Stainless steel kitchen worktop

[Sinkingfeeling]

We're thinking of putting in a stainless steel worktop in our new kitchen. Does anyone have one and can list the pros and cons? We've been using a temporary kitchen for the last 2 years from IKEA. It has freestanding units with stainless steel work tops on the oven and sink units. They're great because they're heatproof and v easy to clean. Not sure about a whole kitchen though.

I'm interested in this too, but where can you get one from?

Cold and echoey. They blunt knives and do mark. But if you want a certain look they are fine. I work in the professional industry and would not want this at home. The measureing off stainless steel is absolute, there is no forgiveness or nudging. Also would not want visible / welded, polished joints.

I'd love that. We had this in my last workplace (very trendy office) and it was great. I loved the patina that developed with use.

Very practical and different looking.

I have one. I'm very happy with it but I was very relaxed about it getting scratched - don't get one if you expect it to remain pristine. It's very practical and, imo, looks great. It's on a long run of units so there are two joins which we semi-disguised by putting one through the sink area and one through the hob area rather than having a join in the middle that was very obvious iyswim.

I think it depends on your space. The ones I've seen that work well are in warehouse type settings - exposed brick & exposed pipes - so it fits with the look. I think in a small domestic kitchen it may look a bit too much like a school canteen. What about steel oven or steel fronted cabinets instead?

Interesting - we definitely don't have a warehouse-type home, Stokey, but the kitchen is fairly big with quite a lot of natural light. This is the picture that quite inspired me.

Lala - don't mind about it not being pristine too much. Our current units with stainless steel worktops aren't pristine either, but they don' t have big dents or anything - more small dings.

Curly - when you say they blunt knives, do you mean knives that are used to cut directly onto the worktop?

Tanyaah - there are lots of suppliers online. Quite a few supply stainless steel surfaces to commercial kitchens, laboratories, hospitals etc.

catering worktops (and sinks) appear to be made of a different alloy, they go dark grey rather than silver, and will be dull, marked with an overall pattern of scratches, nicks and marks.

They are usually deeper than domestic worktops, I don't know the size offhand. Have a browse here

ooo they look lovely OP

We have stainless steel worktops. They're about 20 years old and I think they're great.

Our bench is U-shaped so we have diagonal, polished joins in each corner, I like the look. Our sinks are integrated, so there are no seams or visible joins around them, which makes it easier to keep clean.

They'd only dull your knives if you chopped on the work surface. I've always used chopping boards so that's not an issue for me. They're easy to clean, however we have soft water so I don't know if hard water would make any difference.

They do scratch, you have to accept that.

The only thing I don't like about them is we have a skylight above them, and when the sun shines straight down there is a fair bit of reflected glare and they can get hot.

It looks really great in that picture Sinking, very different to what I had in mind which was a more industrial look.

Bumping for Whatdotoinaminute