Kitchen worktops in Forest Hill

Yes. Big hillside villas divided into flats sit alongside intact family terraces. Whole houses often have a lower-ground or rear-extension kitchen with an island, while the flats have kitchens carved out of large rooms where high ceilings, deep skirtings and bay windows eat the usable run. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. 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. It is why the arrival time is what it is.

large Victorian villa, Victorian terrace, 1930s semi and 1960s flats. A range sitting in a chimney recess is common, and the flanking pieces are cut with the manufacturer clearance built into the template. 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.

Very steep roads on both sides of the valley, tight bends and limited parking near the station; a lot of houses sit above the road behind long flights of steps with the garden well below. 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. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. It is settled on the bench, not on site.

Worktop templating, worktop installation and worktop fabrication, in that order. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Proven on the bench before dispatch. The gradient is the constraint, check the van can hold the hill outside the house before planning the offload.

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. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. The template plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. 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. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. 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.