Hi All, It sounds like tumeric and grease are the worst culprits for staining. We are looking to put the Cloudburst in our kitchen as our island and backsplash, but I'm very nervous. I love to cook and host. I also LOVE the look of this stone and would like to make it work if we can. Are there any bakers on this thread that have experience with these countertops? If you are rolling out dough or baking with greasy dough, how has that experience been? What if you get butter/oil on it? Any tips? Do you cover the counter before doing your baking etc.? I imagine beet juice would also be a nightmare?

Thank you everyone for your responses. I’m still undecided - I have a few weeks to consider what to do. The bench top salesperson showed me some photos of the few people who have added a small amount of benchtop stone to add some height (and it’s always because of a busy 60 x 30 patterned tile that the owners want to keep perfect) and in her words it looks ‘dicky’. Not least because the tile sits flatter against the wall than a 2cm thick slab of benchtop. It leaves a pronounced lip of 1.5cm where tile meets benchtop addition Then there’s the safety concerns mentioned above about flames near stone which I had not considered. Big reader - I love your maths but I’m only 150cm tall. Even with a low bench and oven height of 94cm (my oven’s lowest height setting) plus 70cm of tile between the bench and overheads, the cupboards are already 14cm above my head. This barely makes them usable for me even now! Adding another 15cm instead of the 10cm, while looking lovely and keeping the pattern intact, means my short-arse self will have real difficulty reaching anything safely. Every cm counts when you’re short! But I do appreciate your input!

Hi squirrel30. I ended up, on a professional's advice, having the whole bathroom stripped and redone. It actually worked out cheaper than any of the seemingly more innovative solutions. It seemed a shame to discard a lot of stuff that was in good order, but to get the result we wanted it proved the best approach and I'm delighted with the result. We had the floor pulled up and replaced with 600 x 600 textured grey tiles and 900 wide tiles in the shower with a grate at the end so in a very, very large shower we have only 3 grout lines and they are dark grey. We used slab tiles on the walls in the shower with dark grey grouting and 600 x 600 tiles elsewhere. Again resulting in very few grout lines, and no glass at all! I posted pictures of the main bathroom at Bathroom reno done! Thanks for the suggestions | Houzz AU The ensuite looks similar but has a twin vanity and larger shower with a tiled nib wall rather than glass. I'm still interested to know more about microcement but I can't get anyone to answer inquiries. I've responded to a dozen or so ads but nobody has ever bothered to contact me. Not sure I would trust a supplier who is that disinterested in potential customers!!

I have just moved into a new house where we designed a kitchen/scullery very similar to yours - kitchen for preparation and cooking while being part of the household and the scullery for dirty dishes and storage of crockery and food items that are used occasionally or for sandwiches and snacks (little preparation). There is also a drinks area just outside the scullery (with a very small sink and a tap that has a choice of ready hot or chilled water - it is used constantly). The fridge is placed in the middle between the main preparation kitchen and the scullery where the toaster is also kept. People wanting coffee, toast, snacks can access everything without bothering the person/ people cooking. Our hot plates and wall oven are separated by an L-shaped bench with a single sink, which works very well. However, the sink is much closer to the oven than the hot plates which was bad planning. I underestimated the number of times I move between the sink and the stove top (including rinsing my hands between tasks). The sink needs to be close to the cooktop - and, because you are not stacking dirty or drying dishes there, the amount of bench space between the cooktop and sink does not need to be all that large. One other thing that I am really glad we upgraded to is a synthetic stone bench that is allows you to put pans on directly from the oven (most do not) - brilliant. It also allows you to cut directly in in. I usually don't do this, not because I ma concerned about the bench top but because I dont want to blunt my good knives :)