Kitchen worktops in East Sheen

Yes. Large Edwardian and interwar family houses where full-width rear extensions are the norm - a 4m run on the flank, a 2.4m island with a hob and downdraft or a ceiling extract, a boot room off the side return and a utility with its own shorter top. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. Tell us at enquiry stage and it is priced properly, because a crew stood waiting is the most expensive thing on any job. Nothing here is added after the fact.

Edwardian double-fronted house, 1930s semi, 1930s detached and postwar flats. Houses of this period came with generous garages and utility rooms, so a second short run of stone is often part of the same job. These are typically two runs and a return, often into a rear extension, and the return piece is the awkward one — short, wide and rarely nesting well against the long pieces on the slab, so slab yield rather than total area is what pushes the material line up. That is what the itemised lines are for.

Wide roads with front driveways and dropped kerbs at most houses, though the Upper Richmond Road side is a heavy through route; side passages are generally wide enough to bring stone round to a rear door. 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. We price the carry from what you tell us about the route, so photographs of the approach are worth more to us than a floor plan. Nothing about it gets estimated after the fact.

Worktop design & quotation, worktop installation and worktop templating, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. One visit, done properly. Rear glazing on three sides means low sun straight down the run, so a honed or textured finish is worth pushing over a polished black.

If the island is a few hundred millimetres longer than the usable length of a slab, a second slab gets bought to gain that overhang, and the whole slab is paid for rather than the part used. Each run is priced on its own line against the supply rate, with the join count and the reason for each join stated. No installed rate per square metre, because it is not a real number. Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. 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.

An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. The quote is written so it can be read by whoever is paying rather than only by whoever is standing in the kitchen. Every line has a reason next to it. 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.