Kitchen worktops in Emerson Park

Yes. Very large detached houses on wide plots, a good proportion of them demolished and rebuilt, so kitchens are designed from scratch as double-height family spaces with two islands or an island plus a full prep pantry behind. Slab-matched splashbacks, waterfall ends, integrated drainer grooves and matching utility and bar tops all come as one package here. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. 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.

inter-war detached, post-war detached, modern rebuilt house and large plot self-build. Arts and Crafts houses have deep eaves, low windows and inglenook recesses, so the kitchen has more corners and reveals than its floor area suggests. Access is off a drive and through wide doors, so for once the piece size is not the constraint - the joins that go in are the ones we choose for layout and veining, not the ones the building forces. The bench proves it before the van moves.

In-and-out gravel drives, gated entrances and plenty of standing room on the plot; the practical limits are gate head height and soft ground rather than parking. The barrier, the entry code and the estate rules decide when a van can get near the door, and none of that is negotiable on the day. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. The drawing carries that decision through to the saw.

Worktop design & quotation, worktop fabrication and worktop templating, in that order. 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. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. Same slab run, or it is not a match. These are multi-slab jobs where the veining has to run through island, splashback and pantry, so we dry-lay and mark the sequence in the workshop before a single cut.

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. Each run is priced on its own line against the supply rate, with the join count and the reason for each join stated. Shape first, area second. Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. It is fabrication time rather than material, so it appears on the fabrication line and not in the square metre figure. Priced as fabrication, not as area. 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. Changing an appliance after the nest is set means recutting the piece, not adjusting it. The approved drawing is the instruction. 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.