We plan the vanity tops in St Ann's around access, ceiling height and what the kitchen has already been through, none of which shows up in a phone call. Solid Victorian and Edwardian terraces between Green Lanes and West Green Road, mostly single-family with the kitchen in a rear addition and a modest knock-through into the dining room. Newer housing on the redeveloped hospital land brings compact open-plan kitchens with a short island. We measure the kitchen you have, not the kitchen the plans said you would have. Those two part company often.
Lower ground floor kitchens are reached by a stair with a winder in it, and the head height over that winder is lower than the room at either end. Nobody looks at a bathroom surface until the sealant discolours, at which point nobody looks at anything else in the room. The aperture is polished because you look straight down into it.
The rear wall is usually a single brick thick and has been rendered, patched and re-rendered, so it bows in and out along the length of the run. The bathroom in one of these is usually a later addition over the back kitchen, so the walls are thinner, the floor moves and a vanity has to sit level in a room that is not. Where the floor is solid, the unit sits where it is put.
The fabric of the place is Victorian terrace, Edwardian terrace and new hospital-site housing. Two of those can sit on the same street and quote a long way apart.
Figures cover the statistical area (MSOA) St Ann's shares with its neighbours| Figure | St Ann's | Against London | What it means for the job |
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| homes built before 1919 | 54% | pre-1919 share higher than 82% of the 723 areas we cover | |
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| homes built 1919 to 1939 | 3% | inter-war share lower than 87% of the 723 areas we cover | The plans vary house by house. |
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| homes built since 2010 | 2% | post-2010 share lower than 89% of the 723 areas we cover | |
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Sources: VOA Council Tax Stock of Properties 2025 and ONS Census 2021 for MSOA E02000422. Open Government Licence v3.0.
