Kitchen worktops in Addington

Yes. The village core has small period cottages with tight kitchens and low ceilings, while the surrounding 1960s-70s detached houses have square kitchens with integral garages behind, commonly converted into a utility with a second worktop run. Overhanging branches clear the roof of a car and catch the roof of a van, so the drive is looked at from the driver seat rather than from the doorstep. A replacement is a two-way job, with old tops going out and new stone coming in, so the van needs to stay put across the whole day. Two carries in one day doubles what the distance costs.

old village cottage, 1960s detached, 1970s detached and modern executive housing. A boiler in a cupboard on the kitchen wall is normal in this stock, and its position is fixed by its flue. The units are often 1970s or 80s and only around 500mm deep, so a standard 600mm stone top overhangs at the front and the doors and drawer fronts need checking against it. The units have settled with the floor and get re-levelled.

The village lanes are narrow with a sharp bend and no pavement in places, and the tram runs through on its own alignment, so unloading has to be off the carriageway. A meter cupboard set into the hall wall narrows the run at exactly the height a carried piece travels. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. None of it is worked out on the doorstep.

Worktop installation and worktop replacement, in that order. Extended households run kitchens hard, and that pushes the specification towards granite or sintered stone rather than a light quartz. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Tenants are still in the building, so the stairs stay clear. The 1960s houses often have the kitchen a step above the hall on a raised slab, which changes the finished worktop height, so we set out from the cabinet tops rather than a stated 900mm.

A window at one end and a doorway at the other means one end of the run is lit from behind and the other is interrupted, so the two ends of the same length behave differently. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The shape is measured again, not copied off the old top. Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. A forced back edge cracks weeks later. The stone itself starts at £110 per square metre supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines instead of rolled together.

Because the money comes out of a household rather than a maintenance budget, phasing is common: tops now, island or splashbacks later, quoted so the second visit still matches the first. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A locked door costs the day, not an hour. Tell us about the building at the point of booking, so the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are allowed for in advance.

The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. Small, roughly square kitchens with a back door and a window in the middle of the run: short lengths, few joins, and a lot to work around. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. A twenty-year-old run is replaced to its own shape.

Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. The two runs are rarely the same length, and the shorter one often carries the sink, which puts the cut-outs in the piece with the least material to spare. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Laminate hides what the gables are really doing.

What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Mark it, lift it, cut it, offer it up again.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. Blockwork with a hard render that has been patched over decades looks modern and behaves nothing like it. Old top out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon, with a plumber either side of us. A single day, planned properly.