Kitchen worktops in Fulwell

Yes. Consistent interwar semis backing onto the golf course and playing fields, most with a rear kitchen extended by 2m to 3m to create a kitchen-diner with a 4m run down one side and a low breakfast bar rather than a full island. On a drive that only takes one vehicle nose-in, the van has to reverse the whole length of it to get back out, which decides which way it goes in. 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. Where there is no space, the plan starts the night before.

1920s and 1930s semi, 1930s detached, postwar infill and modern close. The classic arrangement is the original back room with a later extension bolted onto it, so the kitchen is two ages of building in one room. Access is usually the easy part here, as most of these have a side gate and a back door straight into the kitchen, so we carry down the side alley rather than through the house and keep the mess outside. A floor that falls twenty millimetres is packed out first.

Quiet, wide roads with driveways and garages, easy van access and space to open the tailgate on the plot; the level crossing at the station is the only regular hold-up. Where the van stands level with the front of the house a piece gets handled twice instead of five times, and stone breaks on handling rather than on the road. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Nobody sets a worktop down mid-flight to change grip.

Worktop installation, in that order. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The void ends whether we have finished or not. Extension floors here are usually a new slab butted to the old suspended floor, so expect a step and set the kitchen level off the units.

A breakfast bar on the outer side is an overhang like any other, and the support under it is sized for people leaning on the end rather than for the weight of the stone alone. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Scribed one piece at a time. Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. A bonded mitre goes down on one plane or not at all. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. One person is responsible for the door that morning. If we know the building when you book, the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are worked into the day rather than found on it.

Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The alcove piece is dry-laid before the run is.

The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. The distance from the standing to the actual kitchen door is the number that counts, since plenty of drives finish at a side gate and a garden path. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. The van does not stay on a main road once it is empty.

Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. The rear extension is usually the newest and truest part of the building, so it is the older half of the kitchen that gives the trouble. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Access, floor and wall in that order, then stone.

A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. The sink, tap and hob have to be physically in the room at the template, not merely ordered, because the cut-out is machined to the item itself. A peninsula projects into circulation space, so its outer corners usually take a radius rather than a point, and that radius is agreed at template rather than assumed. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. One datum for every run in the room.