Kitchen worktops in Brick Lane

Yes. Residential kitchens above the shops are narrow and long, squeezed into the back of a first-floor flat with runs of 2m to 2.6m and a single sash window. Brewery and warehouse conversions are the opposite, with open-plan kitchens along one flank wall and a bar-height peninsula. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. The templating visit needs somewhere to stop for two or three hours, which is a different problem from unloading for twenty minutes. It goes on the job sheet for the fitting crew.

flat over shop or restaurant, former brewery and warehouse conversion and Victorian terrace. Working hours are constrained by the business underneath, so noisy work has a window rather than a day. Post-war terraces have a fairly shallow, standardised kitchen, and the walls tend to lean rather than bow, so the scribe at worktop height is different from the one at plinth level - the template only cares about the line where the stone will land. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn.

The street itself has heavy footfall from late morning until late at night, so realistically deliveries happen early and the van cannot sit for long. Flats above commercial units are reached by a separate side door and a very steep single-width stair, with no lift and no chance of turning a long piece at the top. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. The template records it along with everything else.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop splashbacks & upstands, 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. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Same batch, same run, same day. Above-shop flats mean everything gets planned in short jointed sections, and the stair, not the kitchen, sets the maximum piece size.

Because a peninsula is seen from both sides, the underside of any overhang gets the same edge treatment as the top, which is easy to leave out of a spec. 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 old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Found at template, not on fit day. 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.

A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. 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.