Need Advice On Island Worktop

8 years ago

Visited my kitchen man last night, everything chosen: taps, extractor, carcass, colour and so on but before making a final commitment there is one disappointment I have and I want to see if there is a way around it.

To be honest the budget doesn’t allow for granite. Quartz or Corian I haven’t priced but they seem to be up there in the high price bracket.

Into the mix I have to add a number of young children so it’s beginning to look like I’m going to have to settle for a laminate type surface. And that’s my problem. My kitchen designer set the island at 900mm wide but the kitchen guy told me that I would have to settle for 800mm as laminate came in standard sizes and 900mm would be to wide. I have to confess that the laminate I would pick looks great.

He also told me that I’d have to have straight sides on the island with a laminate tape fixed along the side, and I can’t help thing that would spoil the look. Solve that problem and I'm good to go. So what to do?

As regards colour and material, the units will be F&B’s Ball Green, my circular top would be a solid oak and my intention would be a suitable matching oak type engineered wooden floor. The carcases will also be in sympathy with the wooden floor.

I could go for wooden worktops and that would probably solve my problem, but to be honest as a family we could be a little more careful!!!. There would also be the issue of matching up. At the moment I’m pretty happy with a wooden circular table, and wooden floor, but add wooden worktops – surely they wouldn’t blend in?

Can members make any suggestions? Surely laminate doesn’t have to be that restrictive? Is there anything else I could possibly do?

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Comments (5)

Tani H-S
8 years ago
Hi,

Our laminate worktop is 900 wide which is for a breakfast bar. So not sure why he said 800! Lol. The long edges have the laminate rolled over the edges but yes, the end will need a strip on it. You can have them curved as we have and a good fitter will be able to do this.

Our laminate top is by duroprol and is a wood effect grain (not block wood) and I love it. It's more durable (even if I just sliced a chunk off with a Stanley knife last night!!)
User
Original Author
8 years ago
Call me suspicious but perhaps he would have sufficient laminate left over out of the worktop cuttings to fit the island and he's trying to make an extra few pounds.

That said he'll be getting back to me, possibly tomorrow, with a price and I know from the original price he gave me that it will be keen. It's when money is been talked about that I'll have an upper hand.

Tell me if I'm right in my thinking. The proposed island is 900mm long and 600mm wide (see above), standard enough size. That said there should be little or no trouble having at least three rounded ends?

In kitchen speak if you were talking to a supplier/installer what would you be saying?
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Tani H-S
8 years ago
What is the round section on your drawing? Is that to be laminate? I'm not sure if they can do a full circle of it but I'm sure there are places that might specialise in it.

Our edges are curved and not fully rounded. This is because the tape doesn't go all the way around the worktop so it needs to join up with the sealed edges I.e in my photo.

A 900 wide island would need to come from a different piece of worktop from your standard tops as they aren't as wide. It usually comes as a 3m length I think (depending on brand) so you may have some left over. He can cut standard worktop out of the island piece - but not the other way around.

So my fitter used half of my breakfast bar for my worktop as well to save money.
User
Original Author
8 years ago
Tani it is to be a piece of solid wood, at present I'm thinking oak. It should also tie in with a proposed engineered wooden floor.

The main reason it is 1300mm is because we can get the circle from a 1400mm block
PRO
Clover Kitchens
8 years ago
Hi

I recognise that plan!

Good to see you on another advice forum.

Duropal make I think around 6 of their colours of laminate worktop upto 1200mm in depth.

Really it all depends on where you are getting your kitchen from and their suppliers. For example if we are getting laminate worktop from a UK supplier then we get it from a 'cut and edge' worktop supplier, not just a 'blank' board supplier. A cut and edge worktop supplier will supply laminate worktop to a plan we provide, they will pre cut the masons mitre joints and profile all the edges. This is so much better than the fitter cutting blanks and gluing on laminate edges.

I know from previous discussions on the other forum you were looking at Schuller kitchens, I assume this is not your choice now as you would not have these problems you are talking about with the laminate worktop, because Schuller have a huge range of laminate worktops, with lots of edge options and in all sizes!

Anyway, ask your kitchen man about getting a price for the laminate worktop from a cut and edge specialist.

CK

Need Advice On Island Worktop

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Tani H-S

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Need Advice On Island Worktop

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