Rollingwood · Barton Creek · Lakeway · Steiner Ranch
Countertops in West Lake Hills, TX
Austin Custom Countertops is the trusted specialist for countertops in West Lake Hills, TX, serving homeowners across Travis County and specializing in laser templating, natural stone countertop fabrication, and tight access countertop installation. We offer full slab backsplashes and hand mitered edge profiles.
- Licensed, insured & bonded
- Free in-home measure
- One firm written price
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Countertops in West Lake Hills, TX
Our team provides a single field template that drives the whole cut list, delivering countertops that meet an out of square wall cleanly for homes and controlled slab handling in difficult approaches for both residential and commercial projects. We fabricate every countertop in our own Austin shop on a saw we own, the two people who template your kitchen are the two who install it, and the work is covered by a written workmanship warranty.
From scribing a slab edge to a wall that is no longer plumb to a whole home stone package installed room by room, our team handles every detail. Serving West Lake Hills, Rollingwood and the western side of Austin, we bring the same shop crew and the same measured template to every job we take.
How we work
Licensed, insured & bondedDocumented insurance and permits where the job needs them
Our own shop and crewCNC fabrication in Austin, nothing handed to a third-party installer
One firm written priceThe quote is the number at install, cutouts and edges included
Laser templatingDigital templates off your actual cabinets, so seams land where they should
Why a West Lake Hills kitchen is rarely a standard countertop job
West Lake Hills is small and almost entirely houses. The 2020 census counted 3,444 residents inside 3.7 square miles, all of it land, at an elevation of 863 feet. The Census Bureau's American Community Survey puts the city at 1,353 total housing units, and 1,173 of those are single unit detached homes. That is close to 87 percent, and it tells you something practical before we ever open the front door: almost every job is a one off, in a house that was designed once and never repeated down the street.
The build dates matter more. The median year built here is 1992, which is older than most of the communities west of Austin. Roughly 480 units date from 1970 through 1989, 129 predate 1970, and the rest are spread fairly evenly across the decades since. The city incorporated on September 9, 1953, and the community filled in quickly through the 1970s and 1980s, with much of that development on the south side of the Colorado River. The result is a city where a kitchen might be six years old or fifty, and where the house next door tells you nothing about the one you are standing in.
For us that means no template is a repeat. Cabinet runs differ, wall construction differs, sink base widths differ, and the way a thirty year old kitchen has moved is specific to that house. Every job in the city is measured from scratch.
Laser templating on cabinets that have settled
A cabinet run that has been carrying weight for thirty years is almost never dead level, and it is almost never square to the wall behind it. That is not a defect. It is what happens to wood and fasteners over decades. It does become a problem the moment somebody cuts a rigid stone slab to a drawing instead of to the actual room.
We template with a laser unit set on the cabinets themselves, after the old top is off, capturing every wall as it really runs rather than as the plan says it should. The digital file records the bow in a long wall, the out of square corner where two runs meet, the exact position of the sink base and the real distance from cabinet face to wall. The template carries that deviation into the cut, so the back edge is scribed to your wall instead of fighting it.
Before we template, we level. If a base cabinet has dropped, or a run has racked, we shim and correct it first, because a stone top is unforgiving and will telegraph a low spot as a stress point rather than settling into it. On houses built before 1970, and there are 129 of those in the city, we also check that the cabinet boxes and their fastening can carry the load of the material you picked. That check happens before the slab is cut, not after it arrives.
What happens in our Austin shop after the template
The digital file goes straight to our CNC. Nothing is traced onto cardboard and nothing is hand cut on your driveway, which is the difference between a seam you can feel with a fingernail and one you cannot.
On the slab layout we place your cuts against the actual stone rather than a generic rectangle. On granite and quartzite that means deciding where the movement in the slab lands, keeping the strongest veining on the run people see when they walk in, and placing any seam where the pattern hides it and where the structure supports it. Seams go over a cabinet wall wherever the layout allows, never floating across an unsupported span. Cutouts for undermount sinks are machined and polished in the shop, where we can hold the reveal consistent all the way around instead of grinding it on site.
Edge profiles are cut and polished in house as well. Square eased, bevel, bullnose and the heavier ogee style profiles all behave differently on a thirty year old cabinet run, because a thicker built up edge adds weight and changes how the overhang sits over a face frame that has already moved. We dry fit before anything leaves the building.
Taking out what is there now
Demolition is the part that varies most in this city, and it varies because the housing stock spans five decades.
