Worktop templating in Blackheath

Yes. Blackheath is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE3. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Lewisham. Enforcement zones rarely accept a trade van unloading stone as an exemption, so this gets sorted before the date is confirmed rather than argued about afterwards. 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. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Listing and conservation conditions apply to a good number of these, which constrains what can be altered around the kitchen rather than what goes on top of the units. 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. Lower-ground kitchens down a straight but narrow basement stair are the recurring problem, most pieces have to be jointed to get them in at all.

Conservation-area frontages with railings, lightwells and basement steps, tight permit parking around the village and the heath roads, and Span estates laid out around communal parking with a footpath carry to the door. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. 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 fabrication and worktop replacement. 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. Units fitted, fixed and level first. 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. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. The room as it is, not as it was drawn.

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. A layout templated off one wall instead of one datum will not sit right once all the pieces are down together. One datum for the whole room. 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. Plotted, not estimated. 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. 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. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. No stone is cut from a plan.