Kitchen worktops in Camberwell

Yes. The Georgian houses on the hill are mostly flats, with kitchens tucked into a rear closet wing or a lower ground room; the Victorian terraces further out are the classic side-return job where the kitchen becomes a 5m by 4m rear room with an island of about 1.8m and a run of 3m to 3.6m. 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 templating visit needs somewhere to stop for two or three hours, which is a different problem from unloading for twenty minutes. The templater needs a proper stop, not a pause.

Georgian terrace, Victorian villa, Victorian terrace and 1950s and 1960s council estate. The back addition is a narrow two-storey outrigger with a single external wall, and the kitchen galley runs the length of it. The day is planned backwards from the hall, and the scribing takes longer than the carry. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

Conservation-area streets with railed front gardens and steps up to the door, plus permit parking and a busy one-way system around the green - most slabs go in through the front hall past a stair newel. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. None of it is worked out on the doorstep.

Worktop templating, worktop installation and worktop design & quotation, 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. Comparing quotes only works when they itemise the same things, and this is where the differences usually hide. Nothing payable until we template. Side-return extensions here often have bifolds set into a steel that has deflected slightly, so check the level along the whole rear run before templating.

If the island is a few hundred millimetres longer than the usable length of a slab, a second slab gets bought to gain that overhang, and the whole slab is paid for rather than the part used. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. The join is the last thing finished. Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. It is fabrication time rather than material, so it appears on the fabrication line and not in the square metre figure. Priced as fabrication, not as area. 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. The quote is written so it can be read by whoever is paying rather than only by whoever is standing in the kitchen. Written to be read by whoever is paying. 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.