am re-doing my kitchen and i cant decide between Granite counter tops or Corrian. See Granite is nice and all but i heard you have to seal them ever year which is a pain in the ass and expensive. I like stone or stone looking tops too. any suggestions to alternatives would be greatly appreciated.

I'd personally go granite unless you can get Corian in a different color that matches the kitchen well than teh standard mediocre black.

just something Kano would say "INTERIOR DESIGNER HOMOSEXUAL"

I'll tell you from experience, Corian scratches easily and will melt if you put something hot on it. Granite is expensive and takes a little more care, but who gives a shit? Granite can actually increase the value of your house by a lot. In most cases, it'll be three times the price that you paid for the granite, including installation. So...go with granite if you can afford it.

Look at it this way too, with granite, you treat it once a year. Corian, you're going to be repairing scratches all year long and be pissed all year long, heh. Plus, granite has more appeal to the eye, yes, I said eye...

If granite is not out of your reach financially, it's the no-brainer decision.

I am doing the same thing right now, the contractors are working as I type. I would recommend GRANITE! It lasts longer, looks better and adds so much more to the resale value of your place. We looked hard and long for what we wanted and we went with the granite, and the sealing is not as bad as it is made out to be. Look around and talk with some granite places and they will tell you.

Well the wife has her heart set on UBA TUBA, it's Granite and it's a nice color, Black with some gold flake in it and shit. looks good and it's affordable, just still a little uneasy on having to seal it every year, and will granite scratch if you cut on it? or discolor from hot pots or anything like that?

plywood, it works for everything

You're going to need some duct tape for that plywood too. Seal it up real nice like mmhmm.

That's what we have in our house. It looks really nice! Granite is definately the better choice.

Yes it can scratch if you cut on it, but you have to do it really hard but it's always better and more hygenic to use a washable cutting board so that saves that problem. I don't know about the heat but just get some nice pot stands and there you go both problems solved and the counter is saved.

looks like we all agree here, go granite

Yea the black with gold Flake is really nice my mother in law has it in her home that Cunt I hate her but anyways go with the Uba tuba sounds like a winner

Granite is one of the hardest natural stones on earth. It would take a lot of force for it to get scratched by anything but diamond and a couple of other stones that I can't remember right now. When companies drill for oil and run across a granite shelf, they have to bring in a diamond tipped drill bit to cut through it. That's how tough granite is! Rawr!

You could spend all day sliding cast iron pans across granite and it'll look back and say, "IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT BITCH?!" You could cut vegetables on it with a samurai sword and it wouldn't even blink. Most of the scratches that you see on granite isn't on the granite itself, but the sealer. The sealer will and does scratch, but that's easily fixed by polishing your countertop with a neutral cleaner that has sealer in it! That'll also save you time later, because you're actually treating the granite every time you polish it.

It would take a LOT of heat to F*CK up granite...Dude, your house could burn down and the only thing that would be left would be the granite countertop. You could literally get the countertop, polish it back up and put it in your new house. However, putting something very hot on something that is very cold, suddenly, can cause damage to almost any surface. So just do what CPT said, get a hotplate, they're good decor anyways, heh.

Look around on the internet for a thing called Moh's stone hardness scale, or something like that, and you'll find that very few things are more durable and dense that granite. Whatever is listed above granite (like diamonds) can scratch it, everything below, won't.

EDIT: http://www.granitehouston.com/FAQ/harness.htm That's the hardness scale I was talking about. Check it out.