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. 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. It sits in the fitting line as time on site rather than as anything to do with the stone. It is one line among the others, and it is honest.

large inter-war detached, Edwardian Webb Estate house, 1960s-80s flats and gated modern development. A detached house of this age has a drive, a side path and a back door, so access is rarely the constraint and the design can follow the room. Walls between the original room and the extension are frequently out of square, which affects the template but not the price; what does affect it is the appliance list, because a drop-in range, an undermount bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a separate drainer are four separately priced cut-outs. You see it before you commit to anything.

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. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. An access-driven join is priced like any other join, and people are always surprised to see one on a dead straight run. It appears as its own line rather than buried in a rate.

Worktop design & quotation, worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Same slab run, or it is not a match. 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.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. Each run is priced on its own line against the supply rate, with the join count and the reason for each join stated. Shape first, area second. Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. The drawing decides it, not the fitter. 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.

Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. Changing an appliance after the nest is set means recutting the piece, not adjusting it. Dry-assembled before it leaves. 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.