Worktop templating in Askew Road

Yes. Askew Road is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W12. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hammersmith and Fulham. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. 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. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A two-up two-down has a kitchen that was never designed to be one, so the run is short, the ceiling is low and every millimetre of depth gets argued over. Victorian party walls and chimney-breast returns bow along their length, so the template plots the real line rather than assuming a straight one - the template picks up points every few hundred millimetres down the back of the run and the drawing carries that curve through to the saw. No stone is ever cut from a plan. The front-door-to-stair distance is the number that matters on these cottages - if you cannot swing it in the hall, it goes over the back fence.

Narrow streets with parking both sides mean a Luton effectively blocks the road, so a short controlled unload with a spotter is the way to do it. Front doors open straight into a small hall with the stairs immediately in front, so the turn from front door to kitchen is often less than 2m of clear travel. A narrow entrance hall with a turn into the back of the house caps the longest piece we can physically get in, whatever the run itself measures. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement and worktop installation. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. The room as it is, not as it was drawn. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Units fitted, fixed and level first.

The free end is what needs deciding early: square edge, mitred apron down the end, or a full waterfall to the floor, and a waterfall is cut in sequence off the same part of the slab. The template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. Real angles, not plan angles. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. The template plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. Units fixed and packed level over the sloping floor, walls replastered and dry at their final thickness (tiling and splashbacks go on after the worktop, never before), and the sink, tap and hob physically on site, with a Belfast sink built in and set at its finished height. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. A template booked hopefully around another trade is the commonest cause of a wasted visit. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come.