Kitchen worktops in Motspur Park

Yes. Plots are deeper here than in inner Merton, so kitchens open into full-width rear extensions with bifolds and a genuine island rather than a peninsula. Two-run layouts with a 3m island are common in the larger detached houses. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. It is why the arrival time is what it is.

1930s semi, 1950s terrace and Postwar detached. Houses of this period came with generous garages and utility rooms, so a second short run of stone is often part of the same job. 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. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

The level crossing by the station holds traffic and can add a long wait to a timed delivery, so the run is planned around it. Otherwise access is straightforward with driveways and wide side returns. 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. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Worktop installation, worktop design & quotation 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. The prep list is not optional. Islands out here are frequently sited over a raised floor slab in the new extension, so check the finished floor level and unit height against the rest of the kitchen before templating.

Seating overhangs past roughly 300mm will not carry on the carcass alone, so flat steel bar or a plywood substrate has to be built into the units first. 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. A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. 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 someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. 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.