Black granite or...? Opinions please!

[WhatWillSantaBring]

Redoing our kitchen, with painted shaker style units and a granite worktop. It's light and airy, with light stone floors, south/southwest aspect.

We have Skimming Stone on the walls, and are thinking of Elephants Breath on the units. Do we go for a pure black worktop or a grey? Or even lighter? We want a leathered finish and have samples in steel grey and indian jet black. We are thinking of Brinjal (aubergine) as the splash back. Oh yes, the Aga is black.

What are your opinions on the colour scheme and the colour worktop specidfically?

Thank you :-)

We have a mottled black /brown Worktop and I love it. It's been in for 6 years .

I have an engineered stone in a cream colour and I love it 5 years on - my units are cream gloss and my Aga is black. A friend who has a black granite top is always amazed by how easy mine is to keep clean and smear free - he has to do a lot of dry buffing on their's.

Yes that's a good point. The black mottled granite doesn't need any buffing, unlike the glossy or sparly black. I think there are still photos on my page

Pale grey/ white marble or corian. Lighter the better, more forgiving and I have had both!

We have quite a similar colour scheme, with polished black granite with blue inclusions. We thought it would all be too bland and samey if we had light granite or marble, and had had a problem with grey granite staining with an oil spill in our previous house, though that did eventually dissipate. We absolutely love the appearance of the dark granite, but it does need quite a lot of polishing to deal with the water marks. I don't know how a leather finish would compare in terms of maintenance. I'd do the same thing again TBH, as I tend to be a slattern and at least wanting the granite to look nice motivates me to clean it :)

Our black gratine worktop has a textured surface. Really easy to keep clean.

I used to work as a cleaner and so cleaned a variety of different granite counters. Without a doubt our black leather look is the easiest, and we are a pretty messy family. It's the first kitchen we've had where we get it looking clean and tidy the majority of the time, and that is partly down to wanting that beautiful counter to be seen, and it only needs a wipe with a wet cloth.

That makes me feel happy yego - I'm very slovenly so the easier the better. I guess I'm just worried at the collective mumsnet opinion that black granite is starting to look dated already, and also that black would be too dark, though I think with a light floor and walls, black will be fine.

Yes, lighter walls/units help, as does a good sized room and plenty of natural and additional light. Keeping to a colour scheme with things that get left out often helps too.

Ours is a mottled granite, it always looks good and 6 months on I've never had to polish it to make it look clean.

I've black, it is dated, I'd go with a much lighter colour now if I could rip it out.