This kitchen in Uckfield, East Sussex, was installed by our friends at Kitchen Design Hub, who also shared the costs of this case study.  A slightly unusual room in having no outside walls in the kitchen area, daylight comes from skylights.

The kitchen is on a simple single worktop and island plan – quite a common approach at present. Masses of storage plus roasting and baking facilities all come in a wall of towers. The sink is in the worktop; the hob is on the island.

At almost 3 metres by 1.4 metres the island is nearly an entire slab of quartz at 30mm thick. The overhang for the breakfast is at one end and down one side – far from the hob area. It is always best to keep hob cut-outs and breakfast bars fairly well apart due to the stresses in the stone from overhangs.

The large Neff hob featuring Schott Ceran black ceramic glass top. The hob is served by a ceiling-mounted extractor fan as can be seen in the whole room images. The extractor is pretty high above – to be effective it will need to shift a lot of air.

The Franke Ariane ARX160 sink is one of the most popular undermounted sinks on the market. We have installed hundreds of them under quartz worktops.

The tap is a Quooker – the market-leading boiling water tap. There are many different Quookers available, with filtered, chilled and even carbonated water options as well as truly boiling. The trademark knurled knob with its safety lock feels positive and solid and speaks of quality.

Socket at the end of the island, featuring USB ports for charging.

A low (50mm) upstand backs the worktop, with tiling above. This avoids grout lines at the wiping level, and the height of the upstand can be chosen to allow exactly for a specific number of whole tiles running up to the wall units.

Classic Quartz Fiji is a favourite stone of ours, and we are very pleased to hold it in stock in our Premium Plus Extra price band. We are not selling as much CQ material as we used to, but Fiji quartz worktops buck the trend. Slightly grey, slightly beige, Fiji is well-patterned in just the kind of way that makes it incredibly user-friendly in a real kitchen. There is also that hint of sparkle – just enough to lift it; not enough to make it blingy. We have seen Classic Quartz Fiji teamed with kitchen units in a whole range of colours – it goes well with almost anything. Superb stone for really practical quartz worktops!