Bathroom worktops and vanity tops in Sundridge Park

Yes. Sundridge Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are BR1. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bromley. Some drives are wide enough for the van and too short for the tail lift, because the tail lift needs its own clear metre behind the vehicle. A vanity fit is a short visit with one or two pieces in it, so the van stands only for as long as it takes to walk them in. The shelves come in with the top so nobody returns for them. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

Plaster in the older half is a sand and cement backing on brick while the newer half is board on dabs, so the same fixing bites in one wall and breaks through the other. Half-tiled walls are the norm, and the tile line is what the splash return has to meet, which is a decision taken before machining rather than discovered afterwards. Stud partitions want noggins before a wall-hung unit goes up. Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. Bathrooms carry the same problems in a smaller room, and a smaller room leaves a vanity nowhere to absorb them. Half-tiled walls leave a line the top has to meet.

Grass and gravel will not take a loaded trolley, so a boarded track gets laid from the gate to the door before the first piece moves. A vanity is the one piece of stone that route will not usually defeat, because a top cut to a standard unit depth weighs what one person can manage. The turn at the head of the stairs decides a double vanity. Where the drive falls away from the house the trolley wants to run, and where it climbs the same load has to be pushed the whole way up. Where the van cannot wait, the top, the shelves and the adhesive all come in on the first trip and the van goes. A vanity delivery is minutes at the kerb, not hours.

Not particularly. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop templating, worktop installation and worktop replacement. That is about what people have here rather than how it gets done. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. Work of that kind brings en-suites with it, and an en-suite vanity is a smaller piece again carrying exactly the same four operations. The bathroom is decided late and the offcut has usually gone. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Where several bathrooms are done in one building the tops come off one slab run, because two greys from two batches sit badly on adjoining floors. Batched vanity tops are templated in one visit.

Where the return runs into a wall that is out of square, the corner is templated as the angle it really is rather than as ninety degrees. A bathroom ordered with the kitchen is taken from the same slab run, so the two rooms match rather than nearly match. The thickness follows the kitchen unless you ask otherwise. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. A vanity has no depth to lose, so where a kitchen run would take a ten millimetre scribe without noticing, a shallow top cannot spare it. A cloakroom under a stair slope limits the tap before the top. Settle the tiling height and the basin model first, and let us know whether the unit is standing on the floor or hanging off the wall. The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. Who is paying decides the material here more than anywhere else, because a vanity is small enough that an expensive stone stops being an expensive decision. A vanity is small enough to be the one indulgence in a bathroom.

Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. The drains run down the side alley to a gully and an inspection cover near the back door, and the sink waste has always gone out on that side of the house. The original bathroom here is the small room over the hall, and a vanity in it is short, shallow and hard against two walls, so both ends are scribed. A bathroom over a kitchen has its waste run already decided.

Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. A floor that falls across the depth of a run rather than along it tips the carcasses front to back, and packing the front feet changes the overhang while it fixes the level. A wall-hung unit puts the whole weight into the wall rather than onto the floor, so what the wall is built of stops being a detail. What is behind the plaster decides how a vanity is fixed.

Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. A join forced by the route still sits over a gable, so it is no poorer a join for that. The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. A step up to a patio or a raised threshold at the back door means the piece is lifted rather than rolled, and that is where the crew size gets decided. The exception is a double vanity, which is a kitchen length in bathroom width and behaves like a worktop from the tail lift onwards. Offcut-sized pieces are the easiest stone in the trade to move.

An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. A good number have a garage attached to the flank wall with a door through from the kitchen, which is both a way in and a stretch of wall the run cannot use. Half-tiled walls are the pattern in these houses, and the tile line is what a splash return has to meet, which is settled before the top is drawn rather than after. High ceilings do nothing for a vanity, but the reveals do.