Bathroom worktops and vanity tops in Barbican

Why bathroom worktops in Barbican are their own job

In Barbican, the things that make a fit straightforward or awkward are known before we cut, not discovered while we carry. There is no vehicle access to the podium at all: you park in one of the estate car parks below, then use a car park lift and walk the highwalks and internal corridors, which can be several hundred metres with multiple fire doors and level changes. Lift cars in the residential cores are small with low ceilings, so anything over about 2.2m has to be assessed against the specific core before you cut. We walk the whole route from the car park lift to the flat door before ordering, because the Barbican's walk-in is longer and more awkward than any staircase in the City. Have a look at the itemised quote and you can see what the building is costing and what the stone is costing.

The money

What bathroom worktops cost in Barbican

In Barbican, 99% of homes are flats or maisonettes: higher than 98% of the 723 areas we cover. Short lengths nest well and waste little, so the material line is usually the kindest part of a galley quote. The supply rate of £110 to £550 per square metre reads the same for a small kitchen and a large one. Everything that makes them different jobs appears further down the quote.

ex-local-authority flats and estates

The shape of the run, and what it means for bathroom worktops

A tall bank of housings at one end takes a chunk out of the working run, so the usable length of that side is always less than the length of the wall behind it. Veining runs the length of a slab, and across a piece this short it reads either as a feature or as a stripe, which is why the position is chosen rather than accepted. Where the kitchen eats the slab, the bathroom buys its own.

The route in

The carry, and what it rules out for bathroom worktops

Where the lift will not take the longest run we design a join in rather than gamble, because a piece that will not go up has to go back on the van. Weight is seldom the difficulty; the awkwardness is two people, one rigid piece and a frame that was never built to admit all three at once. Nobody carries a drilled vanity top by one end.

The building

The building, and what it does to the bathroom worktops

Dot-and-dab plasterboard bellies at a taped internal angle, so the run picks up a few millimetres over the last 300mm and a plan-angle mitre will not close. Most of these flats have an en-suite as well as a bathroom, and the two rarely take the same depth, so they are drawn as two pieces rather than one repeated. A bathroom over a kitchen has its waste run already decided.

Demand

What Barbican asks for in bathroom worktops

Commercial rather than residential, and priced from the drawing rather than from the housing type. Residentially, the housing here suits worktop replacement and worktop splashbacks & upstands. The fabrication is identical.