What's your favorite countertop material?

[mezzo soprano]

My husband and I are building a new house and I'm just wondering if others have experience with one or more solid-surface material for countertops. I'm thinking of Cambria, granite, Corian, or something of that sort, not the laminate-type countertop.

I was leaning toward Cambria, until I learned that granite was actually less expensive. But are there maintenance issues I should be aware of?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Kathy]

We remodeled our kitchen two summers ago and this was a hard decision! I went back and forth from granite to man-made corian (we used Gibralter by WilsonArt).

I just didn't want to deal with the grout lines, even with granite. Soooo I picked Man-made granite looking Gibralter. I'm happy with the product. Its easy to clean and polish (when needed...but not yet) but must not lay hot pans on top of it. If it get scratched over the years, those can be buffed/polished down.

I got mine in a beige, pebble looking color. I like black counter-tops though and sometimes wished I had gone with black.

I was told that Granite chips, scratches and does need maintenance. I'm not good with stuff like that. The Corian-like product of Gibralter is easy.

BTW, I've also been told that Silestone (?) is another good choice for manmade product. Have you heard of that?

[bumblebeequeen]

There's a new one called Caesarstone that is composite natural stone and is really pretty. I love slate and granite too.
We have tinted concrete counters that are the best. My Dh mad them and they are beautiful- of course he makes concrete, metal and glass furniture so this wasn't something entirely unkown to him.

[txgurl]

We put new counters in the kitchen about 3 years ago and we chose Corian type. I like it a lot , just no hot pots on it. So far it has not needed to be buffed, as you really have to search to see any scratches that are there.