Countertop Templating

What a Template Actually Is

A template is a digital survey of your room. We set a laser unit or a measuring arm on the floor, shoot a series of reference points around every cabinet run, and build a file that describes the perimeter of the finished tops to a tolerance the saw can hold.

It is not a tape measure exercise, and calling it measuring undersells what it captures. A tape gives you a length. A template gives you the length, the angle between two walls that are not at ninety degrees, the shape of the bow in a wall that looks straight, and the exact relationship between the cabinet face and the appliance opening.

Riverside housing makes this worth doing properly. Slab on grade tract homes in Orangecrest and Mission Grove are usually close to square, but the older places in the Wood Streets and off Victoria Avenue have moved over decades. We have templated kitchens in that part of town where the two ends of a twelve foot run differed by more than half an inch. On a tape measure that reads as one number. On a template it reads as a wall you have to scribe to.

The Conditions We Ask For

A good template needs the room finished to a specific point, and this is the part that saves people money.

Base cabinets need to be installed, fastened to the wall and levelled. If a cabinet is loose or shimmed only under one corner, it will settle after we leave and the top will rock. We check level across every run before we shoot anything and we would rather spend twenty minutes shimming with you than fit a top to a moving target.

The sink has to be physically on site. An undermount cutout is made to the actual basin, not to a catalogue drawing, because the corner radius on two sinks with identical nominal dimensions can differ by enough to leave a visible reveal on one side and none on the other. In the box on the kitchen floor is perfectly fine.

Any drop in or slide in appliance needs to be on site or documented. A slide in range in particular has a specific cut width and a specific relationship to the front edge of the tops, and getting it wrong shows as a permanent gap you cannot trim out.

Walls need to be at their final surface. If drywall is going to be refloated or a tile backer added behind the run, that has to happen before the template, not after.

The Decisions We Make Together

Standing in the room, while the equipment is set up, is the right time to settle a set of things that are otherwise decided by default.

Seam placement comes first. A slab has a physical size, so on most kitchens there will be at least one seam. Within the limits of what the stone allows, there is nearly always a choice about where it lands, and pushing it behind a faucet, into a corner, or out of the sightline from the doorway costs nothing at this stage. On a veined quartzite or a marble we will also look at how the pattern runs so the seam does not cut a strong vein at an obvious angle.

Then edge profile. Eased, bevelled, bullnose, mitred to a thicker apparent edge. This changes the look more than most people expect and it is easier to decide with a sample in your hand at the counter than from a page.

Then overhangs. Anything past about ten inches of unsupported stone needs support underneath, whether that is a steel bracket set into the cabinet or a corbel. Deciding on a bracket at template means it is installed before the top arrives. Deciding after means lifting a set top back off.

Finally faucet and accessory holes, soap dispensers, air switches for a disposal, and whether you want a hole drilled now for something you plan to add later. Drilling on the bench is trivial. Drilling in place, over a finished cabinet, is not.

What We Leave With

At the end of a template you know where the seams are, what the edge is, what the overhang is, and what the lead time is. We know everything the saw needs. Nothing is left to be sorted out on install day, which is the point.

Call (951) 741-0206 to book a template, or to talk through whether the room is ready for one yet.