Glass splashbacks have become all the rage for contemporary kitchens over the past few years. But as kitchen designs and trends evolve, solid-coloured glass splashbacks are now giving way to more textured and innovative solutions. If you're looking to move beyond a solid-coloured glass splashback for your kitchen, two fantastic options are slumped glass and printed glass.
Slumped Glass Splashbacks
- Slumped glass (which can also be called 'kiln formed glass' or 'patterned glass' ) is essentially glass with a specific pattern and texture, similar to what you probably would've seen in glass doors and windows back in the 70s.
- It can can be fitted anywhere that ordinary glass is used (including in kitchen splashbacks) but is generally tougher than standard glass.
- Slumped glass can be designed with a variety of 3D textures and patterns, making it wonderfully versatile when it comes to finding something to match your style of kitchen. You could have a glass splashback that sports a patterns of leaves or flowers, one that's scored with stripes or waves, or even a splashback that looks as if it's trickling with rain, reflecting a forest canopy or mimicking the surface of Mars.
- Geometric patterns (that often resemble old-school wallpaper designs) are also available when it comes to slumped glass, which can be a great option if you're keen to maintain symmetry and balance in your kitchen design.
- Slumped glass splashbacks can be custom-made using colour as well (or can be colour-matched), so consider whether this will work for your kitchen as opposed to using non-coloured or slightly transparent glass. Using colour in your splashback can help pull the design and decor of your kitchen together, but if your kitchen already has a lot of colour in it, opting for plain glass might be more subtle and suitable.
Printed Glass Splashbacks
- Welcome to a splashback world where practically anything is possible. Printed glass splashbacks are a brilliant way to personalise your kitchen, creating a space that is bold and unique.
- Printed glass ultimately relies on photography-based processes that reproduce and 'print' a given image onto a glass panel (or panels), which then results in a ready-to-be-installed splashback.
- The main appeal of printed glass is that it can be fully customised using any image, photo, drawing, painting, pattern or design you like - just choose what you want and a glass/splashback retailer should be able to easily scan, enlarge and print the image onto glass.
- Homeowners have created glass splashbacks using their own photos of mountain meadows or beach vistas, wallpapers with retro patterns, pictures of graffiti, self-sketched cartoons, replicas of flags from their home countries, and even posters featuring inspiring words and poetry. In other words, the possibilities are endless.
- The only catch with this option is that splashbacks tend to be fairly permanent decisions, so make sure whatever image or pattern you choose will work for your kitchen in the long-term; don't go for something that will outdate quickly.
- As with all interior design rules, you should also keep in mind that darker-coloured images or designs may not work well in darker or smaller kitchens. So, aim for bright or light colours and imagery instead. If your kitchen is fairly spacious, however, and if your overall colour palette leans towards the 'lighter' or more neutral end of the spectrum, a splashback with bold or dark colours can stand out well, creating a space that is distinctive and inspiring.
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