood and ceramic.

Like all our fabricated timber worktops, this piece then had multiple layers of oil applied to fully protect it in transit and prior to installation.

If our beech worktops look like the perfect choice for your kitchen, why not consider our bespoke worktop cutting service? Our beech worktops are great value, starting at just £75 for a 3M x 620mm x 27mm worktop.

Caramel Bamboo

Caramel bamboo worktops provide elegant and unique surfaces. They are darker than our standard bamboo worktops thanks to a unique process which brings out more natural sugars, enriching the colour of the material.

This caramel bamboo worktop has had a cut-out to house an oven hob, with another small cut-out to accommodate the shape of the kitchen. On one end, a wide end cap was applied to help protect the worktop from a free-standing appliance. A smooth pencil edge profile finished the worktop nicely.

Our caramel bamboo worktops are a sustainable choice for modern kitchens, but are still great value, with prices starting at £125 for a 2M x 620mm x 40mm worktop.

That’s all for this month’s fabrication round-up, but you can find further examples of bespoke worktops created by our team over in our Fabrication Gallery, so don’t hesitate to give it a look if you are seeking some inspiration for your kitchen, or would simply like to see more examples of our work.

Whatever your worktop requirements, please do get in touch via telephone or email to discuss bespoke worktops with our knowledgeable fabrication team.

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London Tree Week 2015 kicked off on Saturday: a celebration of London’s plentiful parks, heaths and tree-lined roads. Here at Worktop Express® we are yearlong tree lovers, but it is always nice to highlight times of the year where nature’s ever-present giants are given special commendation.

Whilst you may think of London as a non-stop city that is swamped with skyscrapers and other man-made icons, London is actually the greenest major city in Europe, and the third greenest city of its size in the world (according to a report commissioned by the City of London Corporation).

With 35,000 acres of public parks, gardens, squares, cemeteries and woodlands, more than 40% of London’s green space is publicly accessible; many of these spaces are dominated by mature trees that stop London becoming an entirely urban cityscape – even in the winter months.

London’s Tree Week runs until the end of Sunday the 31st of May and there are a number of events going on in and around the capital throughout the week, such as tree walks, exhibitions, talks and guided tours. For a full list of the events taking place, visit London.gov.uk’s dedicated page.

If you happen to be heading northwards out of London this Bank Holiday Monday, then don’t hesitate to stop off at our Harlow showroom, where you can view some stunning wood species on display in our kitchen showroom between 10am and 2pm. Exotic choices such as full stave American walnut worktops sit alongside traditional classics such as our Deluxe Prime Oak worktops, and many more besides.

If you are in the market for one of these stunning worktops but can’t make up your mind on the day, our showroom manager has plenty of pre-oiled worktop samples available for you to take away and view in the comfort of your own home.

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It is a bumper month here at Worktop Express® as not only are our stunning Deluxe Black Walnut worktops on sale with up to 10% off, but we also have 25% off all fabrication services ordered through our Online Bespoke Worktop Tool.

Our Deluxe Black American Walnut worktops are one of the most luxurious wood worktops in our collection, featuring rich colouration and an intricate grain that is full of character. Each stave in our Deluxe worktops is up to 90mm wide – more than double the width of our standard worktops, which creates a beautiful aesthetic for the centrepiece of your kitchen.

Currently these stunning Deluxe Black American Walnut worktops start at just £255 for a 40mm thick 2m x 620mm worktop, making them incredibly affordable when compared to prices from high-street retailers. There is no need to enter a discount code to save on these worktops as the deduction has already been made for you!

If you are considering any bespoke adjustments to your worktop, now is the perfect time to request the services of our fabrication team. Simply place a fabrication order via our Online Bespoke Worktop Tool and you will get 25% off all fabrication services. A wide variety of customisations are available for bespoke worktops, including cut-outs for sinks or hobs, drainer grooves, unique edge profiles and more besides.

Both of these fantastic offers are available until 23:59 on Sunday May 31^st, meaning there’s little over a week to take advantage of the savings.

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Over the past week we have been offering followers of our Twitter page the chance to win some fantastic prizes by entering our #SpringThings competition.

