Kitchen work tops (again..)

[5amisnotmorning]

We need a new kitchen and are looking for a bit of wow factor. It's going to be a large l shaped kitchen diner with sofa and it is a bit on the dark side so white painted cabinets with an oak floor.

What work tops and colours do you think would go? We are potentially putting in a large rectangular island so was thinking that could have a different (ie. more expensive) work top if necessary on there.

Any ideas?

Don't get wood, unless you love oil varnishing constantly.

Granite, marble if I had my time again!

Can I recommend quartz? Dp and I got some for one section of the kitchen and I will never get anything else. It's gorgeous and easy to look after, hides the dirt. No to wood!

We've just had "vanilla" (cream) shaker style cabinets put in our new kitchen with ivory fantasy granite worktops. Looks fab and is (supposedly) going to be in a magazine... The granite seems very easy to look after and you can't even see the crumbs...

I was going to have an earth stone (composite) work top but at the last minute chose granite. I am so glad I did. It looks fabulous and just finishes the kitchen

Sorry - think that sounded a bit showy offy and probably won't happen anyway.

Mine is granite and my island is huge. I would not have anything else.

Don't worry about the magazine comment, Marmite, we had all that too and then they wanted the whole house!!! Still haven't finished that project!

Gloat away marmite. Congrats on the kitchen.

I've gone for silestone quartz after much research. Its not fitted yet so I'm hoping its as good as they say it is.

Sounds like our extension that we did last year - Lshaped kitchen diner, oak floor, cream units. We deliberated longand hard about worktops, and ended up hoing for granite. It is absolutely fab, I haven't regretted it at all.

Our granite is dark, a sort of mottled grey/ black but the kitchen is south facing with huge windows and patio doors, so loads of light. If the room had been dark then we'd have gone for a lighter granite.

Granite is really easy to look after, doesn't mark/stain (although you shouldn't leave lemon juice in it for any length of time) and you can put hot pans on it straight from the oven.

We recently got a new kitchen and aimed for the wow factor. Not sure we achieved that but we went for contrasting designs- the Main kitchen is white with wood work tops and the island is oak with granite work tops. I think it looks amazing but less than a year on the wood needs reoiled already.
It is worth shopping round for granite- we were quoted three times what we eventually paid by the kitchen company but found a local company who were fantastic. A word of warning though- make sure they send enough people to lift it when they deliver as ours weighed 300kilos and it took them an hour to carry it from the drive into our kitchen as they only sent two men... Luckily our builder was happy to help and our 70 year old neighbour was holding straps and guiding them!

"Don't get wood, unless you love oil varnishing constantly."

cereal - you need osmo polyx hard wax oil. our oak worktops were done with this a good two years ago and look great. water regularly spilled and I put pans straight from the hob onto the worktop....not a mark.

we previously used both boiled linseed and Danish oil, both of these were horrible. worktops marked easily and very difficult to get it on evenly. also the oak took on a yucky orange tinge.

we are thinking about moving to a new house and, if we do, I'm going for oak worktops again.

if you search mumsnet for osmo you will see there are loads of converts!

op- if you don't want wood (could be wood overload with an oak floor) I think I'd go for a pale stone. imo dark granite has been overdone and looks a bit dated to me.

Ditto Ceres.