Waterloo worktops
The kitchens we meet in Waterloo
Two kitchens a street apart in Waterloo can turn stone worktop supply and fitting into two quite different pieces of work, which is why nothing is priced from the doorstep. The small surviving cottage terraces have kitchens under 7 square metres where a single run and a slim return is all that fits, and many are listed or in a conservation area so layouts barely change. Warehouse and office conversions above have open-plan kitchens set against a structural wall with a peninsula facing the living space. Whichever of those your kitchen turns out to be, the job in Waterloo runs the same way: survey, template, fit.
The back addition is frequently a single skin of brick rendered on both faces, which takes a fixing badly and moves with the weather. Thickness is a quieter decision than colour and shows more, because twenty millimetres reads lean and thirty reads substantial, and one costs more than the other in the same stone. Pick the surface for the cooking rather than for the photograph.
Floors are suspended timber over a shallow void and have moved, so the units are packed and levelled before anything is set on them. A matt or honed face suits a period room better than a mirror polish, and it is also the finish that hides the fine dust an old house produces all year round. Hard-working kitchens suit surfaces that ask for nothing.
What we find behind the front doors here is Early Victorian artisan cottage, Postwar council block, Co-operative housing and Converted warehouse and office. They are not interchangeable, and a worktop finds the differences quickly.
