Kitchen worktops in East Dulwich

Yes. The archetypal London side-return job repeated street after street: kitchen knocked through into an L-shaped rear extension roughly 6m by 4m, a 3.6m run along the flank wall, a 2m to 2.4m island with a hob or just prep, and a large single-bowl undermount sink under a rear window or rooflight. Enforcement zones rarely accept a trade van unloading stone as an exemption, so this gets sorted before the date is confirmed rather than argued about afterwards. 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.

Victorian bay-front terrace, Edwardian terrace and 1930s semi pockets. Where the side return has been filled in, the old external wall is now an internal one and still carries its render, its gutter line and its old fixings. Victorian party walls and chimney-breast returns bow along their length, so the template plots the real line rather than assuming a straight one - the laser picks up points every few hundred millimetres down the back of the run and the drawing carries that curve through to the saw. No stone is ever cut from a plan.

Long straight terraced streets with parking on both sides and a CPZ near the station, no vehicular rear access, and a typical route of front door, hall, and a straight run through the knocked-through ground floor - workable but tight past a stair balustrade. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. The laser records it along with everything else.

Worktop templating, worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. One visit, done properly. Nearly every job includes an island with a mitred end and an undermount sink, so the fabrication drawing matters as much as the survey here.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. Pieces are dry-assembled on the bench before dispatch so the corners are known to close before they leave the workshop. The bench proves it before the van does. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. It is recorded on the drawing with the run dimensions so the workshop is not guessing. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. 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 same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. 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. One visit, our own installers. 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.