kitchen worktop advice

kokolino23

Well... finally managed to get a good written quote for a German kitchen ( better price than B&Q, Wren, Homebase, Howdens, Wickes, Magnet!) and we're now in a hunt for a nice worktop.
I've had in mind a laminate worktop (duropal) but the kitchen just looks too nice for something like that.
Any ideas what should we go for without selling a kidney?

Granite, Quartz, Solid Surface... too expensive?
Solid wood - difficult to maintan over the years? Prone to chips or dents if we drop something on it?

Any useful websites or suppliers?

Many thanks in advance.

wymondham

Been through this with our kitchen...


Granite/Quartz etc hideously expensive, Laminate a little cheap looking etc.. so we decided on solid oak from http://www.worktop-express.co.uk. Had it all precut using their service so the joint is perfect!


easy to keep regardless of all the horror stories! looks fab too!

Annie1960

Where are you getting your German kitchen from? I'm planning a kitchen at the moment and want to look at all options.

Regarding worktop, the other option apart from wood is composite. Some of these look very good, and I understand they are easy to cut and fit. Wickes and Homebase both sell these. They are about half-way between wood and granite in price.

chancesare_2

Worktops make the kitchen much like windows make the house. We have granite and it looks as good as the day it was installed 10 years ago, our utility is oak and looks tired. You get what you pay for, work out how long you will use it...

kokolino23

Annie1960 wrote: »

Where are you getting your German kitchen from? I'm planning a kitchen at the moment and want to look at all options.

Regarding worktop, the other option apart from wood is composite. Some of these look very good, and I understand they are easy to cut and fit. Wickes and Homebase both sell these. They are about half-way between wood and granite in price.

We live in Cardiff and the company has a showroom here. If you send me a PM, I'll provide you the details.

elliot341

We got our earthstone solid surface worktops mostly off ebay from pieces people did not end up using (full 3.6m lengths, 1.8m which was more than sufficient).
Overall I've definitely ended up saving at least a grand compared to like b and q. For any extra bits I just went straight to Deralam which is a trade supplier so got it at trade price plus VAT. I am local to Deralam though so that helped a bit.
The worktops look amazing now they're in.

BlueC

We went through this too. After much research, my opinion/observations:

Granite: expensive, stains, very hard, cold, can look very up-market if that's your thing

Quartz: as above really but possibly stains less easily

Corian / other solid surface: expensive but a brilliant hard wearing and good looking surface

Laminate: probably the most practical and definitely the least expensive. needs very little care. it is actually a brilliant material for a worktop.

Wood: looks lovely and warm, not too hard so is a bit forgiving, needs maintenance. not all woods are equal.

If you go for wood, the best thing we learned is that depsite being so popular, Oak is a terrible choice for worktops. It stains when left in contact with stainless steel, it is very prone to going black when left in contact with water, and it is a naturally dry wood so needs a lot of repeated oiling throughout its life to keep it serviceable. We went for Iroko which is a more oily hardwood and far better suited as a worktop - it's what they used to make school chemisty bench tops from.

And, we used worktop-express too - they are by the far the cheapest and the quality is second to none. We did have some problems with the order but the most telling sign of a good company is that they stood by their product and reputation and came through great for us in the end.