Kitchen worktops in Bromley Town Centre

Yes. Two different jobs sit side by side here. The new blocks around Bromley South and Ringers Road have small L-shaped or galley kitchens open to the living space, usually 2.4-3.2m of run with a developer-spec laminate that owners swap out early. The Victorian terraces off the main roads are mostly side-return extensions with a single long run against the flank wall and a peninsula rather than a full island. A van waiting on a loading concession has somebody standing with it, because a vehicle left unattended is the one that collects the ticket. Waste is the part people forget: the old laminate or tired granite has to be walked back to the van and it does not get lighter. A suspension for the full day beats half a day lost.

Victorian terrace, 1930s semi, 2010s apartment block and office-to-residential conversion. The original range recess often survives as a shallow alcove with an iron lintel over it, a hundred millimetres deeper than the wall either side of it. In most Victorian terraces the kitchen sits in the back addition, so you get a narrow galley with one outside wall and nothing square to work off. A new top on a settled run needs the run corrected first.

Flats mean loading bays with time limits, a goods lift booking and a building manager to clear it with, and no chance of leaving the van on the High Street. The terraces have no off-street parking and a controlled parking zone, so slabs come off the van at the kerb and go through the house rather than round the side. Blankets on the walls and a board on the floor go in before the first piece, because a scratched car becomes a bill from the managing agent long after the kitchen is finished. Splashback panels are lighter than a worktop and far more awkward, because a tall thin piece has to be carried on edge and cannot be tilted to clear a turn. The frame they travel in needs the clearance as well.

Worktop replacement and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Developer-fitted kitchens come with thin cam-lock carcasses, which are fine under laminate and want bracing before stone goes on them. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Grout lines are the first thing to fail in a let. Half the work is measuring twice for lift dimensions before we cut, because a 3m piece will not go into a lot of these blocks in one length and a joint has to be designed in from the start.

A galley closed at one end takes a short return across the top, and that little piece carries the same edge work, the same handling and nearly the same cost as a full length. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Where the seam went before is not where it goes now. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. It is usually what pushes a job towards a 100mm upstand instead of a full-height panel, because an upstand rides what a panel exposes. An upstand rides what a panel exposes. Supply-only material opens at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line rather than as a single number.

The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. What repeats across flats is recorded once and repeated. Say what the building is at the booking stage and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice become part of the plan rather than a surprise.

Delivery to the workshop has to be arranged and dated, since nothing is nested until it is there. How the slab has been stored is worth telling us, because stone kept flat is not stone off a rack. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. Housings and integrated appliances are set out for a 38mm laminate top, so dropping to 20mm or 30mm stone changes the clearances and needs checking before anything is cut. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Six kitchens, one socket layout, one panel drawing.

Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. Damage found on the bench never leaves the workshop, and damage on the carry is remade under the same cover. Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. Lift doors close on a timer that takes no account of somebody holding a worktop, so a pair of hands stays on the buttons at each end. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. A vertical break is easier to live with than a cracked panel.

Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. Ceilings are generous and the rooms are narrow, so the runs are long, the aisle is tight and there is nowhere to stand a slab on edge. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. The old top comes off in pieces, not whole.

We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. Walls at both ends mean two scribes on every piece, and a run that has to drop between two fixed points has no tolerance left to give away. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. Stone wants gables where laminate needed none.