Oven for Christmas! - which one?

[Feltwell]

Very true. We inherited those, I guess they're around 8 years old now and completely covered in scratches that can be seen even in the gloom of my subterranean kitchen! What would you replace them with?

As Lady A said, you can't see any scratches in the pictures - I thought you'd just put them in!

What to replace with - depends how deep your pockets are.

Laminate is the cheapest and probably the most practical, being hardwearing and easy to keep clean. Huge range of colours, I would definitely avoid all gloss laminates - even those that say they are scratch resistant. Also dark colours show scratches easier than light - but if you want dark then so long as you go for a textured finish they're not too bad. My first job many years ago was running a depot of a company distributing worktops. If you go for laminate get the corners properly mason mitred, joint strips look hideous. Hot pans straight off the stove placed on laminate will ruin it, you would be surprised at the amount of business we used to get from people who had done this! Formica is the brand that everyone knows, there are many others. You get what you pay for, cheap boards are cheap for a reason.

Corian as Lady A has is lovely stuff but very expensive and definitely not a DIY job to install. Corian is a Dupont trade name, there are other versions of much the same thing. It's an acrylic polymer - although what you see looks like a solid worktop, it's generally a (6mm or so) veneer glued over an MDF sub-base. Can be joined seamlessly by a good fitter, looks beautiful and can be repaired if it gets scratched. If your pockets are deep enough it's very nice stuff indeed. Hot pans won't do it any good.

Solid wooden worktops can look very nice, but do need maintenance and do need care. Quality can vary a lot, and how you use them needs to be thought about - leave a cast iron pan on a wet section of oak worktop and you may mark it permanently. Obviously scratches can be sanded out. Hot pans aren't recommended but you will usually get away with it. A wooden worktop that has not been looked after can look very tatty very quickly. DIY install is OK.

Granite looks beautiful, best of the lot in my opinion, but don't put hot pans on it - it may crack. Obviously not DIY, and you need deep pockets.

 

[Feltwell]

No, it's where the chicken feed lives. It's near the microwave because they like it warmed through in the mornings with raisins on top.

Blimey - sounds like your chickens get a better breakfast than I do!! Whatever happened to kitchen leftovers with some grit mixed in? :lol:

 

[JoceAndChris]

Thank you for your fulsome reply Feltwell- I see I picked the right man for worktop advice.

Just been out and looked at Corian type stuff, very pretty indeed but £300 + per metre. Don't think I could justify that for crappy old Wickes units. I see Wickes do a wooden worktop that's about £50 a metre - it would be an improvement (the worktops look better in the photo than they really do), and I wouldn't feel so bad about ripping it out and burning it in the future. I take your point about scratches/ burns/ water marks but I am the meticulously anal type who's forever polishing so don't think it would suffer too much.

No, it's where the chicken feed lives. It's near the microwave because they like it warmed through in the mornings with raisins on top.

Blimey - sounds like your chickens get a better breakfast than I do!! Whatever happened to kitchen leftovers with some grit mixed in? :lol:

There are never any leftovers here.

Joce, the scratches don't show in the pictures, it all looks like a lovely setting for a country Christmas celebration. Chalon have something nice for your chicken feed too. I chose Corian worktops, but was not facing any conservation issues, anything approaching an original feature was already long gone.

Thanks for the lovely comment Lady A, you seem to have a gift for shopping too! I never knew such grain bin lust was possible! :mrgreen:

 

[Feltwell]

Thank you for your fulsome reply Feltwell- I see I picked the right man for worktop advice.

Yes, I'm a hit at dinner parties everywhere! :wink:

If the units are cheap no point in spending much on worktops, you're right. If you're anal about cleanliness and keeping them oiled then wooden worktops will be OK, it's those people that neglect them that usually find them to be a problem. I've got laminate!

 

[Moo]

A wooden worktop that has not been looked after can look very tatty very quickly.

My kitchen will bear witness to that, though it took about ten years before we began to feel really ashamed of it. Then it was just a question of sanding it back to the bare wood and the tender application of good old danish oil.
We've always been very careful about things like hot pans and knives but discovered, too late, that raw rhubarb stalks can eat through the protective oil with alarming efficiency.

 

[Flyfisher]

"Very quickly" ?? 10 years sounds like a reasonable interval for a quick scrub and a re-oil.

 

[Moo]

It took ten years for us to become ashamed of it. But most normal people would probably have reached for the sander much, much sooner!

 

[jocelyn plummer]

On readding quickly I thought it said 'for a quick scrub and a re roll' :roll:

 

[JoceAndChris]

:lol: Nooooooo there hasn't been any smut since Page 1 of this long thread.

There you go again Moo, talking yourself down. NO ONE BELIEVE A WORD - THE HOUSE IS BEAUTIFUL!!

By the way, I just got my first egg. It's not a very big egg, but to me, it's perfect- the best Christmas present I could hope for. 8)

 

[LadyArowana]

By the way, I just got my first egg. It's not a very big egg, but to me, it's perfect- the best Christmas present I could hope for. 8)

Congratulations ! Are you going to remove the contents and keep it for posterity?

 

[Feltwell]

A wooden worktop that has not been looked after can look very tatty very quickly.

My kitchen will bear witness to that, though it took about ten years before we began to feel really ashamed of it. Then it was just a question of sanding it back to the bare wood and the tender application of good old danish oil.
We've always been very careful about things like hot pans and knives but discovered, too late, that raw rhubarb stalks can eat through the protective oil with alarming efficiency.

You must have a decent quality wooden worktop there Moo, or else you're putting yourself down far too much. I've seen cheap ones that after a year of abuse are water-damaged beyond redemption, no amount of sanding would bring them back.

