Kitchen worktops in Herne Hill

Yes. Family houses on the Dulwich side take substantial rear or side-return extensions producing kitchens of 4m or more in width, with a long run, a full island and often a separate pantry cupboard with its own stone shelf. Conversion flats in the villas have kitchens fitted into former reception rooms with tall ceilings and a peninsula. Without a bay the van ends up on a single yellow with a crew member watching it, which takes a pair of hands off the carry. 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.

Victorian villa, Edwardian terrace, Large semi-detached and Conversion flat. 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. Big islands are what drive the number. Priced from the building, not from a rate card.

The streets have front gardens and gate posts that narrow the approach, and permit parking is enforced. The area floods for events at the park and the railway bridge by the station is a bottleneck for anything arriving from the north. 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. That is why the fitting line on a quote reflects manpower and time rather than square metres. It appears as its own line rather than buried in a rate.

Worktop design & quotation, worktop templating and worktop installation, in that order. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. That changes what the quote should be compared against, because the shape of the job is not the same as a single family kitchen. Itemised, so it can be compared honestly. These are big rooms with big islands, so the carry through the hall and out to the rear is the deciding factor, measure the narrowest point on that route before agreeing a single-piece island.

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. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Dry-lay first, always. A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. 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 quote is written so it can be read by whoever is paying rather than only by whoever is standing in the kitchen. Written to be read by whoever is paying. 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.