Kitchen worktops in Eel Pie Island

Yes. Small idiosyncratic homes, many self-built or converted from boathouses and studios, with kitchens of 2m to 2.8m against a timber-framed wall, lightweight construction throughout, and open-plan living where a peninsula does the work of an island. The realistic answer on a main road is an early slot, a spotter on the van and pieces staged in one movement rather than several trips. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. The load plan follows from it.

converted boathouse, self-built river chalet, 1970s island house and artist studio conversion. Half-landings mean the back of the house sits at a slightly different level from the front, and a knocked-through kitchen crosses that line. The day is planned backwards from the hall, and the scribing takes longer than the carry. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

There is no vehicle access at all - everything crosses the humpbacked footbridge and then goes along narrow paths, usually on a sack barrow or by hand, and the island floods on high spring tides. Carrying through the house means protecting the whole route first: floor boarded, banister padded, and the front door held open on a wedge rather than by hand. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop fabrication, worktop templating 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. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Appliances on site, not on order. No van gets on the island, so pieces are sized to be carried over the footbridge by two people, which usually means 1.5m maximum and more joints than you would normally accept.

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. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. That is nested before any glass goes on the saw. Taped internal angles in plasterboard belly at the corner, so the run picks up a few millimetres over the last 300mm and a plan-angle mitre will not close. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Eased in, never forced. 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.

Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come. 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.