Kitchen worktops in Mildmay

Yes. Uniform Victorian terraces mostly divided into flats, so the recurring job is a rear-addition kitchen of about 3m in an L with the sink under a window onto a shared garden. Whole-house owners tend to build a small rear infill rather than a full side return, because the plots are narrow. Enforcement zones rarely accept a trade van unloading stone as an exemption, so this gets sorted before the date is confirmed rather than argued about afterwards. 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 terrace, Edwardian terrace, conversion flat and post-war infill. The addition wall is half a brick thick in places and has usually had a damp course injected and been re-plastered, which leaves it neither flat nor consistent. Alcoves either side of the breast are rarely the same width and rarely parallel, so each one is templated as its own piece with its own scribe. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

A filtered-street scheme closes several through routes so the approach has to be planned street by street, and parking is permit-only Monday to Friday and tight all day. The terraces are shallow-set with two or three front steps and a hall under a metre wide. Door width, hall width and the diagonal at the turn are three separate measurements, and it is the diagonal that catches people out. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation, in that order. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One visit, done properly. Narrow rear additions here often will not take a 600mm run plus a walkway, so check clearances at template and be ready to advise a 560mm depth instead.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. The template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. Real angles, not plan angles. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. 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 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. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. Access for the whole slot, or a different day. 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.