Hayes worktops
The kitchens we meet in Hayes
Every one of the worktop jobs we quote in Hayes starts with the same conversation about what is already in the kitchen and what is staying. Mostly private inter-war and post-war detached with square kitchens rather than long thin ones, so the layout is usually three walls of units with a table in the middle, which can convert to an island. Chalet bungalows near the common often have a low-ceilinged kitchen with a rear door that has to stay in place. We would rather find the awkward corner now than on the day the stone arrives in Hayes, so the survey looks at everything.
A boiler hangs on the wall above the run in most of these, and its pipework drops exactly where a splashback wants to go. North light and afternoon light read a surface differently, so a sample belongs in the corner that gets the worst of it rather than the best. What sings in a bright room can go dead in a dark one.
Post-war terraces have a short straight hall to the kitchen, which is a good deal kinder than the houses they replaced. Budgets in this stock tend to sit in the lower half of the range, and the lower half holds materials that are genuinely good rather than merely inexpensive. Warm stone beside painted timber, cool grey rarely.
What turns up behind the front walls here is 1930s detached, 1950s detached, 1960s chalet bungalow and post-war semi. The age of the shell tells us more than the age of the kitchen does.
