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. A controlled parking zone means either a visitor permit sorted in advance or a suspended bay, and a suspension is applied for days ahead rather than on the morning. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. It is why the arrival time is what it is.

Victorian bay-front terrace, Edwardian terrace and 1930s semi pockets. The back addition is a narrow two-storey outrigger with a single external wall, and the kitchen galley runs the length of it. Alcoves either side of the breast are rarely the same width and rarely parallel, so each one is templated as its own piece with its own scribe. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn.

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. Weight tells on a staircase more than anywhere else, because there is nowhere to set a piece down mid-flight and no way to change your grip once it is moving. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Worktop templating, worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The prep list is not optional. 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.

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. That is nested before any glass goes on the saw. Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. The template plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Plotted, not estimated. 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.

A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Access for the whole slot, or a different day. 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.