Help! We are renovating our kitchen and looking at putting in a caesarstone top in 'Linen'. Gloss white doors. I have come across a few forums on the web, mostly american, that give caesarstone really bad reviews. We thought it was going to be a really good product - hard wearing and good looking. What are your thoughts?

Second question is what 'edge profile' to go for? We have little kids so I don't want a real straight finish but not real rounded either? Photos would be great if you have any

Thanks everyone!!

No idea how to upload photos sorry...

We have caesarstone and it IS lovely but I wouldn't rave about it. It's good - DH put a very hot dish on it and it cracked (as it would) and the crack disappeared by the next day. It's been 3years and I still can't find where it cracked. However, it has also chipped in several places. Due to the colour you cant see them AT ALL but you can feel them. Only about 6 chips in the entire bench (about 3m worth) and they are tiny.
Overall, depending on the quotes you get I would say the look is great and the care is easy - but it can get pricey so I wouldn't go nuts on big bux. Ours cost around $1800 I think and I wouldn't pay anymore than that!

As for corners I don't know what it's called - but the edge is shaved off so it's not round but not sharp. eg. look at the top edge and shave it off in a straight cut. It's nice - I think rounded is a little dated and the cleaner lines a bit more modern - but without the sharp edge that could take an eye out! i have a 12mth old and expecting number 2 so bit early for me to advise how well my forward planning has gone

The only thing I find is it is hard to keep clean, maybe its the light colour we have but a friend of mine has the black and has the same problem. To clean you have to wipe and then dry it so it doesnt leave streaks, its the vain of my existence right now and annoys me so much!

The edges are quite straight and my 2.5 yr old is just at that height where its at head level and he has hit it a few times unfortunately but the older 2 are fine.

Ours were fine till our 1 year old started to poke his fork repeatedly into the benchtop. It now has little pitts. They are not really noticable though even though ours is plain white.

I wipe it all the time but it takes an effort for it to look really clean. Again, maybe because it is white.

We just got it installed in our new kitchen a few weeks ago... So far so good. We were told definitely don't place anything hot straight off the stove or out of the oven directly onto it, and to clean it with windex. I haven't used windex as ours is practically all White and I haven't noticed any streaking. But it might be worth a go luckyseven.

45TR1D: Thanks for the tip, I do use the Windex surface and glass, its the only thing I have found to work, although I have to make sure I wipe it till its dry with the paper towel. I wish someone had told me that when I built my house lol, it took me about 6 months to figure it out

Thank you for that. I will have to give it a try as I was sick of the white surface looking slightly grotty and streaky even though I had already wiped it 57 times that day.

It's pretty good, definitely has its positives. Not porous, repairable, wide range of colours, etc. But it is pricey, and generally more so than granite. I also think that it works better in lighter colours, the darker colours really lack the depth of natural stone. One thing you have to be careful with with the light colours is staining, obviously a common sense approach is needed.

As for edging, I'd go with a bevelled edge (what ChaCHING! is talking about) or a small pencil round, definitely not bullnose. Bevelled has a slightly higher chance of chipping, bullnose is dated, a small pencil round is probably the best. It's only a really small rounded edge and tends to hide joins better. I think it's probably the least likely to date also.

Overall I think it has it's place. I tend to prefer it for lighter colours, but darker I'm more a fan of granite. I also prefer the higher gloss on a granite than what can be achieved with CS (although some don't like high gloss at all), and I think granite has more of a variety with finish (polished/glossy, honed and the other one I can't think of lol).

We have Essa stone bench tops. http://www.essastone.com.au/#/home They are great and I would recommend them. I'm not sure if they're different to Caesar stone.

We have straight edges. It's the only thing I would change. I still like the look of it, but I guess that it would be a super sharp corner to hit your head against. I would probably have to put something on it to protect DSs head.

thanks everyone! now to pick a colour...

We have had Essa Stone as well - similar to Caesar Stone. with a 40mm pencil edge. 3 years on, it's going great, no chips and still shiny.

We're building next year and will be going for a stone benchtop again (composite, like Essa or Caesar)

Just thought I would put it out there...Enjo is fantastic for keeping your benchtop clean. No streaking & no chemicals.

Green Glove, followed by the green kitchen miracle. Easy.

Sal

My brother makes kitchens and he used bella stone recently and said it is fantastic!! You can mould it to a sink and route in drain lines...any marks can be fixed. I will have to ask my friend who had it installed how it is handling day to day life but only heard positives so far...and bonus is cheaper than caesar stone

For a cheaper alternative than Enjo, I find my Chux glass and windows microfibre cloth does a great job on our caesarstone bench. It's also fantastic for a non-streaky finish on my stainless fridge, oven and stove. It's about $5. I got two of them so I always have one clean and dry.

Was coming in to say Ive found that microfibre is a great cleaner with the CS. Also if its really stubborn I use magic erasers, those microfibre pads to really get the marks off, brings back that feeling of stone under your fingers. Also you can use a little bleach on them for stubborn marks and stains like red wine and citrus and carrots.

I had terazzo, I think it was called, for my bench tops and the stuff is virtually indestructible, I used to always pull stuff out of the oven and put it straight on the bench, the kids where always cutting things on it, it was tough. When I remodelled my kitchen I actually kept a piece of it that I put on little stoppers beside the hot plate to use for putting hot stuff on. it wasn't very thick, 10mm and the edges were straight with the sharp edges filed so it was only very slightly rounded, Ex picked it up from Grays auctions in Sydney. The whole kitchen was only around $3000 so the benches wouldn't be that expensive.

my parents renovated their kitchen recently and put caeserstone benches in. They had trouble when it came to fit their gas cook-top - it was too close to the benchtops/splash back. As caeserstone is highly flammable they had to forgo the gas cooktop.

I would be worried about having a highly flammable surface in my kitchen of all places. I would also be worried about all the glue etc used to bond it, if their ever was a housefire i'd be concerned that the fumes would be really toxic.

that said... it looks nice enough.