Worktop templating in Highgate

Yes. Highgate is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N6, N19. It is worked on our central and north London run, along with the rest of Camden. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. A templater circling for a space arrives late into a slot that was already tight, and the drawing is what suffers. It goes on the job sheet for the fitting crew. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Lime plaster over rubble moves in and out enough that a single long panel will show a gap somewhere along its length. Long perimeter runs and an island mean level has to hold across the whole room, so the templater sets a single datum and works every run and the island off it rather than levelling each wall in isolation. Two to three hours, once the units are in. On the hill the walk from where the van can legally stop to the front door is often longer than the kitchen itself, so plan the lift and the carry order before anything comes off the vehicle.

Very steep approach roads, narrow lanes parked both sides, and conservation-area frontages that sit close to the pavement with no lay-by. Several of the mansion blocks are walk-ups with a communal stair that turns twice before the first floor. Piece length is set by the internal diagonal of the lift car, not by the length of the slab. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. The template records it along with everything else.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation and worktop design & quotation. 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. The room as it is, not as it was drawn.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. A layout templated off one wall instead of one datum will not sit right once all the pieces are down together. One datum for the whole room. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. It is recorded on the drawing with the run dimensions so the workshop is not guessing. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. All runs and the island carcass fixed down and levelled to one datum, with the sink, tap and hob on site - an island cannot be templated while it is still loose or sitting on packers. 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 templater needs the sink, tap and hob on site, and a Belfast sink installed at its final height. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come.