Worktop fabrication in Shooters Hill

Yes. Shooters Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE18. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Greenwich. 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. Pieces are loaded in reverse fitting order so the first thing off the van is the first thing that goes down. The load plan follows from it. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Arts and Crafts houses have deep eaves, low windows and inglenook recesses, so the kitchen has more corners and reveals than its floor area suggests. Islands here regularly run longer than a slab, so the join is nested to sit over an internal gable and positioned so it does not run through the hob cut-out, and on a heavily veined stone we nest the island and the back run together so the movement relates across the room. The bench proves it before the van moves. Plenty of room inside, but the approach is uphill and often over gravel, bring a proper A-frame rather than trusting a barrow.

The gradient defines everything: long sloping drives, houses set well above the road behind steps, and a fast main road up the hill with nowhere safe to unload on the bends. The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. The drawing carries that decision through to the saw.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop installation. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Same slab run, or it is not a match. 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. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. Nested for the job in front of us.

An island is a single visible piece with four finished edges and no wall to hide against, so it is the piece the whole kitchen is judged on. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. That is nested before any glass goes on the saw. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. Radiused, polished, and clear of the joins. The range or Aga, the sink and the tap all need to be confirmed by model before nesting, because their clearances and hole positions set where the island can be cut. 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. Sink and hob are dry-fitted on the bench before dispatch, whoever supplied them. Changes cost a piece, not a tweak.