Worktop templating in Cudham

Yes. Cudham is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are TN14. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bromley. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. A templater circling for a space arrives late into a slot that was already tight, and the drawing is what suffers. Two hours is the realistic figure. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A period cottage has low ceilings, thick rubble-filled walls and a floor that has never been level, and the worktop is the thing that has to look straight. The island is templated for its overhang, its support and the position of the hob or sink within it, with sockets and any pop-up left where they will genuinely be. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn. On barn conversions the timber frame moves seasonally, so we mechanically isolate the stone from the structure and never bond a run tight against a post.

Single-track lanes with steep banks, mud on the road and gates that need opening; some properties are up a farm track where the last two hundred metres are unmetalled. A side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. Door widths, turn diagonals and any change of level are recorded on the drawing alongside the run dimensions. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop design & quotation. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. The room as it is, not as it was drawn.

An island is a single visible piece with four finished edges and no wall to hide against, so it is the piece the whole kitchen is judged on. Join positions and vein direction are marked on the template drawing before it leaves site. The drawing leaves site complete. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. 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. All runs and the island carcass fixed down and levelled to one datum, with the sink, tap and hob on site - an island cannot be templated while it is still loose or sitting on packers. Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. A template booked hopefully around another trade is the commonest cause of a wasted visit. No stone is cut from a plan.