Kitchen worktops in Shortlands

Yes. A lot of large period semis where the kitchen has been pushed out into a rear or side-return extension with bifolds, giving one long uninterrupted run and a small island or peninsula rather than a full one. Ceramic Belfast sinks with undermount cut-outs come up regularly on the period side. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. The fitting slot is set around it, which is why we ask about it when the date is booked and not before we leave the yard. We would rather ask than guess.

Victorian villa, Edwardian semi, 1930s detached and 1960s low-rise flats. The back addition is a narrow two-storey outrigger with a single external wall, and the kitchen galley runs the length of it. Where a client wants a full-height piece behind the hob, it usually sits in the old chimney recess, and that recess is rarely square top to bottom or side to side, so it has to be templated as a trapezium rather than a rectangle. The wall makes that decision, not the brochure.

The roads are hilly and narrow with parking on both sides, and several streets drop steeply from the road to the front door, so the carry is often downhill on wet steps rather than a flat approach. 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. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. It decides panel size before anything is cut.

Worktop installation, worktop templating and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. The prep list is not optional. Where a slab has to be walked down a set of steep front steps we bring extra hands rather than trolley it, because a drop on a stone tread here is a broken piece every time.

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. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Joint placement is a decision, not an accident. A low sill over the sink run is what decides between an upstand and stone dying into a window board, and there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. It is usually what pushes a job towards a 100mm upstand instead of a full-height panel, because an upstand rides what a panel exposes. Make the wall good first, or accept the detail. 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. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door, communal or otherwise. One visit, our own installers. 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.