08 Feb Essastone New Benchtop Product

Designing an industrial-style kitchen with new Essastone Luna Concrete

Created to showcase the brand new Essastone decor, this kitchen is an exemplar of industrial-inspired residential design.


Industrial style is a well-entrenched movement in interior design, but in residential applications, its utilitarian minimalism has to be tempered with elements that bring a sense of comfort and liveability. This need for balance was front of mind for Laminex Design Marketing Manager Catherine Valente as she set about designing a residential kitchen around the new Essastone decor, Luna Concrete.

Designing the island bench as hero of the space

“Luna Concrete was developed with a texture and structure that resembles hand-trowelled concrete, so it’s the ideal statement stone for an industrial-inspired space,” says Valente. “It has a beautiful masculine undertone and I wanted to design a kitchen that complemented that character in a contemporary way.”

The thickness with which the Luna Concrete has been applied to the island benchtop certainly plays to that masculine character, as does the roughly textured brick wall and raw concrete floor and ceiling. But the bench itself has been designed almost as a bridge between industrial and contemporary interior styles: at one end, its black metal frame is equal parts breakfast bar and factory workbench; at the other, it has the block detail of a classic modern Australian kitchen island.

Building a complementary palette around Luna Concrete

The front of the island block is clad in Laminex Natural Walnut, which Valente specified for its “rich tone and the beautiful variances in its deep grain structure”. A black shadowline between the timber and the benchtop highlights the darker tones in both the timber and the Luna Concrete. The rich black benchtop and splashback at the rear of the kitchen is another new Essastone decor, Lava Black, and it has a similar effect, the black bringing out the dark patternation of the Luna Concrete and, in turn, the concrete tones bringing out the grey basalt granular detail in the Lava Black.

All of this is framed by a minimally detailed wall of cabinetry in Laminex Spinifex, selected from the new Laminex Landscapes Series. The fresh organic tone and clean design style of the cabinetry at once highlights the masculinity of the Luna Concrete benchtop, the brick and concrete, and softens the entire space, drawing it away from a typical industrial palette. The contrasting colours and textures here are finely composed, and provide a clear illustration of how Essastone and Laminex decors are designed to work seamlessly together. The end result? A highly desirable, modern industrial-style kitchen.

The advantages of Luna Concrete as a benchtop material

Luna Concrete is perfectly crafted for this kind of kitchen application. Manufactured in Italy, its concrete-look surface, complete with weathered finish, ridges and divots, makes it unlike any other product on the market. Its semi-gloss finish and mottled background effectively hide fingerprints and other marks. And compared to solid concrete, it’s easier and more cost-effective to install, easier to maintain and keep clean, and certified as food safe by the National Sanitation Foundation.


Essastone Luna Concrete is available now, in regular and Jumbo slab sizes. To learn more, or to order a sample, click here.