Edge Profiles and How to Choose One
The Detail Everyone Picks Last
The edge is usually chosen in the last five minutes of a showroom appointment, from a rack of short samples, which is the worst possible way to judge it. The profile guide at countertop installation asheville nc 10 selection explains what each shape does to a countertop in daily use in an Asheville kitchen, and where the price sits.
What an Edge Profile Actually Is
An edge profile is the exposed face of the material, ground and polished into a shape by a router bit or a shaped wheel. The stock choices are an eased edge, which is a square face with the sharpness taken off, and a pencil round. Anything beyond those is charged as an upgrade, priced per linear foot of finished edge rather than by square foot of surface.
The Shapes That Survive
An eased edge and a small radius are the two that hold up, because they present no thin projecting lip to chip. A full bullnose looks soft but sheds water down the cabinet doors instead of onto your shoes, which people either love or regret. Ogee and dupont profiles have a fine top arris that will eventually take a knock, and they also collect grime in the hollow.
Thickness Changes Everything
The same profile reads completely differently at twenty millimetres and at thirty. A run of thin material usually gets a mitred build up at the front so the visible edge doubles, and where that build up is done well the join is invisible, and where it is done badly you get a hairline you cannot unsee. Ask to look at a finished example, not a sample chip.
Islands and the Waterfall Question
A waterfall edge, where the material turns and runs down the side of the island to the floor, is a fabrication job rather than a profile choice. It needs a mitred corner, pattern matching down the fall, and support inside the panel. It is not a small upcharge. On a busy granite it can look magnificent; on a plain colour it mostly looks expensive.
Practical Points People Forget
Deep overhang and a shaped edge together move the thing you knock your leg on outward. If a dishwasher door swings under the front, a heavy profile can foul the handle. And whatever you pick on the main run should carry through to any window sill or bar top in the same room, because two profiles in one space reads as a mistake even to people who cannot say why.