What happens on countertop template day, and what to settle before it

What template day is, and what it freezes

Template day is a survey, not a delivery. A fabricator arrives, measures the cabinets that are actually installed in your kitchen, asks a short list of questions, and leaves with the drawing your countertop will be cut from. One industry source puts the appointment itself at 30 to 90 minutes.

Template freezes the cabinets. The cut freezes the stone. Between those two moments there is a drawing, and that drawing is the last thing anybody can change.

The fabricator will ask questions on the day, and every question has a default answer that gets used if nobody is there to give a different one. Be there, or send somebody who can decide on your behalf rather than somebody who can pass a message on.

What has to be true before the fabricator arrives

A template is a measurement of what exists, not of what was drawn. Six things have to be true in the room before that measurement is worth taking.

• Every cabinet in the run is installed, level, and fixed to the wall. A template taken off a cabinet that moves later is a template of a kitchen that no longer exists.
• The sink is on site, or the fabricator has its published spec sheet. An undermount sink is cut to the actual bowl, not to a catalogue number.
• The cooktop is on site or its published cutout drawing is, including the two distances its manufacturer publishes to the wall behind and to the front edge of the counter.
• The faucet is decided, with its hole count and spread, because the holes are cut before the top is delivered.
• Anything that hangs below the top is known: a disposal, an undermount basin, a filter tap.
• The appliances that sit against the top are on site or dimensioned from their own sheets.

Typical range, verify with your professional. Cabinets that are not ready on template day have a published cost in time. One fabricator lists 1 to 3 weeks of delay where the cabinets are not ready for templating, and 1 to 4 weeks where the chosen slab is out of stock or backordered. Those are ranges one named supplier publishes about its own scheduling, not market averages, and your own fabricator will have its own.

Seams: where they go, and who decides

A seam is not a defect. A seam in the wrong place is. Where a seam can go is decided by the size of the slab, the size of the run and how the piece physically gets into your house, and all three are for the fabricator to explain rather than for you to specify.

For every seam on the drawing there are three questions worth asking in writing: why is it there, meaning the slab, the run or the way the piece comes into the house; how wide will the joint be and what color will it be filled with; and will the pattern be matched across it.

On a stone with strong veining, where the slab is cut decides what your kitchen looks like. Ask to see the layout marked on the actual slab, in person or in a photograph with the cutouts drawn on it. It is normal to ask and it is normal to be shown.

The overhang, and the figure nobody publishes

An overhang is the part of the top with nothing under it. How far it projects is a decision on the drawing. What holds it up is a question for the people fabricating and installing it, and it depends on the material.

Published planning guideline. Published planning guidelines do not publish an overhang depth. What they publish is the knee space a seated person needs, which is usually what the overhang is for: 24 in (610 mm) wide by 18 in (457 mm) deep for each seated diner at a 30 in (762 mm) high table, 24 in (610 mm) by 15 in (381 mm) at a 36 in (914 mm) counter, and 24 in (610 mm) by 12 in (305 mm) at a 42 in (1067 mm) bar. The same guidelines ask for 32 in (813 mm) behind a seat where nobody walks past. They are recommendations, not code.

There is no published figure here for what an overhang needs under it, and that absence is deliberate. How far a top can cantilever without support depends on the material, its thickness, how it is fixed and what is under it, and every fabricator answers it for their own material. Ask yours, in writing, before approving a drawing that has a seated overhang on it, and ask what support they are proposing.

Four questions cover the overhang completely. How deep is it on the drawing, in inches. What is holding it up: brackets, a corbel, a steel plate, or nothing. If the answer is nothing, who has said in writing that nothing is enough for this material at this depth. And does the knee space left under it match the guideline figure for the counter height you are building.

Thickness, edge and finish

A top has a thickness the slab comes in and a thickness it looks like, and they are not the same number. The difference between them is a construction detail with a price attached.

