Kitchen and Bathroom Fitters in Reigate (RH2)
In a period Reigate house the kitchen has to sit alongside what is already there rather than ignore it. Original cornice, uneven walls and floors that have moved over a century all decide how units are fitted long before anyone chooses a worktop.
Fitting into a house that is not square
Older Reigate properties are rarely true.
Walls bow, floors fall away towards an outside wall, and ceilings are not level with each other from one end of a room to the other. A kitchen fitted as though everything were square shows it immediately — tapering gaps at the end of a run, doors that sit proud, a worktop with a visible fall on it. The work is in the preparation: floors levelled properly, walls packed and scribed to, and units set out from the line that will be most visible rather than from whichever corner happens to be nearest. That takes longer than fitting to a flat wall, and it is the difference between a kitchen that looks made for the room and one that looks dropped into it.
Bathrooms in period Reigate houses
The same applies upstairs, with the added problem that bathrooms in these houses are often in rooms never designed to be wet. Floors need checking and usually strengthening or levelling before anything is tiled, waste runs have to be got out of the building at a workable fall without cutting through something structural, and original features are worth keeping where they can be kept. We look at all of that before pricing rather than after.
In the right order, by one firm
A kitchen or bathroom is several trades in sequence.
Our own team does the building work and we bring in and manage the specialists, so each trade arrives when the job is ready for it and you are dealing with one firm throughout.
More in Reigate
Everything we do in Reigate is on the Reigate area sheet, and the full detail of how we approach this trade is on the bathrooms & kitchens page.
Common questions
Q.01Can you fit a modern kitchen in a period house without it looking wrong?
Yes, and it is mostly about preparation and setting out rather than about the units. Getting the floors and walls right first is what stops a modern kitchen looking dropped into an old room.
Q.02My floors are uneven. Does that need doing first?
Almost always. Fitting to an uneven floor produces tapering gaps and doors that do not line up, and it is far more expensive to correct afterwards than to do at the start.
Q.03Can original features be kept?
Where they can be, we would rather keep them — they are usually the reason people bought the house. We will tell you at survey what has to go for the layout to work and what can stay.
Q.04Do you supply the units?
Either way. Some customers buy their own and have us do everything else; others prefer supply and fit as one job. We price it whichever suits and say plainly what is included.
Q.05Is a bathroom refit the same as a bathroom renovation?
No, and the difference matters on a period Reigate house. A refit replaces the suite and tiling in the room as it is; a renovation changes the layout, which means moving waste and often levelling a floor that has moved over a century. The second is a building job first.
Thinking about bathrooms & kitchens in Reigate?
Tell us what you are planning. We come out, look at the job properly and give you a price for it.