Kitchen worktops in Osterley

Yes. The signature job is a side-return infill on a 1930s semi, giving a long narrow kitchen of 5m to 6m along the flank wall with a slim island opposite, shaker or slab doors and 30mm quartz. Where the front garden has been paved over completely the van stands close to the house, and the route in is still a standard front door. 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. Van to door is the distance that matters.

1930s Osterley Park estate semi, mock-Tudor detached and postwar infill. The kitchen is a small room off a hall with one external wall, and the window in it is the only relief in the run. Access is generally through the front door and a short straight hall into the kitchen, which is a good deal kinder than a Victorian terrace, though rear access through a back garden or shared path is often the better route if it exists. The house sets the order of work.

Wide verged avenues, dropped kerbs and driveways on almost every house, with M4 Junction 3 close by. This is about the easiest access in the borough. The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. A piece too long for the stairs is a piece cut twice.

Worktop installation and worktop fabrication, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Ten metres of upstand out of what the tops left. Those side-return infills are longer than a single slab, so a mitred joint mid-run is standard here rather than something to apologise for.

A join in a long run wants to sit away from the rooflight, because a seam under direct downlight shows in a way the same seam under a wall cupboard never does. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. A seam under a rooflight gets the extra minutes. Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. Cut to the plotted line, not the nominal one. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. The signature on the drawing carries the cost of it. If we know the building when you book, the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are worked into the day rather than found on it.

The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. The mitre is cut to the angle we found, not to ninety.

If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. The wall between the original room and the return usually carries a steel, and the plaster line above it steps, so anything full height behind the run is measured separately from the top. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Overhangs are measured off the finished carcass.

Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. The communal entrance opens straight off the pavement with no lobby, so the carry starts at the kerb and turns immediately. The fitting itself is about squaring up to walls that look modern and are not: block or breeze walls with a skim that has been patched over decades, so we still dry-lay and scribe rather than trust the template edge. Levelled first, then set, then sealed.

Sinks, taps and hobs are yours to buy in any case, and they only have to be in the room for the template. Templating, fabrication and fitting are the same three lines whether the stone came from us or from you. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. Spares crated with the batch and labelled by unit.