Kitchen worktops in Hayes End

Yes. Semis with knocked-through kitchen-diners giving a 4m back run plus a peninsula, and side extensions where the plot is wide enough to make room for a proper island. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. A templater circling for a space arrives late into a slot that was already tight, and the drawing is what suffers. The templater needs a proper stop, not a pause.

Interwar semi, 1930s detached and postwar infill. These kitchens have been retiled at least twice, and stripping the tiles takes the bottom band of plaster with them because the old laminate ran underneath rather than up to them. Where the room has been knocked through to the dining room or opened into a later extension, the two floors rarely sit at the same level and the whole opening has to be shot across from one datum. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

The Uxbridge Road is the bottleneck, but the side roads have wide drives and verges and a van can sit outside the property all day without trouble. The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. The template records it along with everything else.

Worktop installation, worktop design & quotation and worktop templating, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Units fitted, fixed and level first. The side extensions widen the room enough for an island, but the existing ceiling joists were never sized for a downdraught extractor run so check before you commit to a hob cut-out.

If the island is a few hundred millimetres longer than the usable length of a slab, a second slab gets bought to gain that overhang, and the whole slab is paid for rather than the part used. It is the shape rather than the square metreage that moves the number, which is why two kitchens the same size quote differently. The join count is stated with its reason. 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. It is fabrication time rather than material, so it appears on the fabrication line and not in the square metre figure. Better on the quote than in a variation. 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 template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. 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.