Happy with our choice. I can't comment on how it compares with similar products though as have only lived with timber or laminate bench tops in past. It has withstood several clumsy knocks from pulling pots out of dishwasher (we didn't go with an under mounting sink so can't comment on that). I've noticed one tiny (pin head) sized chip to surface on island but this part of bench gets a lot of use (not sure what caused it). No staining from my messy little artists either.

My darling mother never had money for "decorating" and I can't remember anything new as all belongings were made up of a collection of cast off, second hand and recycled bits and pieces that she scrubbed and polished, repainted and recovered but it looked and felt warm and inviting and the house and garden were always full of flowers. Her pride and joy was the Moroccan tile inspired splashback that she made out of some old wrapping paper, carefuly cut to fit and varnished to make it waterproof...meant to last only 'til she saved up for real tiles it was the starting point for the colours of paint and curtains and cushions and rugs and was only reluctantly replaced years later when the paper finally disintegrated but, nothing ever looked or felt so perfect...many more years later i think of her when I have to decide between a loved old piece of junk and having the option to choose something new and i'm afraid the scruffy usually wins

Go with your gut Tracy..... it is a big investment but I have found that if it makes you smile every time you walk into your kitchen you'll never regret it!!!! I've recently moved into a smaller downsized home with my 3rd black kitchen, with drawers, no cupboards, except for the pantry which we use as the crockery and wine glasses stash. Mine is matt but no handles = no hip bangers! I chose to use snow white stone bench tops, the walls are painted natural white while the floors are pale oak hybrid vinyl.

Hi Kezzle This is a bit intricate but it should make sense... The flooring industry has tried to move across from lineal metres (lm) to square metres. Normally carpet is 3.66m wide (12ft). It sounds horrendous to buy a 4m wide (15ft) carpet at $390 lm, but if you express it as $97 sqm it's not so bad. Nevertheless, the flooring industry buys it from the suppliers in lineal metres and calculates the quantities in lm also. The trick is to balance the number of joins vs the wastage when deciding the layout. There is also a little trick in the trade where they crimp the quantity but that is for another day... There are two ways of laying the carpet upstairs. The first way is front to back of the house ie 'down' the room in eg bed 1 as shown below. This way will mean you will have a join in bedroom 3 and two in the passage, 1 being in the line of the wir doorway and the other in the line of the bed 3 cupboard. Here is a rough mud map... I can't quite make out the measurements very well, so I have written down the assumed numbers in lineal (length) metres. You can change these if incorrect. In the games room, you will have 1 join which you can't avoid due to the size of the room. This will require around 22.9 lineal metres of carpet.... and at $97.5sqm it should be costing you about $8930. Alternatively if you were paying $9,600 then the real cost of the carpet is $105 sqm.... just like Dr Retro (and there is the trick) If you turn it around the other way, you will have more joins and could do it for around 21.5-22.5lm depending on how many pieces are used in joins... I would go into the shop and ask them to show you how they are installing it.... then crunch the numbers yourself... There are about 3 or 4 ways this can be done so the above is just one... Cheers