Kitchen worktops -pros and cons

[PepeLePew]

I've got (finally) the cash to upgrade the kitchen, and the worktops are the priority. The units themselves are fine, and I don't really want to replace them as I like them, but the tops are cheap white laminate that look awful.

It's quite a small kitchen, with white units. What are my options, and what are the good and bad points? I had wood in my last house and that was a bit of a nuisance. Could granite go onto existing units? I need something robust and durable - I'm forever wiping up spilled tea and coffee from the surfaces.

[mabelbabel]

We will be doing a kitchen soon and will be going for a quartz/composite worktop (caesarstone or similar) in a pale colour. We've tested a sample with wine, curry, tomatoes, coffee and tea and all the three brands we've tried have all come up shining (caesarstone, samsung and lunastone). The only thing we found was that pure white was prone to scratch marks, eg from metal, and the very dark colours can show impact marks if bashed.
It would be worth getting some samples to have a look at.
We didn't fancy granite because we'd have terrible trouble with hard water round the sink area. We've had wood and that's been OK, but has gone manky round the sink.
I actually like some of the laminate options, and would happily go for one of those, but DH is not keen. There are companies which will cover your existing worktop with a thin layer of quartz which would be cheaper than replacing entirely, but I don't know anything about the quality/longevity of that option.

[wonkylegs]

We had brown granite in our old kitchen. After 10yrs it still looked brand new.
It was great, I'm not particularly houseproud and we had no stains or damage.
Ours was only thin so just sat on the cupboards. We have lovely soft water so limescale isn't much of a problem.
Our new house has black granite which shows water marks much worse than the brown but it's still beautiful and hardwearing. We are about to replace it with sandy coloured quartz only because I want to lighten up a dark kitchen and we are getting new everything. We will be selling it on as it's still in perfect nick and there is a lot of it.
My dad has a nice laminate worktop but it does need replacing approx every 5yrs as it does scratch.

[Eastwickwitch]

Im going for Silestone too. I have black granite & iroko at the moment. The granite is great, looks like new after 10 years but the iroko is ruined.

I'd have granite again but I want the look of Carrera Marble so it's a composite for me.

[Madamecastafiore]

There are companies that put slim tops of granite on existing work tops and it works out a lot cheaper.

We have black granite with flecks in and compared to the wood we had in last house is bloody brilliant.

No dents, no marks, no splitting, can put pans straight on to it. Is fab and cold for baking.

We do have water softener though so for us limescale is not a problem.

[PepeLePew]

Sounds like the granite veneer is worth exploring - thanks everyone!