Putney Vale worktops
The kitchens we meet in Putney Vale
We plan the worktop jobs in Putney Vale around access, ceiling height and what the kitchen has already been through, none of which shows up in a phone call. A compact interwar estate where houses have small rear kitchens with a larder recess, and the usual improvement is opening into the rear lobby to gain a return of about 1.5m. Layouts stay modest with no islands and limited wall space above the run. The tape measure decides it, not the description above, and not anything anybody says over the telephone.
Crittall windows were swapped for plastic ones in openings that were made good rather than rebuilt, which leaves reveals that are neither straight nor equal. Run lengths are what turn a rate per square metre into a bill, since a slab is bought whole and the part of it nobody uses is paid for all the same. Quartz, granite and sintered stone answer three different rooms.
The under-stair cupboard opens off the kitchen in most of them, and its door swing is the reason a corner run stops where it does. Side light from the garden is what lets a stone with movement in it actually be seen, which is why a busier granite or a veined quartz earns its keep here and a flat single colour rarely does. Plain stone takes the seam that a long carry forces.
What turns up behind the front walls here is 1930s cottage estate house, Postwar terrace and Low-rise flat. Each of those behaves differently once the old top comes off.
