Seams are inevitable when it comes to granite or faux granite countertops installation. You can never have a perfectly aligned and crack-free countertop. So, here are some ways by which you can repair these seams.
Placement Of The Seams
This is a very good tip when it comes to hiding the seams or placing them in a way to make them look a lot less noticeable. Most professional countertop installation teams will try to place the slabs in such a way that the seams face away from the view and they become concealed. It can be either placed near the stovetop, the sink, and the faucets or by the walls, which will conceal the seam effortlessly. So, placement of the seams can be enough to hide them, but they still might be a bit noticeable. If you get the countertops professionally installed then there will be a lot of manipulation in the slab placement to make sure that the seams remain out of sight.
Fill Up The Seams
To fill up the seams, there are colored adhesives and fillers, which are readily available in the market. They are available in a huge variety of colors to match your countertops. To fill the countertop seam, you first need to clean it to make sure that there isn’t anything stuck inside the surface of the seam, which will make it hard for the adhesives to stick. You can use a high power blower or use something thin to run through the inside of the seam.
Afterwards, you can use the filler or adhesive and put a thick layer inside the seam. Allow it to set in the seam for some time, and fill it up more if it droops or is uneven with the surface. You need to make sure that the adhesive and the countertop surface are at the same height. Once the adhesive or filler has been applied, it’s time to let it dry for about 24 to 48 hours. After the drying process is complete, now you can take a scraper or a sandpaper and sand off the excess adhesive or filler outside the seam to make it look even.
Patterns Will Enhance Seams
Stones like granite and marble usually have patterns on them, like veining and other designs. When these stones are cut into slabs, it makes the design non-symmetrical and when these slabs are being installed, the design can look thrown off and irregular, which will cause the seams on the surface to look even more noticeable. This is why it is recommended that whenever you go for reviewing countertop materials, you are selecting the materials which have minimal designing on the surface, the veining will be there regardless, but subtle veining will mesh into the individual slabs better and they will not make the seams stand out.
Slabs Will Have Seams
As mentioned previously, stones are usually available in the slabs or tiles. When the natural stone is mined from the ground, it is in the shape of huge boulders. These boulders get cut into slabs, big sheets and tiles in manufacturing factories. Afterwards, these stones in the form of tiles, slabs and thicker sheets are sent to retailers all around the world.
When slabs are being installed, there will be some issues in matching the design or veining on the surface with the adjacent slab, which is why some sort of maneuvering is done, which ultimately gives rise to spaces, disorientation gaps in the middle of the two slabs, which is known as seams. These are very much inevitable especially in stones like granite because of its dark veining on the surface. If the veining is subtle, then you can get away with it, but usually granite is a darker colored stone and its veining is very prominent, so the seams also become very visible and noticeable to the eye. This is why professional installation is preferred if you are considering getting granite countertop slabs.
Conclusion
Granite usually comes in pre-cut slabs, therefore hiding the seams of the slabs can be quite hard, but these tips will help you to make them look a lot less noticeable. Call in a granite company Durham NC if you want to get the countertop seams fixed professionally.
