Browse Forums Kitchen Corner 1 Jul 08, 2010 4:23 pm We are giving our kitchen a facelift, it's structurally great but a bit ugly. I've read lots of the threads on here but would love a summary of: What benchtop did you choose (brand/colour)? How much did it cost? Most importantly, do you love it (has it worn well)? in our last kitchen we built we put in a beautiful solid timber benchtop with a 2pac finish. Unfortunately I burnt it quite badly and vowed never to use timber again. Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks Re: What is your benchtop and do you love it? 2Jul 08, 2010 4:30 pm Hanex - Crystal Vanilla (Kitchen & Ensuite) Sizes: 5.2M x .9M waterfall both ends. (Kitchen - Crystal Vanilla) 1.2M x .7M (approx) main batroom vanity (colour - malt) 1.7M x .7M Ensuite. (Crystal Vanilla) Hanex, similar to Corian, man made acrylic. Cost for all: Around 9-10K. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: What is your benchtop and do you love it? 3Jul 08, 2010 4:42 pm I'm getting a caesar stone benchtop in my house but it's not done yet so I can't give you any feedback on that. However the house where I currently live (my parents' home) has a granite benchtop - it's actually offcuts of granite that a local second hand place had ****** around in their yard so I think it was actually cheaper to buy than to have laid! I do know that granite is normally expensive though. It's a browny black color (very hard to describe!) So far the granite has been extremely hard wearing and you can put very hot and very cold things on it with no marks whatsoever. My only problem with it is that it's very strong which means that anything that comes into contact with it at and speed (ie: if you accidently bump a plate on the edge) always comes off second best. My mum has already chipped a couple of the arabia plates she's had without any damage for the past 30 or more years. Good luck with your choice Re: What is your benchtop and do you love it? 4Jul 08, 2010 5:52 pm Ceasar Stone - Seattle Sky, love the colour love the finish, first time we have had stone, and I am loving it so easy to keep clean. Cheers Lou http://take2-customdesigndownslope.blogspot.com 07-10-09 omg they have cut the block 14-05-10 we finally have the keys Re: What is your benchtop and do you love it? 5Jul 09, 2010 8:46 am Granite benchtop. We've been in 12 months now. Love it. I tend to use heat mats for anything hot that I need to place on it. It is possible to chip it. About 1 month ago I clipped the underside edge with We organised it as a builder upgrade. Our kitchen bench area is quite big. At least 5 1/2 m. It cost around 3 1/2 K from memory. Builder covered 3k of that. Re: What is your benchtop and do you love it? 7Jul 09, 2010 11:31 am We have DuPunt Corian (Sierra Aurora) for our kitchen benchtops and also the vanity in our bathroom. They have been in place for 14 years. Never once regretted our decision. Beautiful surface and east to care for. The benchtop is the centre hub of our home and gets constant use from the whole family. If you get down with light behind it, you can see lots of micro-scratches, so its probably overdue to be given a bit of a restoration & polish, but it still looks fine really. And across one corner, we did have it crack, when too much weight was placed on it. This was repaired under warranty and the repair was perfect, so you would never know it happened. I know a lot of people love their C/S and similar products, but Corian is still my fave! I think it is overlooked as certain trends seem to be followed. Can't recall the prices, but it was similar to granite, costwise. Ash. Re: What is your benchtop and do you love it? 8Jul 09, 2010 1:37 pm Thanks for your replies. I have had a look at ALL of the photos on the "show me your kitchen" thread and they are fabulous. I love the look of stone, natural and man-made but not sure if I can justify the cost. We have nearly 7m of benchtop that needs replacing and I'm sure that's going to be a massive cost. So I'm interested to hear from those who've opted for laminated surfaces, do you regret your choice and would you have spent the extra and bought stone if you could do it all again? Re: What is your benchtop and do you love it? 9Jul 09, 2010 1:46 pm I have laminate - stone wasn't on the radar due to cost - and I'm happy with it. I've had laminate benches in kitchens most of my life, excluding a brief time while I was living with parents recently. It does wear and need replacing sooner than stone, but provided you don't scorch it, it's been easy-care and looks good. I would not change my choice of laminate for my current kitchen and laundry, although an upgrade to stone is on the cards if I build a new house. I'd be happy