Kitchen worktops in Bethnal Green

Yes. Most work is in the back addition of a small terrace, so you get an L or a galley of about 2.4m to 3m with a rear window in the middle of the run. The ones that have infilled the side return end up with a single long wall run plus a short island or peninsula, and that is where the second slab goes. A controlled parking zone means either a visitor permit sorted in advance or a suspended bay, and a suspension is applied for days ahead rather than on the morning. The fitting slot is set around it, which is why we ask about it when the date is booked and not before we leave the yard. The day is built around that window.

1890s LCC tenement block, Victorian two-up two-down terrace, 1960s council tower and 2000s warehouse conversion. 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. 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. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

Terraced streets are permit-only Monday to Friday with no forecourts, and Columbia Road and its feeder streets are effectively closed by the Sunday flower market, so schedule around it. The 1890s tenement blocks have winding stone stairs, no lift and half-landing turns that a full 3m piece will not pass, so plan for a joint or a hoist. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. The template records it along with everything else.

Worktop templating, worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. 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 units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. Half the terraces here have been through two or three refits and the rear walls are out of square by 15-20mm, so nothing gets cut off drawings without a physical template.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. The template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. One datum for the whole room. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. The template plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Plotted, not estimated. 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.

These kitchens tend to be compact and reasonably square, so the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines are a larger share of the total than the stone is. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Units kept, surface changed. 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.