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. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. It is decided in the yard, not at the kerb.

converted boathouse, self-built river chalet, 1970s island house and artist studio conversion. Edwardian terraces are wider and taller than the Victorian houses next to them, so the kitchen usually takes a full-width rear room rather than a narrow outrigger. The day is planned backwards from the hall. That is the shape of the day.

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. Everything comes through the front door and down the hall, so the tightest point on the route is usually the newel post at the foot of the stairs. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop fabrication, worktop templating 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. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. Units fitted, fixed and level first. 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.

Seating overhangs past roughly 300mm will not carry on the carcass alone, so flat steel bar or a plywood substrate has to be built into the units first. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. The bench proves it before the van does. Where a partition has been built off the floor screed rather than off the slab, it moves, and a mitre bonded across that corner is the first thing to open. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. 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.

Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. A template booked hopefully around another trade is the commonest cause of a wasted visit. No stone is cut from a plan. 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.