Are you meaning you intend to sit on the stone?

@cpartist, throughout the UK, including Australia and, perhaps Canada, benchtops is their word for countertops.

“I understand that natural stone can be difficult to maintain and can be easily damaged.”

This statement is incorrect. There are hundreds of thousands of ”natural stones”. You can‘t lump together all the natural stones in the world under one categorization. For example, marble is higher maintenance, it can etch and stain. Nevertheless people love marble counters. Alternatively, most granites are very durable and low maintenance. I’ve had 3 different granites in 3 different kitchens, and never sealed them, and did not baby them, and they stayed looking brand new. Even the granites that need sealing once a year are easy. Sealing takes 5 minutes, and requires no skill.

You need to pin down what ”natural stone” you are talking about - granite, marble, soapstone, quartzite (which is different from Quartz), or some other stone. For granite, the decision between it and engineered counters is about appearance, not about durability. I.e., which one do you find more aesthetically attractive and will look right in your kitchen. That boils down to personal taste.

Your best chance of success is to understand what you're looking for, view slabs in person, and test slabs for their resistance to staining, etching, and scratching. We are lucky to have a geologist on these forums who posted helpful information on evaluating natural stone countertops. Here are some places to start:

• How To Be Your Own Stone Sleuth
• Countertop Geology, Part 6 (this has links to parts 1 - 5)
• The Definitive Guide to Quartzite

These are just a few. If you do a search for posts by @karin_mt you'll find more!

I just saw your other post. It looks like you have granite countertops now, in the kitchen you want to renovate. Unless the photo makes the counters look like granite but they’re not? If they are granite, have you found your counters difficult to maintain and easily damaged?

Your other post was on Houzz Australia. You posted this one on Houzz for North America. If you are in Australia, it would be better for you to post on Houzz for that region, to get more localized replies. Here is the link: https://www.houzz.com.au/discussions/kitchens

Thanks so much everyone for your comments and insight. Cpartist, darbuka is correct, I’m talking about our kitchen countertops. Our current ones are laminate and are faded and water damaged. You’ve all explained that I need to do more homework to work out what will provide the best look I’m hoping to achieve, whilst not being difficult to maintain. I’d heard that things like citrus, red wine etc could all contribute to damage, but it doesn’t sound like that will affect all natural stone. I’ve been to local showrooms, but as I’m in a fairly small city, I’d really need to jump on a plane to go to a capital city and see the actual slab before I choose, which really means that I’d also have to hold off choosing tiles before doing that

Liz, one thing to know about engineered stone (commonly called ”quartz” in North America)…it is not bullet proof. Because E Stone contains 33 1/3% plastic resins (by volume), it is quite heat sensitive. Even the lid from a hot pot or pan, can melt the resins and leave a mark on the counter. If used as a backsplash, the vented heat from an oven, can leave scorch marks. Indian spices will stain white engineered stone.

Do your due diligence, and research. Go to stone yards, or showrooms, and look at slabs. Ask questions. Also, see if you can get samples of whatever types of natural stone, or Engineered stone interests you. Bring the samples home, and test…for staining, porosity, and how easy they are to scratch. That’s the best way to tell what benchtop will work best for you.

Good luck!

Many thank darbuka, I appreciate your info. Trouble is that I can’t get samples locally and therefore can’t bring them home to test, as that would involve multiple flights, but I will make sure I ask those questions

I am a fabricator. The comment by "M Miller" is exactly correct.

@cpartist, throughout the UK, including Australia and, perhaps Canada, benchtops is their word for countertops.

Thank you! Boy I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks, or at least new words!

Cpartist, there are a surprising number of different words between the US and Oz 😂🤔

Thank you re Houzz Australia. I had no idea and thought that there was just Houzz. I’ll look into this 🙏🏼🤦🏼‍♀️