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Are there any new and/or innovative quality countertop products on the market that are easier to work with and not as heavy as quartz? For example, something like NSF certified "richlite" which is a  paper composite material that's extremely durable, robust and lightweight. Those types of characteristics but also look good too.

subsequent to this question being "closed", which I disagree with, I found "Dekton" at home depot and got a sample. This is the type of material I am thinking of (new and light), but so far they only sell it through installers, at least at HD. It's called an "ultracompact surface" and comes as thin as 5/16" (8mm). I have a 3"x3"x5/16" sample and it has the look and feel somewhat of quartz. I couldn't scratch it with my razor knife. You can read reviews. It has pros and cons, but I like it. It's concrete based and seems very tough.

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    DIY Concrete countertops ! – Alaska Man Nov 28 '20 at 19:13
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    "but with the Covid Pandemic it's just too heavy to mess around with it" The Covid Pandemic has a relationship to the weight and movement of the quartz? – Alaska Man Nov 28 '20 at 19:54
  • I once had a quartz counter and I absolutely hated it because it would break fragile (and even not so fragile) things set down on it without the upmost care. Knock over a bear bottle? grab a towel and dustbin. I ended up keeping a tablecloth on it. – dandavis Nov 28 '20 at 20:36
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    The Covid Pandemic means that you can't call some friends over to lift a countertop into place. You're stuck with whoever shares the house for lifting duties, and that's sometimes not a great selection. – user3757614 Nov 28 '20 at 20:46
  • You can ask some friends to come help you. Whether you will ask is up to you. Whether they say yes is up to them. – FreeMan Nov 28 '20 at 21:42
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If you can figure out your design precisely - length, width, any odd corners, sinks, etc. - then I suggest taking a look at "solid surface" such as "cultured marble". Essentially some sort of resin with color and "stuff" mixed in. Reasonably hard - but not as hard or as heavy as stone (granite, quartz, etc.) and can be ordered in any shape/size. Depending on your area, you may be best off ordering through a big box store or "kitchen/bath design" place (some overhead built in, but they know the process to order things the right way and you have recourse if there are problems) or order direct. For a variety of reasons, I wouldn't recommend this type of surface as much for a kitchen, but for a bathroom it can be ideal, and doesn't (at least when I got it) cost a fortune. If you are OK with integral sinks then it works even better (just add faucet & plumbing and you are done), which is not an option with real stone or many other materials.

To clarify a bit, this type of material is DIY in the sense of installation. It is most definitely not DIY in terms of fabrication. You don't order it in 4 or 6 or 8 foot lengths and cut to size - you order exactly the length you need. You don't order it and then cut a big hole for a sink and drill small holes for the faucet - you order it with all those holes (and possibly an integral sink) molded into it.

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I don't think you can get high-quality and lightweight in the same package. Granite, quartz, marble, concrete, and the like are high-quality materials more or less for the same reasons they're really heavy. Because they're all more or less rock, they have a certain level of durability that you're not going to get from other materials. But if you don't have the ability to lift and move a Really Big Rock, then you don't have access to traditional high-end materials, and the lighter-weight replacements are mostly designed around cost.

I don't think Stainless Steel works for bathrooms. It creates an industrial/institutional vibe that's probably not what you want.

Tile is easy to solo because you don't need to lift the entire thing into place at once, but is difficult to keep clean. (Plus needs a certain amount of skill to install.) I can't recommend it.

Laminate and Solid-Surface countertops are light, but these are very much lower-end materials.

So, where does that leave you? I feel your best bet would be a quartz-look-alike Solid Surface countertop, (easier to clean than tile, and looks better than laminate) it's just a matter of if you'd be happy with it, and that's not something I can answer. You'll want to look at examples in person to make that kind of call. (And be sure to feel them. The countertop I have looks like stone, but I can tell it's some kind of plastic because it's not cold to the touch. Don't know if this is something you care about.) If you don't want that, I guess see if there's any way to split the countertop so the pieces are smaller? I don't think you have good options here.

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