Kitchen worktops in North Sheen

Yes. Long Edwardian and interwar terraced streets with smaller rooms than neighbouring Kew - kitchens run 2.4m to 3m with a return under the window, and where an extension has been done it is usually a simple 2.5m rear infill rather than a full side return. Permit hours are what matters, not the permit itself, because a bay that frees up at six in the evening is no use for a template at ten. Waste is the part people forget: the old laminate or tired granite has to be walked back to the van and it does not get lighter. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

Edwardian terrace, interwar terrace, 1930s semi and modern flats. An inter-war terrace is wider than a Victorian one and shallower than a semi, so the kitchen is a compact square room rather than a galley. 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 laser has to be shot across the whole opening from one datum. No stone is ever cut from a plan.

Terraced roads with permit parking and no off-street standing, cars parked tight to both kerbs, and shallow front gardens giving barely enough space to swing a slab from the pavement to the front door. A narrow entrance hall with a turn into the back of the house caps the longest piece we can physically get in, whatever the run itself measures. Door widths, turn diagonals and any change of level are recorded on the drawing alongside the run dimensions. The laser records it along with everything else.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating, in that order. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Appliances on site, not on order. Narrow halls with a stair straight off the door mean measuring the diagonal at the newel post before deciding piece lengths.

A galley run down a side-return extension usually measures longer than a slab will give in one length, so a join is designed in from the start rather than discovered. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Dry-lay first, always. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. Found at template, not on fit day. 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.

Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. A template booked hopefully around another trade is the commonest cause of a wasted visit. No stone is cut from a plan. 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.