I personally wouldn't have a wooden worktop - not because I don't like them, quite the opposite, but because I know that with the abuse the kitchen gets in my house they wouldn't survive!

 

[JoceAndChris]

By the way, I just got my first egg. It's not a very big egg, but to me, it's perfect- the best Christmas present I could hope for. 8)

Congratulations ! Are you going to remove the contents and keep it for posterity?

It had occured to me. It's kind of hard to know how to make a feast out of this one little egg, I might just look at it for a while and then soft-boil it.

 

[Nigel Watts]

Joce - Castle Drogo's kitchen and related pantires and sculleries (by Lutyens) could be a useful source of ideas, as well as being about as close as a kitchen can get to pure architecture. Walking through it is not unlike a visit to Sir John Soane's museum, with its contrasting vaulted spaces on a (relatively) intimate scale:

The furniture and working surfaces are all in scrubbed oak I believe.

 

[Penners]

I see Wickes do a wooden worktop that's about £50 a metre

I doubt that you'll find a better deal on solid wood worktops than Ikea. This one is available in beech, birch or oak:

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/20123670

Yes, wood can suffer if you cut on it or put very hot pans on it. This house has beech worktops (fitted by the previous owners), so I allowed Mrs P out of the kitchen briefly, so she could order some heatproof glass worktop protectors:

http://www.lakeland.co.uk/F/product/7201_1880

Or, given your proclivities, you may prefer:

http://www.lakeland.co.uk/henrietta-glass-worktop-saver/F/C/preparing-food/C/preparing-food-chopping-boards/product/13531 ( :roll: )

The plain glass ones comes with little rubber feet that hold them a few millimetrs above the worktop. I reckon this is important, as it allows the wood to breathe.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Penners, how kind you are to pink out pink chicken themed worktop protectors. Thankyou. And the Ikea worktop looks very nice indeed, if I do say that through gritted teeth having vowed never to set foot in the place again!

How kind you are to allow your wife out of the kitchen for a moment as well. I never have such luxury.

Nigel - Castle Drogo! Wow - exciting! When is the PPUK trip?

 

[Ushy M]

Granite looks beautiful, best of the lot in my opinion, but don't put hot pans on it - it may crack. Obviously not DIY, and you need deep pockets.

Thanks for the tip Feltwell - I've been putting hot pans on our granite worktop for years :shock: Won't do it again! One way round the scratches is the dimpled type:
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f223/umumford/IMG_3923.jpg

P.S. The tea cosy is the one Mr M insists on wearing whilst making the tea - and occasionally forgetting and answering the door to the postlady...

 

[Feltwell]

Thanks for the tip Feltwell - I've been putting hot pans on our granite worktop for years :shock: Won't do it again! One way round the scratches is the dimpled type.

I think hot pans and granite is one of those "it's not recommended but you might get way with it" scenarios! Differential expansion is supposed to be the problem - a local area, i.e. under the pan, heats up rapidly and expands - the forces have nowhere to go as the area around it has not expanded, therefore you get stresses in the material and may get a crack. But, being a natural material it no doubt also depends on the granite in your particular worktop and where exactly the pan is placed. Expensive mistake though if you do prove the theory right!

Do the same thing on a laminate worktop and you will without doubt burn a hole in it, if the pan has just come off the stove. The tempered glass worktop savers that Penners talks about are great, you can put hot pans straight onto those.

Any textured surface tends to show scratches less than a polished glossy one. It's not that they don't scratch as easily - they do - it's just that because the gloss surface is so smooth, the scratch catches the light and is more noticeable. Much more of a problem with laminate worktops rather than granite, and as I mentioned earlier for some reason dark colours seem to show scratches more easily than light ones.

P.S. The tea cosy is the one Mr M insists on wearing whilst making the tea - and occasionally forgetting and answering the door to the postlady...

Could be worse. As a 12 year old lad, I used to have a Saturday job helping out on a milk round. One day a very old lady, who was rather senile looking back on it, answered the door having forgotten to wear anything at all. Naked ladies are of great interest to 12 year old boys, but not when they're at least 95 years old.... :shock:

 

[FamilyWiggs]

the postlady...

Good grief - what is the world coming too? First Penners lets the good lady out of the kitchen, and now Ushy has a lady postman! They'll be wanting to be Prime Minister next... :roll:

 

[LadyArowana]

Congratulations ! Are you going to remove the contents and keep it for posterity?

It had occured to me. It's kind of hard to know how to make a feast out of this one little egg, I might just look at it for a while and then soft-boil it.

If you removed the contents carefully it could be decorated and go with the country animals theme of your tree. I hear rumours that combined with certain other mystery ingredients these inside bits can be made into a variety of delicious morsels. However I was let out of the kitchen some time ago and his Lordship now describes me as a "feral wife", so my advice on culinary matters is not to be trusted.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Could be worse. As a 12 year old lad, I used to have a Saturday job helping out on a milk round. One day a very old lady, who was rather senile looking back on it, answered the door having forgotten to wear anything at all. Naked ladies are of great interest to 12 year old boys, but not when they're at least 95 years old.... :shock:

Now why am I thinking this is going to be my fate?

If you removed the contents carefully it could be decorated and go with the country animals theme of your tree. I hear rumours that combined with certain other mystery ingredients these inside bits can be made into a variety of delicious morsels. However I was let out of the kitchen some time ago and his Lordship now describes me as a "feral wife", so my advice on culinary matters is not to be trusted.

Wor (as robgil says - I like this word) nice eggs! Feral wife?! Do you have any idea how jealous I am! How did you swing that? :mrgreen: :lol:

RE The Egg- Mr Chris ate it this morning with bacon and pronounced it very good indeed, and without zygotes.