Worktop templating in Joydens Wood

Yes. Joydens Wood is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are DA5. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bexley. 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. 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. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Wide doorways and level thresholds mean full-length pieces go in whole and the join count comes down to slab length alone. 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. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn. Several roads here are unmade, check the approach in the wet before promising a delivery date.

Unadopted and private roads in places, wooded sloping plots, long drives and heavy tree cover, so a large van cannot always reach the door. A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. 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.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop installation. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. Appliances on site, not on order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. Units fitted, fixed and level first.

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. Join positions and vein direction are marked on the template drawing before it leaves site. 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.

The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. Plotted, not estimated. All base units in, including anything standing on the later extension slab, walls skimmed to final thickness, and the sink, tap and hob delivered so cut-outs and tap centres are set from the actual items. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come.