Stone worktops in Cyprus

Yes. Cyprus is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E6. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Newham. Drives with a dropped kerb and a tight turn-in take a long van at an angle, and that angle decides which side the tail lift can work from. Whatever the standing allows, the stone leaves that van finished, because every edge, cut-out and internal radius is machined at the works and none of it is open to reconsideration at the kerb. Stone is delivered machined, sealed and covered, in that order. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Block and beam floors with blockwork walls are true enough that the scribes are light and the joins can be pulled tight. Kitchens in these blocks are compact and open to the living space, so the surface is furniture as much as work surface and a quiet consistent stone carries that better than a dramatic one. Two slabs change the question from price to preference. An unsupported overhang off a stud wall wants noggins fixed between the studs before the boarding goes on, and once it is boarded and skimmed that option has gone. Every notch and every scribe is machined into the piece before it leaves the works, and a hard sintered surface is the least forgiving of a tight internal corner, so one is always cut with a generous radius. A short upstand shows a fragment of pattern, never a run of it.

Carrying down a flight is not the easier direction, because the weight runs ahead of the crew and whoever is at the bottom has no way of stopping a slip. That caps the longest piece, and a run split into two lengths nests differently on the slab, which moves the yield and moves the figure with it. Vein direction is settled before the slab is broken into pieces. Where the drive is too short for the van the back end overhangs the footway, and a footway is a route people are using rather than spare space. A granite kitchen ends its day with a sealer, and a sealer wants a dry face and a quiet hour afterwards, so that hour is written into the day rather than borrowed from it. The face is uncovered once, and that once is at handover.

The walkway between the two runs is fixed by the units either side, so any overhang added to one worktop comes straight off the space somebody has to stand in. A shape like that nests kindly on a slab, so more of what gets bought ends up on the units and the rate per square metre behaves much as the brochure says it will. A pale honed face earns its keep in a room short of daylight. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

Stud centres are almost never where the brackets would like to be, so fixing positions get set from the framing and the stone is designed to suit. A hob dropped into the middle of a length puts sustained warmth at the lip of a cut-out, and an engineered surface will yellow there across ten years where a natural one takes it without comment. Reach across an unsupported span is a thickness question. Send the kitchen layout with run lengths and the peninsula projection if there is one, and tell us what the lift will take as a single piece. Work between tenancies runs against a fixed date rather than a preference, and stone has a lead time that has to fit inside that window with a few days spare. That changes which questions are worth asking about the stone, because somebody staying put wants to know how a honed face marks in five years and somebody selling wants to know how it photographs next spring. Whoever holds the keys later is the one who needs the paperwork.

The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. The fit follows 5 to 10 working days after the template, and nothing is cut before that visit because nothing is cut from a plan. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The lift car, the loading bay and the building manager decide the piece sizes here, not the slab. Which stone belongs on top of all that is a separate question from the building itself, and it is the one with a figure attached, because supply alone runs from £110 to £550 per square metre before a single cut has been made. The cheapest stone and the dearest one share a fitting day.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. The units below stay exactly as they are; only the surface is replaced. Having the van on the drive means the load can be staged, so the heavy pieces come off last and go straight in instead of standing outside. Sintered surfaces are the hardest of the three to machine and the messiest to cut wet, which is precisely why none of that happens on a public pavement. Stone arrives finished, because a kerb is not a polishing shop.

Units have to be fitted, fixed and level before templating, and it is better to hear that at the template than on the fitting day. Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. A partition that gives when you lean on it will give under someone sitting at an overhang, and a bonded mitre nearby is where that movement shows first. A deep scribe eats into the back of the piece, which is quietly important on a stone with directional figure, since the pattern moves backwards as that depth comes off. Speckle hides the resin line a mitre leaves behind.

A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. Grooves are machined into the surface rather than applied to it, so there is nothing to come loose later. Developer carcasses are thin cam-lock chipboard, which is entirely adequate under laminate and wants bracing before stone. The surface is where the money actually moves: across the 185 surfaces we list the median is £224 per square metre, and half of them sit between £165 and £300. Priced by the square metre, lived with by the square inch.