Worktop installation in East Sheen

Yes. East Sheen is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW14. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Richmond upon Thames. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. 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. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A detached house of this age has a drive, a side path and a back door, so access is rarely the constraint and the design can follow the room. The carry is the easy part; the plaster around the old breast and the packing over a moved floor are not. The slow parts are slow for a reason. 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.

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 walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. None of it is worked out on the doorstep.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop design & quotation. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The prep list is not optional. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Sealed before we leave.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. It is the slow part of the day and it should be. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. 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.