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Remodeling Design Dilemma Kitchens

Can porcelain be used for floating shelf on porcelain backsplash?

3 years ago

We are thinking of using porcelain as our countertop material, on the wall behind the oven range about 30 inches above The countertops as the backsplash. We want a floating shelf along that wall (about 96” long). Can porcelain be used in this application? What is used to support something like that? Has anyone here done something similar? Any advice is appreciated.

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Comments (5)

PRO
HALLETT & Co.
3 years ago
I would talk to your counter fabricator. There will be steel supports built into the wall before framing, then I assume they would laminate the porcelain around a plywood core that was drilled to fit over the steel supports. Complete PITA but probably doable with the right team
HU-349666461 thanked HALLETT & Co.
PRO
Celadon
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
With the 30K budget for the wall and floor reinforcements, it’s doable. Porcelain is the most difficult and expensive choice to make here. Any movement and it cracks and is done for. You’d need to reframe the wall with heavy steel, and steel bracing for the shelf tied into the heavyweight steel studs. Then reinforce the floor beyond the L/720 required for natural stone, and FLAT to 3/16 in 10’. Deflection is the enemy. Stone accepts more deflection than porcelain does.

The wood cabinets will neeed to be fully acclimated to the environment, and that environment needs to have strict humidity controls in the HVAC system, so you don’t have seasonal expansion and contraction.

Or you’ll get cracks. That are not repairable.
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HU-349666461
Original Author
3 years ago
@Celadon for a 96” x 30” piece used as a backsplash and a fabricated shelf? It won’t go on the floors, just the countertop and backsplash. It’s currently a load bearing wood framed wall that it would go against. Seems like a ton of work and $ if it will require what you describe.
HU-290654264
3 years ago
Wood moves too much.
Shiloh S
2 years ago
@HU-349666461 what did you end up doing??

We are considering porcelein as well?

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