Before we quote any of the vanity tops in Charville we want to know what the kitchen actually is, because the answer changes more than the price. Ex-local semis and terraces largely on their original footprint, runs of around 2.7m with the back door in the corner, and refits driven by landlords and first-time buyers rather than designers. We measure the kitchen you have, not the kitchen the plans said you would have. Those two part company often.
There is nearly always a boxed soil stack or a service riser in a corner of the run, and it is rarely mentioned at enquiry. A vanity top is where all of that turns up in miniature, with the basin, the tap holes and a splash return crowded into a few hundred millimetres of stone. A window reveal in a bathroom is stone as much as the vanity is.
Whole streets went up to two or three plans, so the house next door has the same kitchen and forty years of extensions have made none of them measure the same. The service riser is boxed into a corner of the room, and the top is notched round it with a radiused internal corner rather than a square one. A pod bathroom inside a shell has walls built last week.
The housing on these streets is 1930s estate semi, postwar terrace and ex-local housing. The run length that is easy in one is a join in another.
Figures cover the statistical area (MSOA) that contains Charville| Figure | Charville | Against London | What it means for the job |
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| homes built before 1919 | 1% | pre-1919 share lower than 95% of the 723 areas we cover | Corners tend to come in close to square. |
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| homes built 1919 to 1939 | 62% | inter-war share higher than 91% of the 723 areas we cover | The inter-war kitchen repeats street to street. |
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| homes built since 2010 | 5% | post-2010 share lower than 61% of the 723 areas we cover | No two kitchens are set out alike. |
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Sources: VOA Council Tax Stock of Properties 2025 and ONS Census 2021 for MSOA E02000511. Open Government Licence v3.0.