A tile counter set on a mortar bed is a different job from a laminate top on particleboard, which is different again from a stone top installed in the last fifteen years. Mortar bed tile is heavy, it is bonded, and the substrate under it often comes up with it, which can leave cabinet tops needing repair before new stone can be set. Laminate usually releases cleanly but the adhesive and the build strips underneath do not. A previous stone top is straightforward to lift but needs enough hands and enough care to avoid taking a cabinet face with it.
Plumbing and gas get disconnected properly before any of that starts. Austin sees freezing temperatures around a dozen times in a typical year and an ice storm roughly every other winter, so we do not leave a supply line capped in a way that will be tested by a hard freeze while the kitchen is open. Dust control is set up first: the work area is sealed, and cutting that can happen in the shop happens in the shop.
What drives the price of countertops in West Lake Hills
We do not publish numbers, because a number published without seeing your cabinets is a guess that somebody has to walk back later. Here is what actually moves the figure on your written quote.
Material is the largest single lever. Engineered quartz, granite and quartzite are priced differently from each other, and within each category individual slabs differ by color, movement and rarity. Quantity comes next, and it is not measured in counter length but in slab yield. A long island or a deep peninsula can push a layout into a second slab even when the total surface area looks modest, and half a slab of remnant does not cost half as much to buy.
The West Lake Hills driver is demolition and cabinet remediation. With a median build year of 1992 and 129 homes older than 1970, the condition of what is under the old top is the biggest unknown on the quote. A mortar bed tile counter that takes the cabinet deck with it, or a run that needs leveling and reinforcement before stone can sit on it, is real labor that a house built last decade will never need. This is why we template and inspect before we price rather than after.
Then the details: how many cutouts you need, how many seams the layout requires, the edge profile you choose, backsplash height, whether an overhang needs steel support, and whether the sink and faucet are being reused or replaced. Access matters too on the multi level homes common here, since a slab that cannot go through a door has to go another way. Every one of those is priced at the quote stage, as one figure, in writing, before work starts.
Templated and cut for West Lake Hills
We laser template off your existing cabinets, so the counter is cut to the room you actually have rather than to the plan it was built from. Settled cabinets, out-of-square walls and a run that has moved over twenty years are all measured, not assumed.
Fabrication happens in our own Austin shop, which is a short run out to West Lake Hills. That keeps the template to install window inside the same week for most kitchens.
Before and after
Drag the handle. Same cabinets, same fixtures, new surface.
BeforeAfter
BeforeAfterThe finishes we fabricate
Nearby areas we cover
West Lake Hills questions
Do you serve all of West Lake Hills?
Yes, the whole city. It is only 3.7 square miles and entirely inside Travis County, so there is no part of it we treat as out of area, including the older sections developed south of the Colorado River.
How long will my kitchen be without counters?
Template, fabrication and install are separate visits. Demolition and templating happen on the first day, the slab is cut and polished in our shop, and install is a later day. We give you both dates in writing when you accept the quote, so you can plan around the gap rather than guess at it.
My cabinets are from the 1980s. Can they take a stone top?
Usually yes, but it is checked, not assumed. We inspect the boxes and their fastening during the template visit and level or reinforce anything that has moved. If a cabinet genuinely cannot carry the material you want, we tell you at quote stage and give you options rather than discovering it on install day.
Can you match a slab to the rest of a house that was remodeled in stages?
We can show you slabs in person and lay your cuts out against the specific piece of stone, which is the only reliable way to match tone and movement. Photographs of a slab do not tell you how it will read across a twelve foot run.
Do you remove the old countertop?
Yes, and it is part of the quoted price. We also disconnect plumbing, seal the work area for dust, and haul the old material away. Tile set on a mortar bed is heavier and slower to remove than laminate, which is one of the things we look at before quoting.
Is quartz a good choice for a West Lake Hills kitchen?
Indoors, it performs very well. Outdoors it is the wrong material anywhere in Texas, because engineered quartz uses a polyester resin binder that is not UV stable. If part of your project is outside, we will steer you to a natural stone for that section.
Will there be a seam, and where will it go?
That depends on your layout and slab size, and we tell you before fabrication, not after. When a seam is unavoidable we place it over a cabinet wall for support and inside the stone's own pattern so it reads as part of the material.
How do I get a price?
Book a free measure. We come out, look at the cabinets and the existing top, discuss material, and send one firm written price. There is no charge for the visit and no obligation after it.
Free estimate
Get a firm written price on countertops in West Lake Hills
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