Kitchen worktops in Dulwich Village

Yes. Large detached and semi-detached houses with rear garden-room kitchens - a 4m run, a full island of 2.4m to 3m, a second prep sink and a separate utility are all normal, while the 1960s Span-style houses have a more compact open-plan kitchen sized around the original modular grid. A gate post set narrower than the opening looks generous from the road and stops a wide piece a metre in. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. Straps and battens are chosen for lifting, not just for transit.

Georgian villa, Victorian detached, 1960s Span estate and postwar detached. The window sits in the middle of the run over the sink, and its board and cill set the limit on how tall an upstand can be. These have a back door straight into the kitchen so getting pieces in is rarely the issue, but the room is small and the runs are short, which puts the sink, hob and tap cut-outs close together on a single length of stone. The template carries the building into the workshop.

The Dulwich Estate scheme of management governs external alterations, so extensions and rooflights are consented and often set back; the roads are wide with driveways and off-street standing, which makes this some of the easiest unloading in the borough. Rear access usually lets us fit longer pieces whole, so the join count ends up decided by the slab rather than by the building. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Nobody sets a worktop down mid-flight to change grip.

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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A slipped slot takes the next one with it. Clients here specify large-format slabs and book-matched islands, so slab selection and vein layout are part of the job rather than an afterthought.

A pop-up socket in the surface is one more cut-out through the full thickness, and it wants the same clear space beneath it that a sink does. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. Veining is matched across the seam before cutting starts. Casement handles and stays swing down into the space above the worktop, so the clearance that counts is the one measured with the window open. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Nothing bears on plasterboard. Supply only, material begins at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on separate lines rather than as one number.

Because the money comes out of a household rather than a maintenance budget, phasing is common: tops now, island or splashbacks later, quoted so the second visit still matches the first. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A void between tenancies has no spare days in it. Describe the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the schedule rather than met on the day.

An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. A low sill over the sink run is what decides between an upstand and stone dying into a window board, and there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The awkward corner goes in first, not last.

The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. Window boards and cills stand proud of the plaster, so the back edge of the top has to be plotted to where the units actually sit rather than to the wall. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing.

A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. On a book-matched pair the halves are laid out so the mirror line runs down the length of the piece, and once that line is set the top cannot be turned round to suit anything else. Pieces are dry-assembled on the bench before dispatch so the corners are known to close before they leave the workshop. Long lengths go down first, short pieces fill around them.

A dropped pan years later is a different question, and stone is remade rather than filled either way. Every piece is dry-assembled on the bench before it is loaded, so a fabrication mistake is found in the workshop rather than in your kitchen. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. Garden routes carry their own hazards: a drain cover, a step up to a patio, wet decking, or a lawn that will not take a loaded trolley. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Protection comes up only when the last piece is inside.