Kitchen worktops in Pratts Bottom

Yes. Small hamlet stock with kitchens that are usually part of a rear extension or an old outbuilding brought into the house, so ceiling heights change mid-run and there is often a step down into the kitchen. Oil or LPG range cookers are more common here than in the suburbs. A drive behind an electric gate depends on somebody being in to open it and on the gate staying open while the load comes off. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. A timed unload is planned into the rack before it leaves.

semi-rural detached, 1930s cottage, converted outbuilding and post-war bungalow. Ceiling beams cross the room at a height that decides where a piece can be stood on edge and where it cannot. Access is off a drive and through wide doors, so for once the piece size is not the constraint - the joins that go in are the ones we choose for layout and veining, not the ones the building forces. Lath and plaster is cut for, never cut into.

Off the A21 down single-track lanes with passing places and blind bends, and driveways that turn sharply off the lane, so a long wheelbase van has to reverse in. A loading bay or a red route puts a clock on the unload, so the pieces come off in the order they will be fitted rather than the order they were loaded. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The crew size follows from it.

Worktop installation and worktop fabrication, in that order. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The annexe and the main kitchen go in together. Where there is a step down into an old outbuilding kitchen the cabinet plinths get packed, so we set datum from the units and not the floor.

Where a run finishes hard against a wall the last few millimetres are scribed, and where it finishes in open floor it is cut square and polished, which is two different jobs on one length. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. Edge work on a return matches edge work on a length. Once the carcasses are levelled the gap under the plinth varies along the run, and that varying gap is the honest record of what the floor is doing. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Offered up twice, bonded once. Expect material from £110 per square metre supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised on their own lines rather than folded into one figure.

The decision usually gets made standing in the room rather than at a desk, which is why a slab is worth viewing whole instead of choosing from a sample card. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Access for the whole slot, or a different day. Mention the building when you book. The lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice then go into the plan instead of turning up on the day.

A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. No money changes hands before the template. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. A larder, a butler sink and a dresser run put more edges and more cut-outs into the job than the floor area suggests. The workshop works to the template drawing and to the measured route, in that order. Joins over gables, always.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. Some drives are wide enough for the van and too short for the tail lift, because the tail lift needs its own clear metre behind the vehicle. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. Nothing gets buried behind something it has to follow off.

Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. A wall line that runs level over a floor that does not means the finish closes up on the plinth at one end, which is joinery rather than something the stone can answer. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Sealant seals. It does not fit.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. The kitchen is nearly always in a later rear or side extension, so half the room is a century older than the other half and the two meet mid-run. Pieces are cut, mitred, machined and dry-assembled on the bench before anything is loaded onto a van. Cut to the room, not to a rectangle.