big fleck for me..

What colour are your walls?

We have one very similar to the smaller fleck which we love - from a distance it looks plain white, but hides any crumbs etc much better. The larger fleck would also look good - just remember it will look more 'busy' if you want to have a feature splashback or some other feature. If so, it's better to go with the smaller fleck.

The big fleck to me is a little old fashioned. I vote small fleck :)

But either will look lovely with your colours.

The small fleck looks very like what we have - we chose it because it's actually a bit whiter than the larger flecked one, and that contrasted nicely with our grey-greenish cabinets. Gave a real "hit" to our kitchen. But I don't think you could go wrong with either one of them.

We did it kind of ass-backwards if I'm allowed to say that. We had a builder building his plan, and we were living 700 km away, so he put in the cabinets and the wall colour without much consultation. We picked out floor tiles and had a glass splashback matching the walls, so the last thing selected was actually the benchtop. Builder had something in mind, we went and got a bunch of samples, and picked the one we thought would go best with what was already in (which was not the builder's choice). And it was a winner for us. Lighter than the cabinetry, floors or even the walls, so it gives a bit of zing. And it's throughout the house - bathrooms and laundry - so consistency. And it didn't cost any more. All good.

Hmm. Paint last. Take your samples of stone and laminex to the paint store, get sample pots.

@Tribble - actually, even though we were stuck in a paint first, stone last, situation due to distance, I seem to recall that the last time we built worked pretty much the same. Main colours (ie walls, cabinetry, floors first, benchtops later). Maybe it's just that we do things ass backward out of habit?!

Maybe a difference between building and renovating? Still, choosing paint last is best. Some dilemmas have dragged on for a thousand comments too long because paint was chosen first.

Well, no, they were both new builds. But I like to go from the general to the particular, so I guess I chose the paint first (general) for the general "feel" of what I wanted, and the benchtops (particular) last for the detailed finishing touches. With the painting done and the cabinets in, we grabbed about 8 samples of benchtop material, and it was very easy to pick the one that worked best - one just stood out from the others. I can't actually imagine going through a thousand iterations of either paint or benchtops, though. Life is too short to sweat the small stuff.

I take my items to the hardware store lady, she gets out this huge book, with a million paint colours in it, and matches the item. Most would be advised at that point to take a few options home in sample pots. Now that's in a country town. In the city, they use a computer matching system.

Paint for us was a matter of warm or cool & cabinetry is warm so too we chose a warm white Antique USA. Have used it for the last 20 years & love it.

Colour is a whole other story and we did the suede coat after doing the individual feature walls & ended up deciding we just like white...full stop.

It is the perfect background in rooms with timber floors & ceilings for art & décor for our taste anyway.

hehe indeed side tracking from your dilemma ;( soz

I have a large fleck ceasarstone in almond Rocca so beige toned/warm paint haha!

It adds dimension to the kitchen & tends to hide more day to day grunge..however our new laundry has the smaller fleck & it plays the role of background better. I would say then it's personal whether the bench top is featured or background. Yes larger chips are possibly a bit dated by todays standards. Does that help at all?

If larger chips are dated, do you want French fries with that?

When I was building I couldn't decide either between big flecks & small flecks. I felt the small flecks looked too much like sand & would throw a bit of warmth against our 'white' cabinetry, which we didn't want. With the big flecks, if any of the clearish flecks are right on the edge of the stone bench it can look like it is chipped. Maybe go & check out some display homes. That's what I did & then fell in love with 'organic white' Caesarstone. It solved my problem :) Good luck! I'm sure it is going to look amazing either way!