Stone bar tops in Thamesmead

Yes. Thamesmead is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE28, SE2. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Greenwich. Where the drive is shared, the half-hour the van spends in the way is agreed with the neighbour in advance rather than apologised for at the time. 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. Nothing is rushed off a tail lift onto an unsupported nose. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Door openings and the hall were set to a generous standard, so a long piece turns in from the front without being stood on end to do it. Rooms in this stock are compact, so a bar usually replaces a table rather than sitting alongside one, and it is drawn for two or three stools with enough floor left to get past them. A bar built as furniture is templated as furniture. Where a peninsula returns into a stud wall the load has to sit on the units, with the wall doing no more than steadying it. 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. The bar is packed level off the frame, not off the floor.

The lift has to be booked and blanketed before anything moves, and that booking needs to cover the old tops coming out as well as the new stone going in. 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 nose is the corner that gets caught, so it travels padded. A step up from the drive to the threshold turns the last two metres into a lift, and a lift is where two pairs of hands become the minimum. 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. Two trips to the van, one for hardware and one for stone.

Not to any real extent, and it would be easy to imply it was. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop splashbacks & upstands. It describes the kitchens on this patch, not the work that goes into them. Same quoting, same cutting, same fitting as anywhere else on the patch. A managed portfolio tends to repeat one specification across every flat, which keeps later repairs and replacements simple to order. 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. A bar goes in last, so it is measured last. Damage in a let flat is settled as a deposit deduction, so a surface that can be repaired in place is worth more than one that has to be replaced whole. 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. What gets leaned on gets specified for leaning.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. A bar laid over that is a second level rather than a wider one, so it wants a spine underneath it and a settled detail where the two heights meet. Nothing sits over a join that somebody leans on. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

A lightweight stud partition will not carry a breakfast bar or a peninsula end, and stone finds that out faster than laminate ever did. 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. A notch in a bar top is drawn with its support beside it. Send a photograph of every corner of the room so we can see the boxings, the length you want, and how many stools you expect to use. Access is arranged through a managing agent or a scheme office rather than with the household directly, so a date gets confirmed once in writing and moving it costs a fortnight. A home bar is discretionary work, so the edge profile, the corbel detail and the radius on the nose are worth settling properly rather than defaulting to whatever is quickest. The support is specified for the next occupant as well.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. Floors are a sand and cement screed over concrete, laid fast and worn since, so they are hard, solid and seldom flat. None of that stops a bar being fitted level, but it does mean the top is set to a datum of its own and packed off the frame rather than followed down to the floor. Corbels are a decision about how the piece looks from a seat.

Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. Where the van cannot turn on the plot it has to arrive already facing the right way, so the approach along the street is part of the plan. A trade bar is fitted around opening times, so the window the van has and the window the room has are rarely the same window. Trestles outside beat balancing a top on a half-built frame.

Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. An ex-council house is solidly built to a standard plan, with the kitchen at the rear and a back door next to it. Space is tight, so a bar here tends to replace a table rather than sit alongside one, and the piece is drawn for two or three stools rather than a row of them. What the room will take decides the stool count.

Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. 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. Rear access through a garden or a shared path means long pieces can usually come in whole from the back. Dense blockwork holds a fixing properly, which is the one thing that makes a wall-supported nose realistic in this stock. Wide doors make piece length a choice rather than a limit.