Stone bar tops in Farnborough

Yes. Farnborough is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are BR6. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bromley. 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. That has to cover more than the unload, since the corbels, the flat bar and the fixings all come off the van well before the top does. A short unload is still a long fit on a bar. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

These have been added to over two centuries, so the kitchen is made of two or three walls of different ages and different thicknesses. Lengths run past what a single slab gives, so a break is designed in from the start, placed over support and kept clear of every stool position before anything is nested. The stone is the last element of the joinery, not the first. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. On a bar that counts twice over, because the same obstruction has to be cleared by the stone above it and by the knees of whoever is sitting at it. A bar pushed sideways was fixed to plasterboard.

A loading bay or a red route puts a clock on the unload, so the pieces come off in the order they will be fitted rather than the order they were loaded. That matters more on a bar than on a run, because a join forced by the way in cannot be allowed to land in the unsupported part of the nose. Suction pads go on the polished face, never on the nose. A dropped kerb wide enough for a car is not always wide enough for a long-wheelbase van, and the width of the crossing decides the rest. A trade bar is fitted around opening times, so the window the van has and the window the room has are rarely the same window. Permits are sorted before a corbel is drilled.

Not really, and there is no sense dressing it up. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop templating, worktop installation and worktop replacement. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It gets quoted, cut and fitted exactly as it would anywhere else on the patch. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. A bar is nearly always the last thing added to a project, so it is templated on a visit of its own once the joinery around it has stopped moving. Nothing is assumed about a frame somebody else built. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. Where the same detail is repeating across several rooms the support gets standardised once and then cut to length, which is cheaper than drawing it each time. The overhang is checked against the frame that exists.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. Where the counter runs flush with the working surface instead of standing above it the whole thing becomes one plane, which looks better and doubles the unsupported span. One level or two, and it is decided early. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

A room can be out of square in both directions at once, so the wall that leans is also the wall that runs downhill, and one scribe cannot answer both. A bar top is levelled to itself rather than to what it stands on, so the packing goes into the frame and the stools take up whatever the floor is doing. Every obstruction under the top is a seating decision too. Send the bar layout with the rear counter and any sink marked, the seating side and stool count, and the edge profile you want on the front. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. A home bar is discretionary work, so the edge profile, the corbel detail and the radius on the nose are worth settling properly rather than defaulting to whatever is quickest. A bar in constant hands wants a finish that does not mark.

Grooves are machined in the workshop at the same time as the bowl cut-out, because they cannot be done well in a kitchen. Grooves are machined into the surface rather than applied to it, so there is nothing to come loose later. A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. A utility or boot room usually takes a second run of stone, templated with the kitchen and fitted after it. A bar top put into a room like that is an overhang question first, because the nose has to carry people leaning on it long after the slab has stopped being interesting. What the frame does under the stone is half the job.

Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. A join forced by the route still sits over a gable, so it is no poorer a join for that. If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. The steel and the corbels travel that same route and go in first, so a bar is three separate carries into one room rather than a single delivery. The route is measured to the deepest part of the piece.

No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. Where the nose has to be carried past something fixed the support moves rather than the stone, since a corbel landing in the knee space is worse than no corbel at all. The riser is boxed to a line the stone can follow.

Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. Windows are small and set deep, which leaves the run under them dark and the reveal too deep for a plain square end. Bars in these houses run long enough to need a break, so it is placed over support and clear of every stool position before anything is nested. The frame is built to the room and the stone answers to the frame.