Which Worktops to Choose – Laminate Edition
If you are thinking about a new kitchen, worktops is a MAJOR part of this, both on how it can change and influence the way your kitchen will look and also on the overall budget.
The majority of our customers seem to plump for Quartz or Granite, which are in themselves beautiful hardwearing and make a kitchen look great, but they can also cost a lot and make a big dent in any budget.
Laminates are an alternative and in general we would consider them to be the most cost effective (cheapest!) worktop you can choose.
But does that mean they aren’t any good?
In our view “definitely not” laminates these days are really very good and are made to last – you can still buy the very cheap ones from the DIY sheds, but in general those costing £150 or more per sheet are generally very good quality.
We see kitchens every day, some just before they are ripped out or at the early planning stage, many of them are 10+ years old and some 20+ years old – and many on this age bracket would have had Laminate worktops.
As with everything it does come down to how well they are cared for, but we see some that are really in very good condition for the amount of time they have been in a kitchen and used every day!
However we do still see a lot of stigma around laminate worktops and people almost turning up their nose at them, our view is “take another look!”
The processes used to make the laminates these days are very very good, and the quality and strength of the worktops are really also very good.
They can be beautiful to look at, the colours you can get and the lifelike ness of the stone effect, wood effect and slate effect worktops are really quite amazing.
They can also be very tactile, they are not cold like a quartz or granite in the winter.
The best bit is that they are probably going to be at least 4 times cheaper than a similar quartz or granite! That on a tight budget makes a BIG difference!
But Laminates are also evolving and becoming even more, Bushboard one of the biggest worktop manufacturers are just launching a new product called “Evolve” it is a solid laminate worktop, this means when you cut it – there is no wooden core inside, it is the resin all the way through, so it can be cut, sanded and shaped the same as a wood can be without having to edge cuts.
The colours they are launching are stunning and I must say not too dissimilar to Dekton which is a top of the range worktop that would be 10 times the cost!
We will shortly be installing some of the Evolve worktops on a new display we have in Christchurch, so contact us if you would like more details
