Kitchens for people who moved here to stay
Rustington has long been a village people move to on purpose, often later in life, and its numbers show it. In 2011 more than a third of residents were 65 or over and almost three in ten of those aged 16 to 74 were retired. In the 2021 census area covering East Preston and Rustington East, more than half the residents were 65 or over and nearly two-thirds of homes were owned outright. A kitchen in Rustington is very often being planned for the next twenty years by people who know exactly how they cook.
That changes the plan more than the style. Drawers instead of base cupboards, so nothing lives at the back on the floor. An oven at waist or eye height rather than under the hob. Wall units set a little lower, or replaced with open shelving where reach is difficult. A hob with the controls at the front. Good task lighting under every wall cupboard. A sink with a lever tap. None of it looks clinical, and all of it is easier to build in than to retrofit.
The bungalow kitchen, opened up
The 1950s and 60s bungalows that make up so much of Rustington usually have a small kitchen beside a dining room, with the garden behind both. The common brief is to take out the wall between them. In a bungalow the wall may be carrying the ceiling joists or a strut from the roof, so an engineer designs the beam and the propping before it is cut, and the opening goes through Building Control. Afterwards, the kitchen faces the garden and the house has one room you actually live in.
Flats: a quarter of the homes on the seaward side
Purpose-built flats make up about a quarter of homes in the East Preston and Rustington East area. A kitchen refit in a flat is governed by its lease: moving the sink or a washing machine usually needs the managing agent's consent because the drainage joins a shared stack, and many leases require acoustic underlay beneath a hard floor. We read the relevant clauses with you and give the managing agent a short method statement before work starts.
Hard water, and what it does to a new kitchen
Rustington is supplied by Southern Water, and its water is hard; water-softener firms quote around 279 parts per million for the village, and Southern Water's own postcode checker will give you the official figure for your street. In a kitchen that means scale in kettles, boiling-water taps and dishwashers. We fit taps with replaceable ceramic cartridges, boiling-water taps with filters you can change from inside the cupboard, isolation valves you can reach, and, if you want a softener, a separate unsoftened drinking tap, planned before the worktop is templated.
A kitchen in an extension
Where the kitchen is moving into a new extension at the back, the drainage is settled first. Station Road, the seafront ends of Sea Lane and Broadmark Lane, and Overstrand Avenue have all had surface water or sewer problems, and the neighbourhood plan's Policy 4 supports soakaways, permeable surfaces and rainwater harvesting. A kitchen extension is planned with its waste and its rainwater agreed before the walls go up. That side of the job is on house extensions in Rustington.
Deliveries and the Sea Estate
Rustington has no controlled parking zone, so our van needs no permit. A skip on the public road needs a county council licence. On the Sea Estate, whose residents' association runs its roads, skips are expected to stay on the drive and work to happen on weekdays; we plan the delivery and the strip-out accordingly.
What it costs
The bands on our price guide include VAT. A like-for-like refit runs from £6,000 to £22,800. A full refit with new services and flooring is £13,200 to £36,000. A refit with a knock-through, which most bungalow kitchens are, is £22,800 to £50,400. We supply kitchens or fit one you have bought, with the labour priced the same, and Rustington is quoted on the same rates as Bognor Regis.
The trade is under kitchen fitting; next door is kitchens in Littlehampton. The structural side of opening up is removing a wall and installing a beam, and the village is on builders in Rustington.
Send us the plan from the kitchen supplier, or a photograph of the room and the wall you want gone, and every part of the job comes back priced on its own line. Ring 07470 078236. Two-year workmanship guarantee and £2m public liability.