Kitchen worktops in Regent's Park

Yes. Two extremes within a few hundred metres: listed Nash terraces where the kitchen is in the basement or lower ground with vaulted ceilings and a service stair, and the neighbouring post-war estate with small standard galleys. In the listed houses the room is deep, cool and awkwardly shaped, and the layout works around structural walls that cannot be touched. 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. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. The day is built around that window.

Nash stucco terrace, Regency villa, post-war estate and mansion block. Walls are thick, lime-plastered and built in a soft brick, so they take a scribe well and take a fixing badly. Alcoves either side of the breast are rarely the same width and rarely parallel, so each one is templated as its own piece with its own scribe. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

The Outer Circle has strict waiting restrictions and no loading in front of the terraces, so access to the listed houses is by an area stair or a rear service entrance. The post-war estate has its own internal roads and lifts, which is a completely different set of rules on the same day. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Worktop templating, worktop design & quotation 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. One visit, done properly. In the Nash terraces you are working under listed consent against vaulted, uneven basement walls where nothing is square, so template on site and expect a scribe on every back edge.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. It is the shape rather than the square metreage that moves the number, which is why two kitchens the same size quote differently. Shape first, area second. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. 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.

The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. 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. 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.