Worktop design and quotation in Roe Green

Yes. Roe Green is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW9. It is worked on our north west London run, along with the rest of Brent. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. Tell us at enquiry stage and it is priced properly, because a crew stood waiting is the most expensive thing on any job. It is one line among the others, and it is honest. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A period cottage has low ceilings, thick rubble-filled walls and a floor that has never been level, and the worktop is the thing that has to look straight. An island a few hundred millimetres over the usable slab length costs a whole second slab, which is worth knowing before the layout is fixed. You see it before you commit to anything. Short runs in a conservation cottage leave no room for error, so a template of the actual opening beats any drawing of nominal unit widths.

Narrow lanes, grass verges and shared front paths through the conservation area, with limited parking and no driveways on the original cottages, so the carry is on foot across grass and paving. Everything comes through the front door and down the hall, so the tightest point on the route is usually the newel post at the foot of the stairs. 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.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop templating. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Comparing quotes only works when they itemise the same things, and this is where the differences usually hide. Nothing payable until we template. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Everything is itemised: material, template, fabrication, fitting, each cut-out and each metre of upstand. Material is the slab only, and it says so.

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. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. This is the item most often left out of a cheaper quote, and it comes back as a variation once the templater has been. Better on the quote than in a variation. Send the island size including the overhang and which side people sit at, the stool count, and confirm the edge profile you want and which edges are to receive it. The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. The quote is written so it can be read by whoever is paying rather than only by whoever is standing in the kitchen. Nothing payable until template.