The lucky winner of our first week’s prize bundle is Suzanne McCusker, who was one of hundreds of people who retweeted our daily competition posts. This week we are moving the competition over to our Facebook page, with a second set of prizes up for grabs.

You could win a Salter Whole Fruit Juicer and a Kenwood kMix Hand Mixer worth £100, plus £100 of vouchers to spend at Worktop Express: and entering is really simple!

All you need do to enter this week is to like our daily #SpringThings Facebook posts, and/or leave a comment telling us what it is you love about spring time. Like and comment on each daily post and you’ll get another entry, so make sure you keep an eye on our page to get as many chances to win as possible!

We would love to see photos of trees in your garden or local park, you enjoying your favourite springtime hobby or anything else that you relate to wood and spring, so do share them with us using the #SpringThings hash tag for an additional entry.

We’ll be picking a second winner next Monday, after which the competition will revert to Twitter for another week, before then returning to Facebook for the final week. The competition runs until Sunday the 7^th of June at 23:59pm, so there is still plenty of time to enter!

There is plenty to love about our hardwood worktops in the natural light of spring time; if you missed it last month we posted a blog about our three favourite kitchen worktops to suit your home this spring.

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In recent months we have had an increasing number of requests from customers who are looking for the perfect sinks to go with their solid wood kitchen worksurfaces; so, to cater for this growing demand, we have now decided to offer a range of stainless steel and ceramic sinks. All sinks are kept in stock and include free next-day nationwide delivery, whether you purchase them with or without a worktop.

Our range currently includes thirteen of our own-branded stainless steel sinks and nine from Rangemaster, including a ceramic Belfast sink – the perfect partner for wood worktops.

Our selection of Worktop Express sinks are undermounted in style, and are available in square-cornered and two rounded radius corner choices. Choose from compact or large single bowl or 1.5 bowl varieties in each model, with a matching stainless steel strainer included. Whether you are looking for right or left-handed sinks, we have a number of models to suit any kitchen layout.

The Worktop Express Zero Radius Large Single Bowl Sink

The Rangemaster Classic Belfast Sink

The stainless steel Rangemaster sinks in our collection from are all overmounted varieties, available in a number of different designs with either a single bowl or 1.5 bowl. Whilst some are listed in left or right-handed models, some models are reversible, meaning that the sink can be used with the draining board on either side. Lastly, Rangemaster’s previously mentioned white ceramic Belfast sink is a classic design with a traditionally-styled overflow weir.

Each of our showrooms now has a sink display from Rangemaster, and will have more of our range on display very soon!

Don’t hesitate to pick up a sink from Worktop Express® today– we are sure to have something to fit your needs: whether it be an ideal sink for iroko, a marvellous sink for maple, or a superb standalone for your existing worktop!

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Open plan kitchen living has become increasingly popular in recent years, meaning that this social room is often the hub of the home when it comes to dining and family gatherings.

If you have designed a new kitchen with a breakfast bar or are in the process of designing one (or perhaps an adjoining dining room), then choosing wooden chairs to match your kitchen worksurfaces and overall kitchen theme is an important design consideration.

In this month’s Top 5 roundup, we have chosen our 5 favourite chairs to complement some of the beautiful hardwood timbers that make up our range of worktops:

Conway Furniture

The Annecy Dining Chair

Made from solid oak and with a slatted rear support and faux leather seat, this attractive chair from Conway Furniture is the ideal complement for our oak worktops, whether in a kitchen or dining room.

Paired with our quality solid oak restaurant tables they would look particularly luxurious.

Priced at just £99 from Conway-Furniture.com

The Cotswold Company

The Dorchester Side Chair

If you are looking for a chair with an unmistakable traditional look that suits a country kitchen, the Dorchester Side Chair from The Cotswold Company is ideal.

Handmade from solid beech, this chair features turned details on the back support and legs that give it a rustic farmhouse look.

Priced at £100 from CotswoldCo.com

Bumble Kitchen Stools

The Bumble Stool

This stool from Loaf.com is an ideal companion alongside an oak worktop breakfast bar, as it is also made from naturally smoked solid oak timber.

Specially contoured for increased comfort, the Bumble stool is sanded to a smooth finish and has a simple aesthetic that would suit any modern kitchen.

