How much did you pay for worktop?

[refraction]

Just been quoted 3k for a quartz worktop. How much did you pay for yours?

Oh thinks is ridiculous but I do not want laminate.

AIBU?

Sounds about right

3k for ours ten years ago. Would have it again, it’s bombproof.

£4k for quartz on island and a run on both sides of range, including cut-out and drainer for sink. Love it!

If you can’t afford quartz but don’t want laminate can you ask for quotes on Dekton/Corian/ or real wood?

Real wood will be the cheapest (unless you pick something fancy or rare).
But it requires more upkeep.

It clearly depends how large it is???

I got quoted £4,500 today- South East and almost 2hrs from London! No island either. That's for about 5m x 1m of work space!!!

We are getting further quotes!

We paid £4K for quartz worktops 6 years ago. This was for a large island and a worktop running the entire length of the kitchen including sink and drainage cut out.

There are cheaper options but there’s a reason quartz is as expensive as it is!

We paid 4.5K for granite

If you like the look of quartz but not the price you could get ‘compact laminate’. It looks nothing like laminate. It is compressed sheets of laminate with a solid edge. Have a google. It is waterproof too.

Same but it’s a big kitchen. We got caesarstone from mayflower stone company . 3k included fitting

About 5k 5.5 years ago for large kitchen, island with waterfall sides and utility room. Stock up on the baking soda to clean the damn thing - it's porous so staining is an issue.

We paid over 3K for granite 9 yrs ago so I'd say your quote is reasonable.

Ours was around £3,000 - £3,500 for a straight run of around 6 metres with a hole out for the hob and one for the sink. I love it! We aren't planning on leaving our house ever (barring a lottery win) and decided to splash out on getting exactly what we wanted, because we won't ever be able to do it again. We got Silestone because that had the colour/pattern that I wanted. And to be quite honest if it had been a bit more expensive I would have been prepared to make compromises elsewhere so that we could get it.

3k 10 years ago. It's a resin wrapped solid worktop, not even natural stone but still looks brand new.

£995. 6 metres solid granite. All fitted with sink and taps cut out and island top out of the 6m.

Yeh that sounds about right. We were 3k for ours last year. It's white quartz. I love it.

4K

We got our white and grey speckled quartz last year from a guy my builder recommended and was only about £1500 (half the other quotes!) He also provided us offcuts from another job for the two bathroom counters for £150. This is in London, showroom/warehouse out west past Acton.
We have quite a small kitchen.

I paid about 4k. It is beautiful. I lived for 20 years with stained damaged worktops and I am never planning to move....so to me it is worth every penny.

A big consideration should be....are you going to stay in that house?

Btw wood goes mouldy and waterlogged in a flash!

We paid £2900 this year for granite worktops and window sills and a splashback. The quartz price would have been the same

Earlier this year we paid just over 3k for around 8m with 50 upstands. It looks amazing, worth every penny!

Were just about to redo our kitchen so this is interesting to know. Is it always quartz now? Does anyone have real marble for islands or is that not a thing?

As another poster has said look at compact laminate. That is what we are looking at getting when we have finally saved enough for our new kitchen. The house doesn't justify the expense of quartz or granite for us as we only see us being here 5 years probably. Compact laminate was the best of both worlds for us. It's now us deciding whether we use this as a splash back or get tiles.

Real marble is not a good surface for a kitchen as it will dissolve in acid. There are a lot of marble effect quartz products now which look good though.

£3k is about right. When buying something like quartz there is a hefty upfront cost for templating and fitting, about £1500 is typical. Our quartz in early 2020 was around £3250. Granite in our previous house in 2015 was £2700.

Unless your worktop is tiny, that doesn't sound like a lot for quartz.

We have laminate that didn't cost very much that I can't remember, because the kitchen is from Ikea, but we didn't have the budget for expensive worktops like quartz and ours would have probably cost a lot more than £3k because we have a long run of worktops and a big island.

Whether or not it's reasonable for you to pay £3k for quartz depends on a lot of factors, but if you have the budget, and it's in proportion with the whole kitchen spend, ie you're going to live in the house for the foreseeable, rather than it being a quick refurb in a small kitchen in a lower priced house to smarten it up for selling, then I'd say it's worth paying that amount. It will look great and last a lifetime.

Whenever I've researched worktops, every material other than laminate has some weakness that means it could be damaged by ordinary kitchen use. I wondered how I would feel to have damage on a surface costing several thousands, and decided that actually laminate is the best option. Laminate can withstand all the things that would damage other surfaces, and if something does go wrong, at least I won't have to write off several thousand to replace it again.