• The thickness of the slab itself is what the material is sold in. One manufacturer publishes 3/4 in (19 mm) for one of its own stone vanity tops. Kitchen slabs are usually thicker, and the slab thickness is the starting point rather than the look.
• A thicker look is made by laminating or mitering a strip under the front edge. It is a joint you see from the side, it is labor, and it is normally priced by the linear foot.
• The edge profile is square, eased, beveled, bullnose or any of the others on the fabricator list. Ask to see a sample of the actual profile in the actual material, not a photograph of it.
• The finish, polished, honed or leathered, changes how the surface marks, how it is cleaned, and on some materials how the color reads.

Take the sample home before approving the drawing. Put it on the cabinets, and look at it in the morning and at night. Stone and quartz look different under a showroom light than under yours, and the drawing is approved once.

The sink, the cutouts and the holes

Every hole in a countertop is cut by the fabricator, from the drawing you approve. After that the top is a piece of stone with holes in it, and there is no repair for a hole cut where you did not want one.

How the sink mounts is the first decision: undermount, drop in, or a farmhouse front. Undermount means the top is cut to the actual bowl, which is why the sink has to be on site or the fabricator has its published sheet, and it makes the reveal a decision as well. Ask which reveal is on the drawing and ask to see a photograph of that reveal in the same material.

Manufacturer document. Faucet holes are published by the faucet, and the published patterns are not interchangeable. One manufacturer drills three holes at 8 in (203 mm) centers, each 1-3/8 in (35 mm) across, for one of its own widespread tops, and three holes at 4 in (102 mm) centers, each 1-1/4 in (32 mm) across, for one of its own centerset faucets. A faucet chosen after the top is drilled has to match the holes that are already there.

Then count the other holes, because each one only exists if it is on the drawing: soap dispenser, filtered tap, air switch for the disposal, instant hot. And read the cooktop cutout against the published sheet for the cooktop, including the two distances that manufacturer publishes from the cut to the wall behind and from the cut to the front edge of the counter.

Where the top stops: backsplash, returns and the vanity top

The last decisions on a countertop drawing are the ones about where the stone ends, and they are the ones most often left to the day.

• Is there a stone backsplash, how high does it go, and where does it stop at the ends of a run.
• Is there a full height slab behind the cooking surface, and is it from the same slab as the tops.
• Are there outlets in that area, and has anybody agreed where they land relative to the stone. That is a question for the electrician, and it belongs to the days before the walls close.
• Is there a waterfall end, and is the veining being matched around the corner.

A vanity top is the same decision, smaller. Every question on this page applies to it: the seam, the edge, the holes and the splash. There is simply less of it, which is why it tends to be decided in five minutes.

Manufacturer document. One manufacturer publishes a 37 in (940 mm) by 21-1/2 in (546 mm) vanity top over a cabinet 33-3/8 in (848 mm) wide and 17-5/8 in (448 mm) deep, finishing at 35-13/16 in (910 mm) above the floor. That top overhangs its cabinet on three sides, and that is normal. Those figures are for those named products, and your floor build-up moves the finished height.

What you are signing, and how long the wait is afterwards

What you sign after template day is an approval of a layout: the seams, the edge, the overhang and every cutout listed on the drawing. Sign nothing until you have seen the layout on the actual slab, and never sign a drawing that has a seam on it without being told where that seam is going to be.

Keep your own record of it. The drawing number and its revision, the date of the drawing, the material exactly as named, the slab or lot number, where each seam falls, whether you saw the slab layout and when. A record of what you approved is not a contract and it does not move responsibility for anything to anybody, but it is the document that settles a question later without an argument.

Typical range, verify with your professional. Across published supplier documentation, stone countertops were observed at 1 to 4 weeks from template to installation. These are ranges published by named suppliers, not market averages: one industry source gives 5 to 15 business days as a standard timeline and 10 to 20 business days in peak season from March to August, while the cutting, edging and polishing itself is given as 1 to 2 business days. Most of the wait is queue and scheduling rather than work.

That wait is the reason template day sits where it does in a project. Between the day the cabinets are set and the day the top is installed there is no sink, and the length of that period is the fabrication wait. Plan for it before it arrives, because it is one of the few waits in a remodel that is genuinely hard to shorten.