Kitchen worktops in Hampton

Yes. Riverside houses with kitchens raised above flood level or set behind a lightwell, small period cottages with sub-2.5m runs, and a large interwar suburban belt inland where the standard job is a rear extension with a 3.6m run and an island of about 2m. 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. Where a bay suspension or a permit is needed, that is a real cost and it goes on the quote instead of appearing later. It is one line among the others, and it is honest.

Georgian riverside house, Victorian cottage, 1930s semi, postwar detached and modern riverside flats. These were built with a scullery that has since been swallowed by an extension, leaving a change of floor level roughly where the run crosses. The day is planned backwards from the hall. That is the shape of the day.

The riverside road is narrow with limited pull-in and floods on high tides, several houses are reached by a footpath from a shared parking area, while the suburban roads inland have driveways and easy standing. 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. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop design & quotation, worktop templating and worktop installation, in that order. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. Units fitted, fixed and level first. In the flood-prone riverside properties the plinths and carcasses are often raised or moisture-resistant, so worktop heights sit higher than standard - confirm before templating.

An island is a single visible piece with four finished edges and no wall to hide against, so it is the piece the whole kitchen is judged on. 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. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. 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.

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.