with laminate though, if the upgrade was pricey! Status: sold our first house, moved in with parents, bought our second in Pakenham, still planning to build in a few years time. Re: What is your benchtop and do you love it? 10Jul 09, 2010 8:06 pm I have 20mm Caesar Stone in 'Ice Snow'. It was standard with the builder, and I love it! I did upgrade all the bathrooms to have the same and have never regretted my decision. I have had laminex in the past and this is my first experience with stone. Very easy to keep clean and polished, but I still use a heat matt when putting hot trays/saucepans on it. I opted for an 'almost' stone match in laminex diamond gloss for the laundry (Pure Mineral Stone). I love it, and 10 months down the track has stood up to washing baskets and irons etc. Good luck with your decision! Henley - Wilshire Mk 3 ... I love my house!! Site start: 4th Feb 09 Handover: 10th Sep 09 Blog: http://stormygirlscastle.blogspot.com/ Build Thread: viewtopic.php?t=7166 Re: What is your benchtop and do you love it? 11Jul 10, 2010 2:06 am We renovated and changed the benchtops from normal laminate to the Diamond gloss - as did my parents (whom we are living with now during our build) and I hate it - it's soooo much effort to maintain it. If stones are not an option due to cost - I would stick to normal/natural finish laminate for ease of use (personal opinion) Sleven Moved into our Atlantique MkII 36 by Carlisle Homes Re: What is your benchtop and do you love it? 12Jul 10, 2010 2:25 am Here's our 14 year old Corian. We have a 40mm bullnosed edge, which we love. It is very friendly and smooth. Trends these days are for square edges. It can be done all sorts of ways. The beauty of engineered surfaces like this is it can be formed in curves and shapes and still have a soft shaped edge. With laminates, they would have to make the edge square if they made a benchtop this shape. Ash. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: What is your benchtop and do you love it? 13Jul 10, 2010 3:14 pm We have ceasarstone in this house. Costing is not relevant as we got the stone at a clearance auction so therefore a lot cheaper then would normally be. Love the ease of maintenance with it. We have also had normal laminex - fine and hardwearing although we had a matt navy colour and it showed every finger print which drove me nutty!!! Then in one of our rentals we had a stone looking Laminex gloss - Cosmos - brilliant and gorgeous. Hardwearing and didn't show any fingerprints!! As nice to look at as c'stone just not as hardy with hot items. Some things are worth waiting for. Re: What is your benchtop and do you love it? 14Jul 11, 2010 8:48 am Re: What is your benchtop and do you love it? 15Jul 11, 2010 9:11 pm We chose CS White Shimmer and I love it. It has small flecs of mirror in it that sparkle! We've had laminate and granite before, and DH much preferred stone. We wanted a light colour and found White Shimmer. We also wanted a square edge, DH hates bullnose, they are too hard to wipe clean according to him! Recently moved to a 60's home in need of some improvement! http://s797.photobucket.com/user/leenii ... ch%20House Old house: http://s797.photobucket.com/albums/yy25 ... loo/House/ Re: What is your benchtop and do you love it? 16Jul 11, 2010 11:40 pm We had laminate in our other house. Was really hard wearing and can take the knocks. And looked quite good. But was only 3 years old when we moved. The house we have now had black granite. Probably about ten years old. At the right angle in looked pitted as did all the new black granite/engineered we looked at. Also the colour did my head in. We live two streets from the beach on the top of a hill, and i couldnt keep the dust of it. Just had Qstone pure white put in. I just love the look and it made our kitchen look heaps bigger. Price was 7K. If its comes down to cost you can still get some really nice laminates that will make your kitchen look great. For me it comes to down to colours. You could spend a bomb and if colours are awful the kitchen will look awful. Where as if you pick the right colours in either laminate or stone both will look great. Thats just my opinion. Caz Re: What is your benchtop and do you love it? 17Jul 12, 2010 12:18 am Im going to have polished concrete by ONC! He has done our floor and I am just so keen on a natural surface and this ticks the boxes. Hi Courtney The mitred edges are glued up with epoxy so those little holes and gaps are areas that weren't filled correctly. Silicone is the wrong product to fill them… 2 12921 Thanks mate. Yeah good points! Leaning towards Option 3 to get a bit extra space in the cabinets but not going too crazy high (and expensive). Would require a mini… 13 39704 |