I suggest that you do a search here because I and others have asked quite a few questions about Caeserstone, particularly honed, in previous posts. In the end, not too many responses however!

Saw a gray honed Caesarstone (despite the color it was called Laguna Azul - may be discontinued color) in a home design store where it had been installed in a working kitchen for about two years. The store owners cook in the kitchen daily and also have periodic cooking demonstrations. The countertop definitely looked used, and if you would be bothered by that (stains, marks, etc.) then this is not the product for you. If you think these things add patina and character, then you'll love it.

Kitchen Equipped, a kitchen show here in Toronto, featured a chef's home kitchen today and he had honed granite - he loved it, but was adament he would never get it again - shows too many stains, too much upkeep etc. The counters looked terrible when they panned in - beautiful idea, but I think day-to-day, it's just too fussy a countertop...

just my 2cents worth.

good luck making your decision!

Needanap, your countertop looks lovely. We are considering putting in honed CaesarStone in, I think, "Creme Limestone". Is that what you have?

Thank you everyone, for your responses!

fern4 - I did the search before posting - I was looking specifically to find feedback on the maintenance (because of the waiver that is required to be signed), and didn't see that anyone asked about that (of course, with my old eyes, it's possible I missed it :D )

needanap - thank you VERY much for your response - that's exactly what I hoped to hear!! Your countertop looks beautiful with your cabinets.

nclakehouse and planningnut - thank you very much - I appreciate your responses - I'm hoping to get a darker color, but will have to weigh in what you've written as well.

-Susan

astridh, the color is "Champagne Limestone" which has variable size "bubbles" when you look at it up close, but gives a fairly uniform appearance overall.

susan in maine, you're totally right -- all of those posts have disappeared. I tried searching under a number of things and they're gone.

Caesar stone is supposed to be cheaper than granite, but I am getting quotes of $60-70/sq.ft for granite and $80-85 sq ft for Caesarstone. I mean, I guess that's the price, but just wondering other people have found. Thanks in advance for your responses.

i don't think it's "supposed to be cheaper". caesarstone is about the same or a bit more than granite. it depends on the granite, of course.

we just paid $70/sq ft. for it, but our guy was pretty generous and gave us a nice ogee for free.

ours is polished, and brand new, so i can't comment on the original question.

We've recently chosen counters for our renovated kitchen and as part of that process got fairly large samples of honed Caesarstone in Raven, Pebble, Cement and Lagos Blue. We abused them all -- especially the Raven, which was the one we like the best -- fairly severely: olive oil and a lemon half left on overnight, red wine. All cleaned up easily and the lemon left no mark at all. We could make greasy fingerprints on it fairly easily but they came right off -- they even disappeared if we just left them alone for awhile.

We loved the feel and look but ended up going with soapstone because our fabricator gave us an amazing deal -- just a bit more than the C'stone. The estimates for the C'stone were about $75/sf.