Kitchen worktops in Downe

Yes. Period village houses with thick uneven walls, deep window reveals and low ceilings. Kitchens are compact and often L-shaped around a chimney breast, with a freestanding range in the old fireplace opening and a butler sink under the window. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. That is the last thing settled before dispatch.

listed village cottage, flint and brick period house, conservation-area detached and farmhouse. A range or an Aga in an original recess is usually immovable, so the run is designed around it and the clearances come from the appliance. Access is off a drive and through wide doors, so for once the piece size is not the constraint - the joins that go in are the ones we choose for layout and veining, not the ones the building forces. Settled on the drawing, cut once.

Narrow lanes with no pavement, parked cars on both sides and low overhanging trees, plus a conservation area where you cannot leave a van blocking the road for long. Turning a heavy piece on edge indoors needs floor space at both ends of the turn, so the hall is cleared of furniture before anything comes off the van. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Nothing is carried past an obstruction that could have been moved.

Worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. A slipped slot takes the next one with it. Walls in Downe cottages bow noticeably along their length, so we template with a full-length rigid pattern rather than measurements alone, otherwise the scribe will be wrong at one end.

The return piece is the awkward one on a slab: short, full depth, and rarely nesting neatly against the long lengths, so yield rather than area is what moves the material figure. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. Join count follows the shape, not the metreage. Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Nothing bears on plasterboard. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

An owner paying for this directly tends to want the reasoning as much as the number, so a quote that explains why a join sits where it does is worth more than a cheaper one that does not. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. A void between tenancies has no spare days in it. If we know the building when you book, the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are worked into the day rather than found on it.

Delivery to the workshop has to be arranged and dated, since nothing is nested until it is there. Say what you have and where it came from before anything is booked, because thickness and batch decide what can be done with it. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Six flats, six days, one kitchen at a time.

A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. Ceiling beams cross the room at a height that decides where a piece can be stood on edge and where it cannot. The joins here are chosen rather than forced, so they go where the veining and the gables want them. The bench proves it before the van moves.

The grooves sit inside the depth of the top with stone left either side, so a shallow run limits them. Which side of the bowl they go is about how you stand at the sink, and it is settled before cutting. Deep skirtings, a dado and a picture rail survive in the original rooms, so nothing sits flat to the wall without being cut around first. All of that is settled at the nesting stage, because a machined piece cannot be adjusted afterwards. An old house eats more slab than a new one.

A Belfast or butler sink has to be installed and at its final height before the template, because the stone is cut to sit on it. A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. An L can be mitred at the corner for a continuous look or butt-jointed over the gable, and the two are different money and different risk. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. Drawn onto the slab before it is cut.