Kitchen worktops in Purley

Yes. Big detached houses on the hills with substantial kitchens, frequently a full-width rear extension, an island over 3m and a separate utility and pantry. The Woodcote and Webb Estate houses are larger still, with kitchens designed alongside boot rooms and back stairs. The town-centre flats are a different job entirely with 2.4m galleys. Where a car has to come off the drive first, it is worth knowing whose car it is and whether the keys are in the house on the morning. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. Nothing gets buried behind something it has to follow off.

large inter-war detached, Edwardian Webb Estate house, 1960s-80s flats and gated modern development. A side return glazed over gives the room a second aspect and a second floor level, because the old external threshold is still under the finish. Most of these have a side passage and a back door, so a full-length piece can usually reach the kitchen without being cut down, and the piece sizing is driven by the slab rather than the route. A century of movement is taken out at the bench.

Long, steep and often curved driveways are the norm, and several roads are private with unadopted surfaces. Getting a loaded van up a wet, steep block-paved drive is the recurring problem. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. We would sooner lift a gate off its hinges than force a piece past it.

Worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The annexe and the main kitchen go in together. On the very steep drives we unload at the top and walk down rather than trying to carry uphill, and we book these fits for dry days where we can.

Power and waste come up through the floor, and where they surface decides which cabinet can hold a sink and which one cannot. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. The overhang is cut with its support already sized. Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The gap closes on the grinder, not in the sealant gun. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

An owner paying for this directly tends to want the reasoning as much as the number, so a quote that explains why a join sits where it does is worth more than a cheaper one that does not. 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. Access for the whole slot, or a different day. 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.

They read strongly across a dark stone and are nearly invisible on a pale one, so look before deciding. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. Internal walls are hollow clay block or stud rather than solid brick, so two points a metre apart on the same wall want two different fixings. All of that is settled at the nesting stage, because a machined piece cannot be adjusted afterwards. The awkward corner is cut first, while the slab is whole.

Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. Two alcove pieces will not swap over however similar they look, so they are marked left and right at the bench and stay that way to the van. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Level is checked across the room, not along one wall.

A remade piece is cut from the same slab run wherever the slab allows, because a replacement from another batch will not match across a join. Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. A walk-up with winders at every half-landing means the piece is rested and re-gripped on the way, so the crew size goes up before the piece size comes down. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. That is what the morning is planned around.

A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. Each cut-out is priced on its own line, so a range, a bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a drainer are four items rather than one. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. A hob cut-out and the floor penetration feeding it have to land over the same cabinet, and where they do not it is the stone that gets redrawn rather than the pipework. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. Edge work on a return matches edge work on a length.