Worktop design and quotation in Collier Row

Yes. Collier Row is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM5. It is run from the Essex side, covering Essex & East London. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. Tell us at enquiry stage and it is priced properly, because a crew stood waiting is the most expensive thing on any job. You are told before you commit to a date. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Base units from the seventies and eighties are often only 500mm deep, so a 600mm stone top overhangs at the front and the doors want checking against it. Runs are short, joins are few and the biggest single question is whether we can go in through the back — a rear door straight from the garden into the kitchen usually lets us fit long pieces whole, whereas a mid-terrace with no side gate means everything comes through the front and may need splitting. You see it before you commit to anything. Garage-side utilities are common here, so we usually template the kitchen and the utility together and cut both from the same slab batch to keep the colour consistent.

Wide estate roads with verges, individual driveways and garages, and unrestricted parking on most streets, so the van gets close and the carry is short and level. Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. An access-driven join is priced like any other join, and people are always surprised to see one on a dead straight run. Nothing about it gets estimated after the fact. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop installation. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Small kitchens in a shared house are all short runs and tight cut-out spacing, which is more bench work per square metre than one large kitchen would be. Comparing quotes only works when they itemise the same things, and this is where the differences usually hide. Nothing payable until we template. Batching several kitchens together is the one situation where buying a whole slab is cheaper per kitchen rather than more expensive. Everything is itemised: material, template, fabrication, fitting, each cut-out and each metre of upstand. Material is the slab only, and it says so.

Peninsulas frequently land on a lightweight partition or on units that were never fixed down, and stone needs proper support under it before it goes on. It is the shape rather than the square metreage that moves the number, which is why two kitchens the same size quote differently. No installed rate per square metre, because it is not a real number. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. It is fabrication time rather than material, so it appears on the fabrication line and not in the square metre figure. Better on the quote than in a variation. Tell us whether there is side or rear access to the kitchen from outside, and send the run lengths with a photo of the window and boiler positions. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. Nothing is payable until we template, so a quote can sit while consents and decisions catch up. Written to be read by whoever is paying.