Kitchen worktops in Ladywell

Yes. Conservation-area Victorian terraces and semis, many split into upper and lower flats, lower flats get the garden and a rear extension with a proper kitchen-diner, upper flats keep a compact galley over the back addition with a sloping ceiling at one end. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. 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.

Victorian terrace, Victorian semi-detached villa, 1930s flats and postwar infill. The bay at the front and the back addition at the rear were built to different standards, and the kitchen is nearly always in the weaker of the two. What the old top has been hiding is usually a floor that settled towards the back and units that were never fixed back to the wall. Units kept, surface changed, one day.

Narrow streets parked on both sides and a level crossing that periodically closes the route through; most flats are walk-ups with a shared front door and a straight but narrow stair. Weight tells on a staircase more than anywhere else, because there is nowhere to set a piece down mid-flight and no way to change your grip once it is moving. With no room to turn, the old top gets cut up in the kitchen instead, which is dusty work and needs the room emptied first. It sets what the day actually looks like.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop fabrication, in that order. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Units fitted, fixed and level first. First-floor flat kitchens over a back addition mean a stair carry and usually a piece that has to be turned on the half-landing.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. 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. Window boards and cills stand proud of the plaster, so the back edge of the top has to be plotted to where the units actually sit rather than to the wall. 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.

Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come. 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.