Stone bar tops in Kew

Yes. Kew is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are TW9. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Richmond upon Thames. Applying for a suspension means naming a length of kerb and a date, and moving the date generally means applying for it again. A bar fit runs longer than a worktop run, because the frame, the support and the stone are three stages and only the last of them is quick. Where the bay is timed, the support goes in first. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The outrigger shares a party wall with the addition next door for its whole length, so one long side of the kitchen is solid brick with another kitchen on the far side of it. A bar in one of these houses is either the end of a through-lounge or a cellar conversion, and the two behave differently. What the room will take decides the stool count. Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. 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 top is set to one datum along its own length.

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. Nothing about a front edge survives being dragged. A suspension is charged by the bay and by the day, so the number of metres asked for is worth getting right the first time. 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. The stone comes off last because it goes down last.

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 design & quotation. 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. The support detail is agreed with whoever builds the frame. 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. Repeated bars get one drawing and one steel schedule.

Power and waste come up through the floor, and where they surface decides which cabinet can hold a sink and which one cannot. 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 is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A window board sitting below finished worktop height leaves two choices, drop the top under it or notch the stone around it, and both cost more than a straight run. 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. The frame is made true before the stone is measured. Send the length you want, the number of stools, and photographs walking from the pavement through to the room, including the cellar stair if the bar is going down there. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. Where the person choosing it is not the person who will lean on it, the seating height is set to a standard rather than to whoever happens to be standing in the room. A bar is permanent joinery with stone on top of it.

If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. Plenty of zones run at the weekend as well as through the week, so a Saturday date is not automatically the easier one to work. Where the clock is running the frame is levelled and the steel is in before the top ever leaves the tail lift. A short unload is still a long fit on a bar.

Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. Damage found on the bench never leaves the workshop, and damage on the carry is remade under the same cover. 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 corbels go in before the top does, and both use the same door.

The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. The side return was an outside toilet and a coal store before it was ever a kitchen, and the walls left over from that are half a brick thick. 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. A bar that flexes was supported for weight it never gets.

A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. A hob cut-out and the floor penetration feeding it have to land over the same cabinet, and where they do not it is the stone that gets redrawn rather than the pipework. The seating side is the part that decides the piece, because a stool at the open end puts a load on a corner that a wall would otherwise have been carrying. A breakfast counter and a trade bar are not the same brief.