Kitchen worktops in Between the Commons

Yes. This is the densest concentration of side-return and full-width rear extensions in the borough, the alley is infilled, the rear wall is pushed back, and the result is a 4m to 5m wide kitchen with a long run plus a 2.4m to 3m island under a flat rooflight. Islands almost always carry a hob and a mitred end panel. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. A templater circling for a space arrives late into a slot that was already tight, and the drawing is what suffers. It goes on the job sheet for the fitting crew.

Late Victorian terrace and Edwardian terrace. 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. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn.

Uniform terraces with small front gardens, permit-only parking that is full by 9am, and no vehicle access to the rear at all. Everything goes down the hallway past the stairs, and the hall width of roughly 950mm sets the maximum slab width that can be turned. 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. The template records it along with everything else.

Worktop design & quotation, worktop templating and worktop installation, in that order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Units fitted, fixed and level first. The island is the whole job here, get the exact spine position and the overhang for stools agreed on site before templating, because clients change their mind about seating after the units land.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. Each run is priced on its own line against the supply rate, with the join count and the reason for each join stated. Shape first, area second. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. 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.

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. 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.