Has anyone seen a nice vinyl kitchen worktop

[CarlaBrooni]

We've been serial renters and always been happy with where we've lived (we've been lucky!) but now we've bought a house and are about to do a kitchen renovation.

Our plan is to live in it for 5 years or so before our feet get itchy again and we had off overseas. At that point we'd rent it out.

I love the look of some of the Quartz composite kitchen worktops but for our size of kitchen it's going to cost about 10k.

A lot of money but we'd be prepared to spend that if we were not thinking about a long term plan and tenants.

What would you do?

when you say vinyl, do you mean laminate?

Oh, I probably do mean laminate! It's the stuff that we all had before things got fancy (and expensive).

there is no end to the range of laminates you can get. DIY sheds usually have, or can order, a few dozen. If you look in yellow pages for Laminate Suppliers, there is probably a trade warehouse in your town that has samples of hundreds or thousands they can order from the manufacturers in the UK and Europe. they will supply shopfitters and hotels with laminates that are not sold in the mass market.

Prices for £30 for a 2-metre length upwards. 3 metres is widely available. You may be able to order longer ones.

It is an advantage to have your kitchen designed so the worktops can be made with simple rectangular pieces and a sit-on sink, with plastic clip-on sealing strip against the walls. Then you can change them at whim in a day or less.

Kitchen fitting companies are always more expensive because they buy friom the same places but have to charge you a fortune make a profit.

Thank you PigletJohn, but is it actually acceptable to have laminate these days?

Why not just use cheap solid wood? I had the cheapest worktops from Ikea, solid (if not massively thick) wood and they looked LOVELY. And were easy to cut to fit for my handy brother and his router. Will definitely do that again in the new kitchen.

MummytoMog - I love the look of wood but have read too much here about how wood goes black and needs constant maintenance.

I can't find anything about laminate.

It doesn't need constant maintenance! I just swabbed oil over mine once a year. Once, I burnt a mark into it with a hot pan, so I sanded it down, chucked olive oil on the mark and it was gone.

What I don't like about laminate is that once it's damaged (knife cut, burn etc) it's much harder to restore yourself. Wood is cheaper and much easier to refinish.

I would have a set on sink though, rather than a set under sink.

I didn't know there were different kind of sinks . Seems I've got a lot to learn. (I'm only 47 so plenty of time)

some sinks do not sit under or on top of the worktop; they are as deep as a worktop and sit on the unit beneath, and line up with the adjacent worktop front and back. So you can change the worktop without having to move the sink. This can be very convenient, not only does it reduce the risk that water drips will damage the worktop (esp. if solid wood), it also means it is quicker and easier to change the worktop, should you so desire.

The Astracast Bistro is an example of such a sink, there are others.

like this

I'm having laminate! I like Bushboard's Omega range and am currently dithering between their vanilla gloss and ice quartz. If you look at Bushboard's website then they have pictures of all their ranges.

plain gloss is easily marked, and more suitable to a showroom than to a kitchen.

we have a laminate, my parents had laminate my whole life (in fact the same one lasted them 25 year+ and still looked great), ours is a pretend granitey type one, very pleasant, looks good, easy to look after, cheap.

That's a good looking sink Piglet John (never thought I'd say those words) and thanks for the info, which I had no idea about.

Away to google Bushboard Omega range: would love to be persuaded by laminate due to the cost.

Isn't it just! Quite expensive though. I have two in the shed waiting for the fairies me to get round to fitting them.

The greatest disadvantage with laminate worktops and stainless sinks is that you can't boast to your friends about how much money you spent on something that will be more trouble to look after.