Worktop fabrication in The Wrythe

Yes. The Wrythe is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SM5. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Sutton. Where parking runs down both sides the road is left as a single lane, and a van standing in it has to be somewhere it does not stop a bin lorry. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. That is the last thing settled before dispatch. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A small room puts the sink, hob and tap cut-outs close together on one short length, and the bridge of stone left between them decides whether it can be cut in one piece. The galley run down a side-return usually measures longer than a slab will give us, so a join is designed in from the start and nested to land over a cabinet gable rather than wherever the material happens to run out. The fall across the floor is in the cut list. Boxing built in plasterboard on a light frame will take no useful fixing, so nothing bears on it and the stone is carried off the carcasses either side. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. A plan-angle mitre closes on paper only.

A pendant light hanging in the middle of a hall ceiling sets the angle a piece can be tilted to, and it is the measurement nobody thinks to take. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. A piece is cut to the turn it has to clear. With no scheme to work with there is nothing to book and nobody to ring, so the only levers left are an early arrival and a word with the neighbours. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. Loaded for the carry, not for the van.

It is on the short list of three for this patch, with worktop replacement first. Same template, same workshop, same fitters whichever it is. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. The annexe top comes off the main kitchen slab. 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. Pieces are dry-assembled and checked on the bench before anything is loaded. Small kitchens are more bench work per square metre.

A breakfast bar on the outer side is an overhang like any other, and the support under it is sized for people leaning on the end rather than for the weight of the stone alone. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. Edge work on a return matches edge work on a length. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

A stack boxed diagonally across a corner leaves a triangle of dead space, and the top is cut to that triangle rather than to a square return. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. The measured wall angle travels to the saw. The sink and hob need to be on site and the run layout fixed before we start cutting, because moving a hob after the join position is set means recutting the whole piece. Some doors in a building need a consent letter and some need nothing at all, so the first question is which arrangement applies here rather than which one is usual. Changing an appliance after the nest is set means recutting the piece, not adjusting it. Changes cost a piece, not a tweak.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. The kitchen normally sits in the back addition or a later side return, which puts the run against the oldest and least straight wall in the building. All of that is settled at the nesting stage, because a machined piece cannot be adjusted afterwards. The slab is laid out around the awkward piece.

A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. Every piece is dry-assembled on the bench before it is loaded, so a fabrication mistake is found in the workshop rather than in your kitchen. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. A hall that widens further in is still only as good as its tightest point, and that point is usually within a metre of the front door. Getting that wrong leaves a finished, machined piece that cannot reach the room, which is a remake rather than a trim. The saw never sees a length the hall will not take.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. The carcasses stay. Only the surface changes. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. Pieces are loaded in reverse fitting order so the first thing off the van is the first thing that goes down. The strapping answers to the walk, not the drive.

An upstand covers the gap where the worktop meets a wall that is not flat, which is its real job. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. There is no back addition on these, so the kitchen is the original rear room and the run is one wall long with a door at each end of it. The other constraint is the hall: a piece has to come through the front door, round the newel at the foot of the stairs and through a doorway into the back kitchen, so we size the pieces to the tightest turn on that route before we nest anything, which sometimes means splitting a run that would otherwise have gone in whole. What the wall does is on the drawing before the saw runs.