Kitchen worktops in Old Malden

Yes. Older cottages around the church with tiny kitchens under 2.4m of run, and interwar semis on the surrounding roads that mostly get a rear extension across the full width giving a 4m run with an island of 1.8m to 2.1m and bifolds onto the garden. 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. 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. The day is built around that window.

Victorian cottage, 1930s semi, 1930s detached and postwar infill. 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. The typical 1930s kitchen sits at the back with a low window over the sink run, so the template records the exact sill height above the units to settle whether an upstand fits or the stone has to die into a window board. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn.

The area drops towards the Hogsmill, so several roads are on a noticeable slope with sunken driveways; otherwise off-street parking is the norm and side passages are wide enough for a trolley. The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. The laser records it along with everything else.

Worktop templating, worktop installation and worktop design & quotation, 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. Comparing quotes only works when they itemise the same things, and this is where the differences usually hide. Nothing payable until we template. Sloping plots mean the extension floor and the original floor rarely match, so worktop heights get set from the units, never from the finished floor.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Nothing is bonded until the whole run sits flat. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Eased in, never forced. 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.

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. Material is quoted as a supply range and the labour lines separately, because an installed rate per square metre is not a real number. Written to be read by whoever is paying. 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.