Everybody asks this question early and almost everybody asks it the wrong way round. The part we control is short, fixed and easy to quote. The part that decides when your kitchen is actually usable sits with your units, your appliances and your fitter, and nobody tells you that until it has already cost you a fortnight. This guide sets out the whole sequence honestly, including the bits that are our fault when they slip and the bits that are not.
Key points
- Template to fitted is 3–7 working days from template; everything before template runs at your kitchen's pace
- Nothing can be templated until the units are fitted, fixed and level and the sink, tap and hob are on site
- Late appliances are the most common cause of a late kitchen, not the stone supplier
- Replacing into existing units is usually much faster, unless the carcasses or the tiling need work
- Plan backwards from the date you want to cook, and give your kitchen fitter the template date
The short answer
From the day we template your kitchen to the day the stone is fitted is 3–7 working days from template. That is the only duration we will put a number against, because it is the only stage that runs entirely inside our workshop and our diary. Slab selection, cutting, mitring, polishing, dry-assembly and the fitting visit all sit inside that window.
Everything before the template runs at the pace of your kitchen, not ours, and it is where nearly all of the elapsed time in a real project goes. We cannot template until your units are fitted, fixed and level, and until your sink, tap and hob are physically in the room. So the honest answer to "how long does a worktop take" is: however long it takes you to get to that point, plus our lead time, plus whatever your kitchen throws up on the day.
That is not a hedge. It tells you where to push. Chasing a stone supplier for a faster turnaround saves you days; getting the hob delivered before the kitchen fitter finishes saves you weeks.
The sequence, stage by stage
Step by step
Step 1: Enquiry and indicative range
Send plans, a sketch or photographs with rough measurements and we come back with an indicative range the same day. This is not a quote, it is a sanity check on the budget so nobody wastes a fortnight discovering they are in the wrong band. Nothing is payable at this stage, or at any stage before we template.
Step 2: Samples, colour and a fixed written quote
If your shortlist is quartz, order samples of the two or three and look at them in your own kitchen, in daylight and under your own downlights. Once the material and the design are settled we turn the indicative range into a fixed written quote with every cut-out, edge profile, upstand and join itemised. How long this takes is entirely up to you, and it is the stage people leave until last when it is the one they could have done first.
Step 3: Units fitted, fixed and level
This is the gate. Base units screwed to the wall and to each other, levelled, with any island secured to the floor. Not dry-assembled, not sitting roughly in position. Until this is done nothing downstream can start, and no amount of goodwill from us changes that.
Step 4: Template on site
Two to three hours in a typical kitchen. We digitally template the room as it actually is, agree with you where the joins fall, confirm the edge profile and check the overhangs. Your sink, tap and hob need to be in the room, not just ordered, and a Belfast sink needs to be installed at its final height because the stone is cut around it.
Step 5: Fabrication
Cutting, mitring, cut-outs, edge polishing and dry-assembly in the workshop, with your sink and hob dry-fitted on the bench before anything is dispatched. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is why the socket positions have to be final at template.
Step 6: Fitting
One visit. Floors and units are protected, every piece is carried in by hand, joins are colour-matched and sanded flush, and the sink and hob are seated and sealed. We do not connect water, waste, gas or electrics, so a plumber and an electrician are needed after us.
The dependency that actually sets your finish date
No stone is ever cut from a plan. Walls are not square, floors are not flat and units almost never land exactly where the design said they would, so the cutting drawing comes off a template of the room as built. That is why the units have to be in, fixed and level before anyone measures anything, and it is why a delay to the kitchen fit is a delay to the worktop, one for one.
The same applies to the appliances. A sink and a hob are not accessories to be dropped in later: their cut-outs are machined into the slab, so the actual units have to be on site to be measured and dry-fitted. A model number is not enough, because manufacturers change dimensions between revisions and the box that arrives is occasionally not the box that was ordered. A Belfast sink goes further, since the stone sits down onto it and the sink’s finished height dictates the height of the run around it.
What you control and what we control
This split is worth reading properly, because it tells you exactly which phone call to make when a date is slipping.
| Stage | Who controls the timing | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| Getting an indicative range | You | How quickly you send measurements or plans; we answer the same day |
| Choosing a colour | You | Sample delivery, and how long a household takes to agree on a shade of white |
| Approving the quote | You | Nothing is payable until template, so this is purely a decision, not a payment |
| Units fitted and level | You and your kitchen fitter | Fitter availability, delivery of the units, building work behind them |
| Sink, tap and hob on site | You | Appliance lead times, which are the most common cause of a late template |
| Template appointment | Shared | Our diary and your availability; two to three hours with access to the whole kitchen |
| Fabrication | Us | Inside the 3–7 working days from template; slab reservation is the one variable |
| Fitting day | Us | A morning for a straightforward run, most of a day for an island with splashbacks |
| Plumbing and electrics after fitting | You | We seal the sink and hob but do not connect services; book your trades for after us |
Where timelines genuinely slip
None of the following is exotic. Every one of them is something we see regularly, and every one is easier to prevent than to recover from.
