Kitchen worktops in Putney

Yes. Mansion flats and purpose-built blocks near the river hold the bulk of the work, with kitchens confined to their original footprint, a run of 2.6m to 3.2m and a return, sometimes opened to the reception with a peninsula in the opening. Terraced houses on the streets off the Upper Richmond Road take a conventional rear extension. The realistic answer on a main road is an early slot, a spotter on the van and pieces staged in one movement rather than several trips. The templating visit needs somewhere to stop for two or three hours, which is a different problem from unloading for twenty minutes. The templater needs a proper stop, not a pause.

Victorian terrace, Edwardian mansion flat, 1930s purpose-built flat and Riverside apartment. External walls are thick and the run under the window sits in a deep reveal that has to be templated rather than assumed square. Anything that has to stay accessible - stopcocks, gas meters, riser access panels - is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn.

The High Street is a red route with a bus gate and no stopping, and the surrounding streets are permit-controlled. Mansion blocks frequently have a small original lift that will not take a slab, meaning a stair carry up two or three flights with a half-landing turn each time. Weight tells on a staircase more than anywhere else, because there is nowhere to set a piece down mid-flight and no way to change your grip once it is moving. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. Assume the lift is unusable in the older blocks and plan piece sizes around the stair turn, a 2.4m maximum is a safer starting point than the room dimensions suggest.

A peninsula is an island with one end tied to a run, which means the join between them has to be planned rather than allowed to happen. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Dry-lay first, always. Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. The template plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. 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.

A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Units kept, surface changed. 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.