Kitchen worktops in Addiscombe

Yes. One of the most consistent patterns in the borough: Edwardian terraces with a side return that gets infilled, producing a kitchen roughly 5m by 3.5m with a long run against the flank wall, a 2m island and glazing overhead. Utility space is usually a cupboard rather than a room. Without a bay the van ends up on a single yellow with a crew member watching it, which takes a pair of hands off the carry. A templater circling for a space arrives late into a slot that was already tight, and the drawing is what suffers. The templater needs a proper stop, not a pause.

Edwardian bay-fronted terrace, Victorian terrace, 1930s semi and small modern block. The addition wall is half a brick thick in places and has usually had a damp course injected and been re-plastered, which leaves it neither flat nor consistent. Alcoves either side of the breast are rarely the same width and rarely parallel, so each one is templated as its own piece with its own scribe. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

No off-street parking, permit bays, and no usable side passage once the return is infilled, so slabs go in through the front door before or after the builders have finished the hall floor. Everything comes through the front door and down the hall, so the tightest point on the route is usually the newel post at the foot of the stairs. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Worktop templating, worktop installation and worktop design & quotation, in that order. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. One visit, done properly. Side-return infills here almost always run longer than 3m, so the joint sits under the tap where it is least visible rather than in the middle of the run.

A galley run down a side-return extension usually measures longer than a slab will give in one length, so a join is designed in from the start rather than discovered. The template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. Real angles, not plan angles. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Eased in, never forced. Material runs from £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines rather than rolled into one figure.

Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. Access for the whole slot, or a different day. Tell us the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the day rather than found on it.