This 111-Year-Old Kitchen Countertop Material Is Making Major Gains with Gen-Z

Renovating a kitchen is a rewarding, if not daunting, project. Customizing a space to your ideal cooking and design preferences sounds like a dream, even if you’re the type that really wants to dig into all the available choices. At most budgets, though, this will involve trade-offs, and one of those places where people tend to cut corners is with their kitchen countertops.

Natural stone, while gorgeous and all the rage since the early aughts, is high-maintenance when it comes to care. It’s also expensive with a capital E. These factors have ushered in an era of other more cost-effective, durable options — engineered stone, butcher block, and laminate, to name a few.

Somewhere along the way from their decorative introduction in the late 1920s and golden age in the ’50s and ’60s, though, laminate countertops lost a little bit of their luster. But all that is changing with today’s younger generations, according to a recent study by Formica. Specifically, in a sample set of 1,000 people across the U.S., 86% of Gen-Z homeowners said they’d consider laminate for kitchen counters if it were in budget and matched their aesthetic, compared with just 56% of Boomers, 73% of Gen-X, and 78% of Millennials.

Why the discrepancy? Gen-Z might be more open-minded when it comes to materials in general. As a group, though, they also have no real reference for laminate — they didn’t necessarily grow up with it in their kitchens, so it doesn’t feel old fashioned or passé. Younger generations are also looking to the past for design inspiration more than their older counterparts, too, according to this same study.

And laminate has come a long way over the last 20 years. FENIX, an Italian-created laminate-like surface manufactured by Formica, nails the ultra-matte look that’s been so popular in homes, while the veining in the brand’s granite-look 180fxTM offerings is more realistic than ever, thanks to its true-to-scale sizing. And you never have to worry about spilling red wine or pasta sauce on these competitively priced surfaces, which is a win-win, no matter what generation you’re a part of.

Further Reading

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