Reno Kitchen Bench - Anyone Used Litestone? (Bunnings Vic Product)

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  lewislardboy on 25/01/2019 - 11:43

  +1

  Have you had any quotes per sq/m? Interested in this too. Did you say you also investigated the retro-fitted stone overlay solution too? Surely the retro fit would be cheaper… but i have absolutely no idea, and this is the easiest way to ensure i'm following the conversation.

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    original15 on 25/01/2019 - 16:39

    Hey there, they’re pretty open with sharing pricing (well for the product not install, but the selling part is you can do it yourself if you’re capable enough)
    Retro fit is pretty pricy from memory but we want to extend our bench by 30cm which isn’t an option with just putting stone overtop of existing (supposedly)

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  dcep on 25/01/2019 - 12:02

  +1

  i think it looks good with 39mm thick overall , as long as no need to finish the end cut which will obviously show the layer ?

  stone only 20mm , hardly any comes in 40mm

  won't look good if you stack 20mm stone on existing bench

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    original15 on 25/01/2019 - 16:41

    Hey, yeh it’s probably 38-40mm total thickness and would come with end panels so not to show layers :)
    Pretty sure you can get some even thinner stone to stack on existing, but we haven’t explored this option in too much detail tbh

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  jellykingdom on 25/01/2019 - 12:03

  +1

  Haha i love the photo of the woman carrying the panel like it weighs nothing. It's not like normal laminate is especially light, it's just light compared to stone

  But yeah, i'm going to be watching this thread too, cos i've not actually heard of Litestone before but it does sound interesting!

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    original15 on 25/01/2019 - 16:42

    Ha if we go ahead with it will be sure to let you know how light it actually is. From what I can tell the prefab part is lighter than laminate underneath so who knows
    Is very interesting but will see if we pull the trigger. Cost isn’t too much different to laminate but obv look and feel of stone would be much nicer

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  b-t on 25/01/2019 - 12:19

  +1

  Hey there,

  I literally just got my reno done and yeah, Bunnings pitched the idea of getting Litestone instead of actual stone and the price was pretty good so we got it.

  Honestly, if you want my honest opinion it's really down to your budget. If you can stretch, I highly suggest getting full stone. Litestone is "OK".

  We had some issues where the production was delayed by 2 weeks due to "some technical difficulties". Then, the first Litestone came with a broken corner. Waited another 2 weeks for production and the second Litestone came with a full crack right through the middle of the bench. All in all, my reno project was delayed majorly because they had to get the bench in to do most of the other stuff like install the sink, etc.

  Bunnings is also terrible at customer service, so I also would strongly suggest against getting their "special orders" team to organise the reno for you. I could rant on and on about how terrible my experience was but yeah. :)

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    original15 on 25/01/2019 - 16:46

    Damn, sorry to hear your experience was so bad. We are likely looking to install ourselves/leverage family who are tradies. I guess we don’t really have a key deadline so a wait wouldn’t be too bad but the crack and broken corner are somewhat worrying

    I’ll look into full stone again but think that’ll be over capitalizing, just looking for something nice to finish this place off so we can move somewhere bigger.
    We’d picked a laminate we had liked but when’s you see the nice litstone finish side by side it’s so much nicer looking + the feel.

    All things aside, the issue with getting it done and cracks etc, how does the finish product look in your place??

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      b-t on 25/01/2019 - 21:54

      Yeah so that's kind of similar to my situation. I recently moved into an "established" home with my SO but it's a relatively small (and old) place. We wouldn't be living here for a long period so I figured, why waste so much money; I'd eventually want to move out when we're going to be building our family, therefore Litestone was good for making the house relatively nice and it should be OK when it comes to selling/renting out. Given your situation, I probably would also suggest to get Litestone as it actually doesn't look bad. Sorry that I forgot to mention that!

      I'm not sure if Bunnings explained it well enough to you, because the guy that told me about Litestone was kind of confusing. Basically, the benchtop is of 40mm thickness, so appearance-wise, it looks like a 40mm benchtop. However, the actual depth of the stone is like barely anything, maybe like 10mm at most? The bottom of it is actually some sort of thick bubblewrap sort of material. It's similar to something you'd use for packaging. You can in-fact feel the material if you were to put your fingers under the bench (as like a lifting motion). Appearance though, a normal person visiting wouldn't notice any difference between a 40mm Litestone vs full stone.

      Regarding the cracks in my bench — although I am quite disappointed in the way they handled the situation, I do have to mention that I personally feel that the bench isn't THAT easy to break. It was most likely just unfortunately mishandled during the couriering, whereby, they must have hit a few bumps on the way here. Basically what I would say is, yes, a hard bump can break the bench, but if you have a perfect Litestone bench installed, I don't expect you'd be dropping something THAT hard to get it to break :)

      Hope I helped you out! Happy to answer any other questions (to the best of my knowledge)

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        original15 on 26/01/2019 - 10:39

        Hey mate thanks for the extra detail, I think we are going to go ahead with it. Yeh we have seen the sample u deraide of the product, debating if we crest a brekky bar and what this will mean for finishing the inside of the enclosed bench part but will see how we go.

        What colour did you go with?
        We love the pictures of the “White” but found the sample didn’t have large flecks of stone through it, but will either go with that or the concrete grey

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          b-t on 26/01/2019 - 21:58

          @original15: Our kitchen was designed with as a grey and white design; so the idea was to have white cabinets under the bench and to have the bench as grey :)

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  Rossh1967 on 11/06/2020 - 21:55

  G'day (or evening) is thread still used? I recently used Litestone and I am disapointed. The stone itself seemed ok at first but turned out very weak. Ours cracked three times wich is pretty bad. Seems like a cheap China made product,typical.
  You expect a cheaper product for that price tag but still shouldnt break. We went for litestone over a competing product because we were imprest by photos online but we ended up being told they were unlikely to be litestone because of the very thick returns. Also if u look at the homes that have the thick return, they look expensive so why would they want a cheap bench.
  All in all I would not use again or tell anyone to. Looking back i should have paid the extra couple of hundred and got the quality from another company. Also does anyone know y bunnings does not sell the tops anymore? I wonder if it is because of the poor product! I used the pure white if anyone wanted to no

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    original15 on 12/06/2020 - 22:39

    Hey there
    Yeh bunnings stopped stocking them quite some time ago, at least my local did (Vic) We were going to go with white as it looked great but had similarly heard from bunnings there were often issues with cracking etc
    Not sure if you can get them anywhere. We ended up just going laminate as stone was overs for what we were doing to the place in prep to sell
    Hope your bench holds up ok buddy

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  jonnoyeo on 20/11/2020 - 10:08

  Sounds like not the best material for benchtops, but has anyone installed these as splashbacks?

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    original15 on 20/11/2020 - 13:32

    Didn’t know you could still grab them

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      jonnoyeo on 20/11/2020 - 15:04

      Seems like you can get it direct from them?

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  JOHNS52 on 04/01/2022 - 12:22

  Kitchen reno and a 3m long top was cracked when I unpacked it. Got a replacement and that was cracked because the delivery driver picked up one end whilst it was laying flat. I did not see the crack until I got it out in the sunlight. After cutting, I tried to join to an existing piece and found the latest piece wasn't even close to flat and had a 6mm drop from centre to the edge (800mm wide). Basically the top was curved, not flat and then I found the damn thing tapered a few mm end to end. Litestone stopped responding to my emails. Product looks good for what I have finished. I'd suggest any 3 metre lengths are a transport problem.