Kitchen worktops in Isle of Dogs

Yes. The 1980s dockside houses have small original kitchens of about 2.2m that owners usually open into the dining room, gaining a peninsula rather than a full island. The towers around the docks run open-plan single-wall kitchens with an integrated appliance stack at one end. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. The templating visit needs somewhere to stop for two or three hours, which is a different problem from unloading for twenty minutes. The templater needs a proper stop, not a pause.

1980s LDDC dockside housing, 1990s dock warehouse conversion, 2010s onwards tower and post-war estate. Open-plan living makes the kitchen furniture rather than utility, so the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab. The template records that corner as it is, so the mitre closes tight instead of being cut to a theoretical 90 degrees. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn.

The peninsula has limited road access with congestion at the north end, and the internal roads are heavily bollarded around the docks, so routes are longer than they look. Older low-rise dockside houses have narrow front doors and a stair immediately behind them, while the towers need concierge-booked lifts. 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. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation 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 fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One visit, done properly. It is worth checking on the peninsula whether the address is a 1980s house or a modern tower, because they are completely different access jobs at the same postcode.

Because a peninsula is seen from both sides, the underside of any overhang gets the same edge treatment as the top, which is easy to leave out of a spec. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The units stay, the surface changes. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The laminate has been covering it up. 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 same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Protection goes down first. 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.