Kitchen and Bathroom Fitters in Westerham (TN16)
In a Westerham cottage the room dictates the kitchen, not the brochure. Beams where wall units want to go, ceilings too low for tall cabinets, and floors that have not been level for a very long time.
Designing round what is actually there
The older properties in the centre want a kitchen planned around their constraints rather than a standard range dropped in.
Beams interrupt runs of wall units, low ceilings rule out tall cabinets in places, and extraction has to find a route that does not involve cutting through something structural or historic. What usually works is standard units where they fit with made pieces where they do not, set out so the whole thing reads as one kitchen. It needs measuring and drawing properly before anything is ordered — a delivery of units that will not go in the room is an expensive lesson, and on a period property it is a very easy one to arrange.
Floors, walls and services
Nothing in these buildings is square, so units get scribed to the walls they actually meet and the floors are levelled or packed before setting out. Services in old cottages have generally been added to over generations and routed wherever was easiest at the time, so we open up, look and tell you what we find before units are ordered. Bathrooms raise the same questions with the fall on the waste on top, which in a period building often decides where a bathroom can go at all. On the newer family houses at the edges it is more conventional work.
Trades in the right order
A kitchen is several trades in sequence.
Our own team does the building work and we bring in and manage the specialists, so each turns up when the job is genuinely ready.
More in Westerham
Everything we do in Westerham is on the Westerham area sheet, and the full detail of how we approach this trade is on the bathrooms & kitchens page.
Common questions
Q.01Can a modern kitchen work in an old Westerham cottage?
Yes, usually as a mix of standard units and made pieces to work round beams and low ceilings. Drawn properly first, it looks made for the room.
Q.02Where does the extraction go?
One of the first things to settle in a period building, because the obvious route often goes through something structural or historic. It is worked out at survey.
Q.03My floors slope badly. Can that be sorted?
Yes, and it is done before anything is fitted. Fitting to a sloping floor gives tapering gaps and doors that will not line up.
Q.04Do you do bathrooms too?
Yes. In a period cottage the fall on the waste usually decides where a bathroom can go, so that is worked out before anything else.
Q.05Can a shower room go into a period cottage?
Usually, though the fall on the waste decides where far more than the room size does. In an old Westerham building getting waste out at a workable fall without going through the frame or something historic is worked out before anything else.
Thinking about bathrooms & kitchens in Westerham?
Tell us what you are planning. We come out, look at the job properly and give you a price for it.