Kitchen worktops in Eden Park

Yes. Quiet inter-war streets around the station where kitchens are typically a modest rear room extended by 2-3m, giving an L-shape with a run under the window and a peninsula facing the garden doors. Fewer full islands than Bickley or Chislehurst because the footprints are smaller. 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. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

1930s semi, 1930s detached, 1950s bungalow and 1980s close housing. 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 typical 1930s kitchen sits at the back with a low window over the sink run, so the template records the exact sill height above the units to settle whether an upstand fits or the stone has to die into a window board. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn.

Short front drives that take one car, so the van usually parks half on the road, and side gates that are just about wide enough if the bins are moved first. The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. 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 installation, worktop replacement 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. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. Sound carcasses or it does not go ahead. Peninsulas here nearly always end at a set of garden doors, so the end panel and overhang have to clear the door swing, which is worth checking at template rather than on fit day.

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. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Nothing is bonded until the whole run sits flat. 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. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. Found at template, not on fit day. 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 householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Plumber either side of us. 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.