Worktop installation in Osterley

Yes. Osterley is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are TW7. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hounslow. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. It is why the arrival time is what it is. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Construction is blockwork with a render or a brick skin, so the walls are reasonably true and take a fixing properly. 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. That is the shape of the day. 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.

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. Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop design & quotation and worktop fabrication. 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 fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One visit, done properly. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The prep list is not optional.

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. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

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. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Eased in, never forced. Unlock any rear or shared path gate and clear both the hall and the back approach so we can choose the better route on the day. 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. 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. Protection goes down first.