- The hob or sink arrives late. It is the most common single cause, and it stops the template dead rather than delaying it slightly
- The kitchen fitter runs over, or is booked in two visits with a gap in the middle, so the units are in but not yet fixed and levelled
- The chosen slab has to be reserved from a particular batch, or has sold and needs reordering. Natural granite is where this bites hardest, because a reorder is a different slab rather than the same one again
- A wall turns out to need work once the old worktop comes off, on a replacement job. Plaster, a rotten section behind a sink, tiling that stops at the old worktop line
- Access has to be booked. A goods lift, a loading bay, a parking suspension or a permit, all of which run on the building manager’s calendar and not yours
- Socket or switch positions change after template, which is a problem for splashbacks specifically because they are already cut
- The template shows something the plan did not, and a change has to be priced and approved before anything is cut
The last one is worth dwelling on, because it is the difference between a company that has a process and one that does not. If the template reveals a discrepancy, the right behaviour is to price it, tell you, and wait for a yes. That costs a day or two. Cutting first and having the conversation afterwards costs a slab.
Why a straight replacement is usually faster
Replacing a worktop into existing units skips most of the slow part. The units are already in, already fixed and, in the great majority of cases, already level, so the gate that governs a new kitchen is behind you before you ring. Very often we can template within days of the quote being agreed. On the day, the old tops come out in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day, with a plumber disconnecting the tap and waste before we arrive and reconnecting at the end. You lose the use of the sink for a day rather than the use of the kitchen for a month.
It is not always faster, and it is worth knowing why before you assume it. Existing carcasses have to be sound, because stone is far heavier than laminate, and a run that needs strengthening adds a stage. Tiling laid down to the old worktop leaves a band of bare wall if the new profile is a different thickness, which usually means upstands or a splashback joining the order. Old units are sometimes not as level as they look, and a run that has settled needs packing first.
What "one visit" means at each end
One template visit and one fitting visit is the standard, and it is deliberate: every extra visit is a day you have to be in and a day the kitchen is not finished. A template takes two to three hours in a typical kitchen. A fitting visit is a morning for a straightforward run, or most of the day where there is an island, splashbacks or a lot of edge work.
What causes a second visit
- The units were not finished or not level when we arrived to template, so nothing could be measured
- The sink, tap or hob was not on site, so the cut-outs could not be confirmed
- A change made after the template that alters the cutting drawing
- Access on fitting day turns out to be different from what was described, and a piece cannot physically get in
- Splashbacks ordered separately, later, from a different batch, which is also why the match is not reliable where the pieces meet
Three of those five are avoidable by you, for free, in the week before we come. That is the whole argument for reading this page.
Planning backwards from a date you care about
Most people are not really asking how long it takes. They are asking whether the kitchen will be usable by a particular weekend. Work backwards rather than forwards, and be honest about the gaps.
- Start from the date you want to be cooking, then take off the days your plumber and electrician need after us, because we seal the sink and hob but do not connect anything
- Take off our lead time, 3–7 working days from template, and count working days rather than calendar days
- That gives you the date the template has to happen. Put it in the diary as a hard date, not an aspiration
- Work back from there to the date your units must be finished, fixed and level, and give your kitchen fitter that date rather than the fitting date
- Check the appliance lead times against that same date. If the hob is on a long order, that is your real critical path and everything else has slack in it
- If access needs booking, a lift, a loading bay or a permit, start that now: those calendars are the least flexible thing in the whole project
If the arithmetic does not work, tell us early. There is usually something that can be done at the design end, such as choosing a material that is in stock rather than one that has to be reserved, or simplifying an edge detail. There is very little that can be done at the fabrication end, because that stage is short already.
What to have ready before you ring
The first conversation is more useful if you arrive with these. Our guide to measuring your kitchen covers the tape-measure part properly, and ten minutes with it is the difference between a real indicative range and a shrug.
- A rough plan of the room from above with the runs labelled, or the kitchen designer’s drawing if you have one
- Run lengths and depths in millimetres, and the island as a separate item
- The list of cut-outs, and the make and model of the sink, tap and hob
- Whether you want upstands, a full-height splashback or tiles, and where the sockets fall
- Your postcode and the access: parking, stairs, lifts, and anything that has to be booked
- The date your units are due to be finished, and the appliance delivery dates
- A realistic sense of your budget band, so we can point you at the right shelf rather than the whole colour library
That last item deserves a note. Material runs from about £110/m² to around £550/m², supply only, and the bands overlap heavily across quartz, granite and sintered stone. Those are slab-only figures with no fabrication or fitting in them, so use them to place yourself in a band and nothing else. Knowing your band early stops you falling for a colour you were never going to buy, which is itself a fortnight some people lose.