What is Quartz?

Quartz has been a common option for home stone surfaces since the mid-century popularity it enjoyed in Europe, but in the last decades it’s also become one of the favorite stones in American home remodeling and kitchen surfacing.

For many years, quartz wasn’t able to get a foothold in American kitchen design. The quartz countertop manufacturers of the past simply didn’t have the technology to achieve a natural-looking, gorgeous product that could rival granite or marble, the hitherto first choice for luxury kitchens. Fifty years ago, quartz countertops didn’t have the same color range or organic-looking texture and variation that they do today, and they were also much more expensive, making them an unpopular choice.

But recently, the quartz industry has exploded, and architects, bloggers, and designers can’t get enough! Premier manufacturers like Caesarstone have been able to develop quartz countertops that have captured the hearts of homeowners with their natural look and feel, wide variety of colors and patterns, and incredible strength. Furthermore, prices have been dropping as the process becomes more streamlined and common.

Quartz is an “engineered stone.” Unlike granite and marble, which are cut from the earth in solid slabs that go straight into homes without any alteration to their composition, quartz is created from ground quartz crystals that are combined with a polymer resin. Quartz agates are first inspected for quality and homogeneity, ground into a fine sand, blended thoroughly with the resin, and poured into a mold. This mixture is then subjected to high heat and pressure, which cures the resin and simulates the geothermic conditions that create stones like granite, meaning that the resulting slab is extremely hard and non-porous. Finally, the slabs are polished with diamond abrasives to a beautiful, reflective shine.

Because the process of creating quartz is controlled and accelerated by human machinery, manufacturers are able to produce a material that’s even more impenetrable than granite. Unlike natural stones, you will never have to re-seal your quartz countertop because the resin it’s created with acts as an inherent sealant, and it’s so hard that it will never scratch or chip. Quartz is the ideal choice for homeowners who want something that will look look as flawless as it did the first day it was installed for many years without regular maintenance. If you want a kitchen evocative of stunning luxury, yet your lifestyle doesn’t leave any room to worry about your c knife blades, wine spills, or sealing schedule, quartz could be perfect for you!

One of the other major advantages of quartz is the incredible color variety in which it is available. You can purchase quartz countertops in vivid, solid colors you could never find in a completely natural stone,  whether you want a completely black or white countertop or a solid red, purple, chartreuse, or more! Quartz is also available in textures that convincingly mimic the natural veining or speckling of granite or marble, and if you want something truly stunning and unique, you can also buy quartz countertops that still have the intact agate crystals, which make for an absolutely jaw-dropping stone surface.