How Countertop Templating Works in Austin Homes

On a house sitting on the shrink-swell clay east of the Balcones Fault, a cabinet run that was level in spring can be out by the time the stone is ready, so a template is only as good as the checks made before it. The running record custom countertops austin tx theo lawrence books holds for Austin, TX shows the same order every time: cabinets first, template second, stone last, whether the job is custom countertops for a new build or a replacement in an older house.

Checking the cabinets before anything is traced

A template records what is there, so the base cabinets have to be fixed before the shop copies them. Older Austin homes near Hyde Park and Tarrytown often have walls that lean a little, so the back edge of a countertop will never meet the plaster in a straight line, and the template has to follow the wall as it is.

Strips, tape and the digital template

There are two ways to capture the shape. The older way uses thin wood strips hot-glued into a pattern, one strip along each edge, with cross pieces to hold the angle at every corner. The newer way is a digital template, where a laser device reads points along the wall and cabinet faces and builds a drawing on a screen. A digital template is quick to correct on site, while a wood template can be held up against the wall again back at the shop.

Marking the sink cutout and cooktop

The template is where the sink cutout and the cooktop opening get fixed. An undermount sink is positioned from the sink itself or from its paper pattern, with the reveal at the rim decided on site. A drop-in sink and a slide-in range each need their own dimensions off the spec sheet, never from memory. When the faucet is not yet bought, the hole spacing is still unknown, and the installer holds the template open until the fixture is in the house.

Seams and edges decided at the same visit

The person templating also decides where seam placement will go, because the length of the room and the size of the slab limit the choices. The edge profile is marked at the same visit. An eased edge, a bullnose or a waterfall edge on an island changes the amount of stone ordered and the angle of the cut at each end of the top.

What goes back to the shop

The finished template goes back to the fabrication shop with notes on stairs, doorways and the path to the kitchen. Granite, quartz, quartzite and marble all start from the same drawing, but a veined piece is laid out on the slab differently from a plain one. The shop then lays the template over the actual slab, and any difference between the drawing and the room shows up before a single cut is made.