Projects: a Stainless Pantry Built to One Drawing on Three Floors

01About the photographs on this page

Start with the honest part. The three photographs below are of our own showroom stand, not of the office in the case. We hold installation photographs of that job as well, and we are not publishing them here.

The reason is the camera position. Those frames were taken from three or four metres back, square on to the elevation, because what they were taken to record was a wall of fronts matching across three floors. At that distance the worktop reads as a thin bright line under the appliances — you can tell it is there, you cannot see the surface. On a page about stainless countertops, a photograph where the countertop is a line is worse than no photograph: it invites the reader to assume something the image does not actually show.

So the case is written, the deck photography is ours and labelled, and if you want the installation record for a job like yours, ask for it and we will send the set with the floor count and the date rather than dropping it into a gallery.

A stainless island deck from above: a slotted drain channel running into a sink with vegetables in it, a round prep bowl, stemware hanging from a rail, an induction hob at the right and a timber section at the top. — Our own stand, not the site below: a drain channel running into a sink, a round prep bowl and a hob set out along one stainless deck. Four functions on one sheet, and every one of them an opening that had to be placed on the drawing.

Close view along a brushed stainless front edge, with a flat channel cut into the deck behind it, the corner of a deep bowl at the right and a cabinet door below. — Also from the stand: the front edge of a deck, folded out of the same sheet with a channel set behind it. On a job built fourteen times, this is the line that has to come out identical fourteen times.

Two white plates standing in a recess cut into a stainless deck, a slotted channel to the left, and a sink holding tomatoes at the top right with a tap above it. — A recess cut into a deck with a folded edge all the way round, on the stand. Repeat work shows here first: one recess cut a millimetre deeper than the last reads immediately across a wall of units.

What those three frames do show is the part that made the repeat possible: a deck where the sink, the drain channel and the hob were all set out before the sheet was cut, and a folded edge that has to come out the same on every unit.

02Four decisions that made the repeat possible

Building one good pantry is a joinery problem. Building the same pantry fourteen times on three floors is a drawing problem, and these four decisions are what turned one into the other.

Decision, and what it prevented
Decision	Prevented
One drawing per floor, not per room	Each floor room measured separately — which is how three floors drift
Service voids sized on the drawing	The hydrant, the cooler and the filter being discovered on site
Panels cut from one nesting per floor	A visible tone step between units on the same wall
Every unit numbered on the crate	Three identical-looking crates and one puzzle at the lift

None of those is exotic. All four are things that get skipped when a job is priced by the unit rather than by the wall.

03The pantry wall, and what is behind it

A pantry looks like a cupboard run. It is actually three services wearing cupboard fronts: water in, water out, and power.

The sink run — a worktop with an integrated bowl, so the bowl and the top are one surface with no bead to clean around. The waste and the tap tails drop straight into the service void behind the base units.
The cooler bay — a water cooler needs a supply, a drain and a 100 mm clearance for air. All three have to exist before the panel is drawn, not after.
The hydrant door — a fire service cabinet has to stay accessible, so the front is a matched panel on hinges with the lettering set flush into it. It reads as a wall.
The fridge bay — a built-in appliance needs its own carcass, its own ventilation and a door that opens past 90°. Built into a run, it is a bay, not a gap.

Where a top in a building like this does need plate — a cleaner's sink, a wet tea point, a pass-through — the build we quote is 304 in 6 mm, with the machined edge held to ±0.05 mm, and 316L substituted where cleaning chemicals concentrate. Thickness there is chosen by span rather than by habit, and the tolerance above applies to a machined edge, not to a cut aperture: an aperture is held to ±0.5 mm, and anyone quoting tighter is quoting a number they cannot inspect.

Every one of those is a void that has to be drawn. If the wall is drawn as solid, the void gets cut on site and the panel above it will never fit.

04Inside a unit, which is where it is judged

The inside of a unit is where a pantry is judged, and it is exactly the part a photograph of a closed wall cannot show you. Four things are worth pinning down before the wall is drawn, because none of them can be added afterwards without cutting:

Shelf pitch — shelves on a fixed pitch, set to take the tallest thing the floor actually stores: a catering tin, a water jug, a stack of cups.
Appliance shelves — a microwave and a coffee machine each get a shelf cut to their size, rather than sharing one shelf and fighting for the plug.
No voids behind panels — the back of the hydrant door is finished and reachable, not a hole into the wall.
Services behind doors — the filter and the pipework sit in a bay with a removable front, so a service visit does not need a saw.

All four of those are the same argument as the deck: the thing that goes wrong later is a decision that was left until site. A shelf cut to a microwave is a drawing line; a shelf cut to fit is a Saturday.

05What this case does and does not prove

Being precise matters more than being impressive here.

What it proves. The job exists, it ran to one drawing across three floors, and the wall was built with a hydrant door, a cooler bay, a fridge bay and a shelf pitch that were all on that drawing. Fourteen units to one specification is a real capability, and it is the one a buyer trying to assess a factory is actually trying to assess.

What it does not prove. It is an office pantry, not a domestic kitchen, and it is a cabinet run with worktops rather than a 6 mm solid plate countertop. If what you need is a countertop cut from plate to ±0.05 mm with a welded bowl, the technical pages describe that and the factory page describes how it is checked — but this page is not the evidence for it.

We would rather say that than let a photograph do work it cannot do. If you want to see a countertop like the one you are ordering, say so and we will photograph the next one off the bench for you specifically.

06Where to go from here

If the case above is the shape of what you need — a run of units, a sink, services hidden behind fronts — send a plan and a wall elevation. We quote in 24 hours, broken out by plate, cutting, forming, welding, graining and packing, so you can see which line is carrying the cost.

If you need the countertop rather than the cabinets, start with the stainless steel countertops section, and use the technical data pages to fix thickness, grade and edge before anything is drawn. Either way the lead time is 15 working days from a confirmed drawing, and every piece ships with an inspection sheet recording the measurements it was checked against.

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