Kitchen worktops in Coldharbour

Yes. Postwar estate housing with small kitchens planned around a fixed sink under the window and a boiler cupboard; runs are 2m to 2.6m and worktops are usually replaced piecemeal rather than as part of a redesign. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. 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.

postwar LCC estate, 1950s-60s maisonette block and 1970s terrace. Rear access through a garden or a shared path means long pieces can usually come in whole from the back. 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.

Estate layout with parking courts and rear footpaths, and several maisonette blocks reached by an external stair with a tight turn at the top. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Worktop replacement, worktop fabrication and worktop templating, in that order. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Proven on the bench before dispatch. Those stair turns on the maisonettes cap the piece length, measure the turn, not just the doorway.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Carcasses have to be sound first. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The laminate has been covering it up. 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 workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. The approved drawing is the instruction. 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.