Hainault kitchens
The kitchens we meet in Hainault
The worktop jobs we are called out to in Hainault tend to arrive with a history, and reading that history is half of getting the measurements right. A post-war London County Council out-county estate, so the housing is laid out in repeating blocks of terraces and semis with small original kitchens designed as a working scullery rather than a living space. The usual job is taking out the dividing wall to the dining room, running a 3m L and adding a peninsula where the wall stood; because the layouts repeat street to street, the same kitchen shape comes up again and again. If you would rather someone just came and looked, that is the design and quotation visit, and it costs nothing in Hainault or anywhere else.
Communal heating pipework rises through the flat and is boxed in at floor and at ceiling, and none of it moves for a kitchen. A colour name is a label attached to a consignment rather than a property of the rock, which is why the reference number on the paperwork outlives the name printed beside it. Quartz, granite and sintered stone answer three different rooms.
The wall between the kitchen and the hall is load-bearing blockwork rather than a stud, so an opening through it is a lintel job and not an afternoon with a bolster. Windows are generous here and the light is even, so a mid-tone holds up without having to be pale simply to survive the room. The island earns the liveliest part of the stone.
Around here the stock is late-1940s to 1950s LCC cottage estate, ex-council terrace and ex-council semi. They fail in different places, which is why the survey looks at different things.