Worktop templating in Church Street

Yes. Church Street is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW8, W2. It is worked on our central London run, along with the rest of Westminster. Where an event closes the road entirely, the van cannot be moved once it is in, which is a different problem from not being able to park at all. A templater circling for a space arrives late into a slot that was already tight, and the drawing is what suffers. The templater needs a proper stop, not a pause. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Walls are dense in-situ concrete or blockwork with a thin skim, which will not be chased back and will not take a plasterboard fixing. Concrete and dense block walls in ex-council stock cannot be chased back or packed out to suit, so the template takes the wall exactly as it is and the stone carries the scribe. Two to three hours, once the units are in. Market days dictate the schedule here more than anything in the flat does - book the fit for a non-market morning or you will be carrying slabs through stalls.

The street market runs most of the week and the stalls occupy the carriageway, so vehicle access is effectively before the market sets up or after it clears. Above-shop flats are reached by a street door between stalls and a steep stair. 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. That is part of what the visit is for.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. 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.

A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. The template plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. Every base unit fixed to the wall, packed and levelled, and any dry-lining or patching completed - the template reads the wall face it is given, so that has to be the finished face. 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.