Buy two for £250 at Loaf.com

Way Fair

AlpenHome Solid Teak Arm Chair

For a unique solid wood piece to add a certain amount of natural charm to your kitchen, there are few chairs more organic than this solid teak arm chair from AlpenHome.

Carved from a single piece of solid teak, this contemporary piece could be mistaken as a piece of art, but the price is extremely reasonable for such a distinctive chair.

Only £137.99 from WayFair.co.uk

John Lewis

Croft Collection Cecile Bar Chair

If you are looking for a traditionally styled bar chair to fit in with a painted kitchen, this solid beech chair from John Lewis might be ideal.

Featuring a classic tenoned design and painted finish, this Cecile bar chair would suit a breakfast bar in a country kitchen and is available in a range of colours.

£115 each from JohnLewis.com

If you haven’t got the space or requirement for a breakfast bar, our wooden worktops make ideal dining tables too (with the addition of a suitable base). Take advantage of our bespoke worktop cutting service and our fabrication team can cut a worktop or biscuit join several worktops together to create a wider surface.

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Our maple worktops proved a very popular choice for our ‘Worktop of the Month’, but with May in full flow, a new worktop has been chosen to take over this prestigious title.

Black oak worktops are the latest to be added to our vast range: these very special surfaces combine the hard-wearing natural qualities of European oak with a dark colour more closely associated with luxurious choices such as our wenge worktops.

The dark – almost black – colour is achieved by subjecting the timber to a special treatment process which adds a rich hue throughout. Because this finish penetrates every part of the wood, it is unlike staining or painting (which are surface treatments); and as such the worktop can still be cut to size or have any other bespoke alterations made, without exposing the original lighter colour of the timber.

If you think our black oak worktops are the ideal wooden surface for your kitchen, then we recommend trying out our worktop sample service. Each sample measures 200mm x 150mm x 40mm, and is pre-oiled to demonstrate the finished look you should expect to achieve. At just £5 including delivery, our samples are great value for money, and can be refunded from your order should you decide to purchase one of our worktops.

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Our showroom family expands even further this week, with our latest just north of Chesterfield now officially open. Kerry and the new showroom team will be opening the doors to customers across the North of England every weekday (except Wednesdays) and Saturday between 9am and 5pm. They will even be open this Bank Holiday Monday between 10am and 2pm, ready to welcome any keen wooden kitchen appreciators.

Head on over to the Chesterfield showroom today and you will find eight fantastic kitchen sets on show, complete with a wide range of real wood worktops, including timeless oak, exotic iroko, luxurious wenge, the ever-popular Deluxe European Walnut and more besides.

As well as showcasing our excellent choice of hardwood worktops, each kitchen consists of solid oak cabinets, wirework and handles from our sister company, SolidWoodKitchenCabinets.co.uk.

If you happen to visit our showroom and can’t make your mind up as to which worktop you would like to order, pre-oiled samples of every single one of our wood species are available to take away the very same day.

We don’t ask visitors to make an appointment in order to visit the showroom, but if you are travelling some distance, our showroom manager will be happy to book you a time slot to ensure that someone is on hand to answer all your kitchen queries.

Alongside the new showroom, we have also opened another depot, furthering the reach of our 2Man delivery network across Northern England and Wales, whilst simultaneously expanding our stock-holding, too.

If you happen to be in the North of England and are looking for wooden worktops and kitchens at an incredible price, then visit our new Chesterfield showroom today! If you live in another part of Britain, our Gloucester and Harlow worktop showrooms are also open 5 days a week.

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A full stave iroko worktop with an undermounted sink cut out, two tap holes and routed drainer grooves.

This oak worktop features irregular cut outs, a wide hob cut out, two 320mm internal radius corners and two sets of worktop connector bolt cut outs.

To see further examples of the bespoke worktops created by our team, take a look through our extensive Fabrication Gallery.

There is no discount code to worry about in this sale, as all savings will be automatically applied when you use our online too: however, the sale does end at 23:59 on May 31^st, so please be sure to get those designs finalised and ordered in good time.

Along with this great offer on fabrication, there is also up to 10% off all black American walnut worktops this month. If that is your worktop of choice, you really can get a fantastic deal at Worktop Express® throughout May. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any queries – we’re here to help!

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