corian draining board

[clangermum]

Tentatively thinking of corian worktops because I like the idea of having a seamless backsplash, and there seems to be a bigger colour choice than with granite. Will probably go for a darkish colour against cream units.

Will possibly have a stainless steel sink (sink and a half) because I've only seen lighter coloured corian sinks and wonder if they would be hard to keep looking clean. I also wondered if I'd be more likely to smash stuff in them. But I quite like the idea of a moulded corian draining board. I've seen some reviews that say the water pools on them because they don't slope towards the sink, so need more care. Can anyone tell me the pros and cons of corian draining boards (and sinks too).

...I've got one - love it - all in one piece and if you damage it (apparently) they can come and drill out the offending piece, slot in a new section, sand it and it looks like new.

Seriously though - I have a speckled one as I am crap at cleaning and think that life is far too short to be polishing granite...

Does a speckled one mean you have to worry about water smears less in a hard water area? Or aren't water smears as much an issue as I've read they are with granite?

Watching thread with interest as we have just ordered a kitchen with corian worktops and draining board..but ss sink. Also speckled for same reasons as looksover

We were thinking ss sink too
Are you having the corian going up as a splashback?

No, we have chosen mirrored glass, which I am slightly concerned about keeping clean, hoping it won't be too difficult as hob is going on the island, so just splashes from the sink to contend with. I am assured an ecloth, used only for the splash back, is the answer

Oh and re smears on the corian, the finish is speckled and matt, so I am optimistic that it wont't show water smears in the way glossy dark colours do. We are renting a place with gloss black worktops while building work going on and it is a nightmare to keep looking clean..

... our worktop units are all in one piece - it has a splashback all along the surface of around 4 inches (no tiles anywhere - this is slightly curved so there are no nasty areas where the water may gather and sprout mould such as like the join between a worktop and tiles/grouting

The "draining board" is grooved and "Yes" the water does gather there from time to time - but a quick wipe down and slosh the water back into the sink works fine...

I haven't had any problem and we have had ours now for over a year. I looked at granite, high gloss work units and a shiny fridge....but decided that realistically I really never would never wipe everything down every time it was used, then dry it and then polish it to remove fingermarks, watermarks, grease etc.

Behind the Hob we have a very large piece of special coloured glass - this doesn't show the splashes like a stainless steel cooker splashback... works a treat..

As I mentioned our Corian is speckled, the sinks are porcelain/china, the wall/floor units wood and the floor tiles - porcelain with artistic defects - PERFECT...

It gets a good once over each week and it is fine...

lookoveryourshoulder - hadn't thought about curving up at the back slightly, that's interesting

sleepwhenidie - ecloths seem to be the way to go

the only con of corian is the price!
apart fromt that, I can't think of anything. Mine is called whitecap and is white with little flecks. it is so easy to keep clean and hasn't stained or chipped at all. worth every penny .mine goes up about 4 inches up the wall and for a splash back at the sink, and also down the side edges of the units to the floor.

thanks queenmaeve

we were looking at some corian today and the price is really high, but we've never had anything longlasting before, everything has looked tired/stained/chipped after a while so I'm trying to look at the expense that way

it's difficult to choose colours from a tile that's about 2" square though - I need to find somewhere that has a bigger display of actual corian worktops rather than just 1 worktop plus a selection of sample tiles....

..mine is a grey with tiny tiny splodges of white flecks, brown flecks,dark grey flecks, black flecks etc and it hides EVERYTHING... way to go....

We also have Corian surfaces in out bathrooms - black with white flecks - these need a little more cleaning but nothing too serious.

From memory I think that they were very expensive - but at time my DH was up at 4.00 am and home at 10.00pm - so he signed off everything

I chose silestone because I was worried that corian was prone to staining and needed extra help other than just wiping to stay stain free. Unfortunately it seems that lighter shades of silestone are prone to staining issues too and whe you question their marketing blurb they just say everything stains!!??!!

lookoveryourshoulder do you mind me asking where you got your Corian bathroom stuff from?

useful to know mokemum - I was sidetracked by some silestone earlier which I'm pretty sure the salesperson said was 'like corian'

lookoveryourshoulder - am going to contact dupont (or whoever it is that makes corian) and ask for some decent sized colour charts so I can check out the grey with assorted flecks

just found an ipad app called mysurface with all the corian shades

we had a corian worksurface for six yrs before moving house recently. It still looked great after all that time. I recommend barkeepers friend for keeping it looking lovely. We didn't have any staining in the draining board grooves and we lived in a hardwater area. We had a cream colour with multi coloured speckles... just the same as the mother and baby loos in Selfridges! No wonder I always feel so at home there..

Thanks for the recommendation Agapanthii.

I'm finding the app useful, and also had an email back from DuPont saying if I pick a couple of colours they will send me 10cm samples, which is bigger than any shop samples I've seen.

A bit late to this one, but have recently installed a Corian worktop and am very unhappy with it - maybe a warning could be useful to others.

Essentially, the problem is that we get smears and splodges at the slightest provocation. My wife is very very careful with the surface, but still finds she is unable to give it a uniform appearance.

Some of this may be down to our choice of colour - a pale mottled grey called 'Dove'. The mottling doesn't really help as this is a textural issue - i.e. patches of smoothness that stick out like a sore thumb due to a large window nearby being reflected. Maybe Granite would be the same. I think we should have gone with the Ikea orange-peel effect melamine worktops - would have saved us £4000!

One thing that might be worth trying is getting DW to use an ecloth as recommended, rather than the j-cloth which is embedded in her DNA!

This thread is pretty useful, as I'm thinking about what surface to buy.
However it would be so much better with photos, i.e. links to flikr pics etc.
(shame mumsnet doesn't allow photos to be attached to posts)

Anyway cheers for the advice, I was sold on Corian, until thewinelake's post.
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