Worktop design and quotation in Shoreditch

Yes. Shoreditch is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EC2A, E1, E2. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Hackney. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. Tell us at enquiry stage and it is priced properly, because a crew stood waiting is the most expensive thing on any job. Nothing here is added after the fact. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Original brickwork is uneven by ten millimetres or more across a bay, so the back edge is scribed to the actual face rather than to a line. The second driver is getting stone into the building: often a single goods lift, a long carry from the loading area, and occasionally a hoist through an opening, all of which sit in the fitting line as men and time rather than square metres. That is what the itemised lines are for. Big island slabs live or die on the goods lift here, and if there is not one the island gets a mitred join and the client needs telling before anything is cut.

One-way streets, weekend closures, market traffic and loading bans through the day, with permit parking enforced seven days in places. Converted buildings often have a goods lift or a loading door, which is worth confirming because the industrial stairwells are steep and open. A car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a three-metre worktop however it is stood, and there is no trimming it on the landing. That is why the fitting line on a quote reflects manpower and time rather than square metres. It appears as its own line rather than buried in a rate.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop fabrication. 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. Everything is itemised: material, template, fabrication, fitting, each cut-out and each metre of upstand. Itemised, so it can be compared honestly. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Comparing quotes only works when they itemise the same things, and this is where the differences usually hide. Nothing payable until we template.

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. It is the shape rather than the square metreage that moves the number, which is why two kitchens the same size quote differently. The join count is stated with its reason. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

An intruding steel column, a brick pier or a downstand breaks a run that would otherwise have been one clean piece. This is the item most often left out of a cheaper quote, and it comes back as a variation once the templater has been. Priced as fabrication, not as area. Send photos of the full route from where a van can park to the kitchen, including the goods lift and door widths, and tell us what the worktop is going back against. Managed stock usually comes with its own rules about working hours, waste, and who is allowed on site. Nothing is payable until we template, so a quote can sit while consents and decisions catch up. Written to be read by whoever is paying.