If you are thinking of refitting your kitchen in Hertford, there are several ways of doing it. Many people today entertain guests in their kitchens, and this is one reason why a lot of people want to update them. In years gone by, guests were entertained in the living room by dad, while mum was in the kitchen doing the cooking. Then everybody went to the dining room for the meal and then back to the lounge or living room, while mum cleared up and put everything in the dishwasher.

Today, that has all changed considerably. The dining room has disappeared, and guests are entertained in the kitchen where the meal is served as well. Everybody might troop off to the living room for a coffee and brandy or three after dinner, but much of the evening is spent in the kitchen.

This is why so many people are having kitchen refits, and these can vary enormously, depending largely on budget. If you plan on ripping everything out and starting from scratch, you can easily go through £25,000 or even more. You might want to move everything around, which means taking up the floor and altering all the plumbing. You might even want to extend the kitchen into the garden in order to make it much bigger. All this can be done of course – at a cost.

However, there are ways of cutting down on the expense. For example, one thing is the cabinetry. Your cabinets may have old and tired-looking doors, but instead of ripping out the cabinets and buying new, you can just have new doors built for the existing cabinets. This will give you a brand-new look for very little expense. If your existing appliances are still working OK, why buy new? A dishwasher is a dishwasher is a dishwasher: they all look much the same anyway. Another thing you can do is to extend the cabinetry forward a little and then you can hide things like the dishwasher, fridge, freezer, and so on, behind doors that match the rest of the cabinets.

Of course, one thing that you cannot hide is the worktops. Here you have a lot of choices. You can use stone worktops such as quartz, marble, granite, limestone, sintered stone, and so on. You could use wood. You can use Corian. You can use stainless steel. You can even use cement! And a lot more as well. There is almost no limit as to the different choices that you have when choosing worktops.

However, there are two main considerations when thinking about worktops. The first is practicality. This is probably the most important factor, because you want worktops that are practical and easy to use, and at the same time don’t need a lot of maintenance, and in addition, they should be hardwearing.

The second factor of course, is that you want worktops which look fabulous. Not just great, but fabulous. This is why more and more people today are opting for worktops made from stone. Certainly, they cost a bit more than worktops made from things such as Corian, but they can look absolutely stunning and, with certain exceptions, can go on almost forever.

Marble is a wonderful stone, but is relatively soft compared to some others, and can easily get stained, which is not necessarily what you want in a kitchen where spills can easily happen.

A relative newcomer is quartz worktops in Hertford. This is a man-made stone which is mostly made up of ground quartz but has added resins and polymers, together with pigments, which total about 6% of the finished stone. The resultant quartz is totally non-porous which is what you need in a kitchen where spills are always going to happen. The quartz cannot stain, no matter what you spill on it. If you spill red wine or lemon juice on a marble worktop it will stain if you don’t wipe it up very quickly, but not with quartz.

While you shouldn’t chop foods directly on quartz worktops in Hertford, they are also highly resistant to any sort of scratching. Furthermore, they don’t need any sealing in the way that marble and granite do. They are also very easy to clean, just a wipe over with some soap and warm water does the trick.