Kitchen worktops in Cranham

Yes. Later suburban stock on the eastern edge, mostly detached houses and bungalows built from the 1950s onwards, so kitchens are already reasonably sized square rooms and rarely need structural work. The common job is a full refit within the existing shape — new units, a U-run with a peninsula, and quartz that has to work with an existing tiled floor the client is keeping. 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. The fitting slot is set around it, which is why we ask about it when the date is booked and not before we leave the yard. The day is built around that window.

1950s-1970s detached, post-war semi, bungalow and 1980s estate house. 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. Rear or shared-path access is often the only way to bring a long piece in without turning it in the hall. That is the shape of the day.

Very easy: wide estate roads, individual drives, garages, turning space and no parking restrictions to speak of. Where the van stands level with the front of the house a piece gets handled twice instead of five times, and stone breaks on handling rather than on the road. 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 installation, worktop design & quotation and worktop replacement, in that order. 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. That changes what the quote should be compared against, because the shape of the job is not the same as a single family kitchen. Material is the slab only, and it says so. Existing floors are usually staying here, so we protect them properly and check base-unit heights against the finished floor rather than the slab.

Three runs means two internal corners, and each corner is a decision about mitre or butt joint before anything is nested. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Nothing is bonded until the whole run sits flat. 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. This is the item most often left out of a cheaper quote, and it comes back as a variation once the templater has been. 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.

The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. The quote is written so it can be read by whoever is paying rather than only by whoever is standing in the kitchen. Nothing payable until template. 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.