Tell me about your kitchen worktops

[MarmiteCoriander]

What do you have and would you get it again? Anyone have Lapitec or Neolith or know anything about them? Renovating a derelict kitchen and looking for ideas.

@Justthisonceharold Problem is on a rental house I had no control over how it was treated originally and I'm buggered if I'm sanding and sealing regularly on a rental house-- and I don't think many others (even owning) want that level of maintenance- actually it was a beautiful hand built oak kitchen but totally impractical on reflection- designed clearly by a man!

Corian. It needs a refurb though. Looking at getting it sanded and buffed. Has anyone done this ?

In my current kitchen we have both of these! The wood (iroko) is lovely on the breakfast bar and as shelves and window boards, and the Silestone around the sinks and hob. I really like the contrast in how it feels. I suspect just quartz would be too noisy for me.

We have white quartz. Love it. Would have it over and over again. The easiest maintenance of a worktop I’ve ever had. It’s £££ but worth it.

We always have solid oak, we don’t find it difficult. We had it in the last house for 4 years and it was immaculate and about to put it in our new house.
But it isn’t for everyone and the right products on it is very important. Someone I know ended up with sticky wood from the wrong stuff.
I loathe the look of granite or quartz though, I don’t like how it feels either, gives me the shivers. But I get why people love it. I had to live with very expensive granite for 3 years in one house and people thought it was beautiful and I couldn’t stand it. Fortunately we moved!

We had good wood effect laminate in the utility at previous house which was nice and if budget required it I’d have that in the kitchen. It looked good as new after 4 years.

Solid surface acrylic (corian). Love it.

I've had tiled, solid wood, granite and now quartz and quartz is my favourite. Easy to clean , hard wearing and I love how it looks.

We have mainly solid oak which was treated with Osmo oil and is very hard wearing. Our island is half oak and the other half which houses the sink is navy blue quartz. Our kitchen cupboards were painted navy coloured matched to the quartz.

@RubyViolet we had crack on ours fixed by corian. They were amazing. The crack completely disappeared.. a bit like when you have a windscreen crack repaired. Magic.

Doesn't it have a lifetime guarantee? There was no cost to us but we'd had it only about 3 years.

Incidentally the crack was not the fault of corian!

We also went for compact laminate as PP, quartz was out of budget and I'm really happy with it. Suitable for inset sink and bombproof - can put a hot pan directly on it etc.

This link shows a company in London who do wet sanding and restoration of Corian. I inherited the worktops on moving in so don’t know about a lifetime guarantee. Will investigate,
The worktops are perfect apart from staining around the sink so l think a wet sand and polish is the way forward. Google is telling me it’s about £4/500 to do. The pictures on this link look like a really good finish.

www.plenty-fix4you.co.uk/corian-worktop-polishing-services/

Looked at Corian’s guarantee, it’s 10 years l think. This worktop is definitely older than 10 years.
l am just about to replace the doors, draw fronts and kick boards so will definitely get the Corian restored.

Not the material, but a house I moved into had a black worktop. It was awful to keep clean and showed every crumb

Me too. I love it, it’s really thick and good quality. It does look a bit weathered but I like that. I find granite/coriander a bit soulless looking. You just have to make sure you wipe up around the taps.

Laminate is more my budget tbh... but if it wasn't, I'd get a white recycled glass worktop like these
www.diamikglass.co.uk/home-use/
stoneville.co.uk/recycled-eco-glass/

I think they are beautiful (although not the brightly coloured ones) and they must be very practical, because glass is pretty hardwearing

@RubyViolet I'd contact Corian and ask their advice. There was no sanding involved in ours I'm sure, even when we had it installed. Something tells me heat was involved but I may have remembered that wrongly.

Good luck

I have solid wood and it's around a decade old. Coated in yacht varnish so practically indestructible

We havw a solid laminate, couldn't afford quartz or granite at the time so invested more in the units thinking we would save for a couple of years and change the worktops if necessary.
12 years on any savings have gone on other things bloody teenagers the units are shot but the worktops are good as new! Madness.

We have solid wood - we initially had a standard laminate top due to budget, but were able to change it a few years later to the wood when we had the funds (had to change a cupboard as fridge dimensions changed at the same time). It needs regular oiling but that's a straightforward job and I love it!

We're going with quartz for our new kitchen.

Glass! Not the cheapest option, but it's brilliant - great to work on and super-easy to clean, so glad we went for it. And you can have any colour/pattern that you like (we went for purple)

We’ve got solid laminate and I don’t love it: it’s concrete look on the top which I love, but the side profile is black so it looks obviously “fake”. The profile is ultra-thin which is too modern for my tastes, and I also think the edge is a little sharp.

Cleans up a dream though and the concrete look hides dirt. In my dreams I’d have either real poured concrete, or a gorgeous reclaimed and worn marble. But in my dreams I’d have a DeVol kitchen not Ikea, so ¯\(ツ)/¯

I have hand made (by us) reclaimed scaffolding worktops. I love them as they go well with our pallet wood cupboard doors. When they get scratched or dented we sand them down and retreat them. Although I like the rustic look

We have Dekton. It's heat resistant, doesn't stain, doesn't fade in the sun and is highly resistant to scatches. Pretty near bombproof.

Those with Quartz - I’m looking at 20mm rather than 30 - does anyone have any advice telling me to stick with 30? I quite like the slick look you get with the thinner worktops but am I making a mistake?