Kitchen worktops in Coombe (Kingston)

Yes. Some of the largest domestic kitchens in the borough - big open-plan family rooms with an island of 3m or more, a second sink, integrated coffee stations and boiling taps, plus back kitchens or prep pantries with their own worktops and splashbacks. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. The load plan follows from it.

Edwardian mansion house, 1930s detached, 1960s architect-designed house and modern replacement house. A bay-fronted terrace has a long hall running past the stairs to the kitchen, so the hall turn caps the piece length before the run length does. The day is planned backwards from the hall, and the scribing takes longer than the carry. That is the shape of the day.

Private gated estate roads with entry codes and a caretaker, long in-and-out driveways with ample standing, and rear garden access wide enough to bring stone round the outside instead of through the house. Sign-in at the gate, a permit on the dash and a named contact are usually wanted before anything comes off the van. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop design & quotation, worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. A second kitchen or a kitchenette in an annexe is a small job with the same fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines as a large one. That changes what the quote should be compared against, because the shape of the job is not the same as a single family kitchen. Nothing payable until we template. These are drawing-office jobs - book-matched islands, mitred 100mm aprons and full-height panels, so the slab is chosen off the rack 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. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. 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. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. 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.

Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. 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.