Kitchen worktops in St Margarets

Yes. Grand detached villas on the old estate roads sit alongside tight Edwardian terraces, so the work splits between 4m island kitchens in a rear garden room and 2.4m galley refits in a terrace where the kitchen is still in the original back addition. Without a bay the van ends up on a single yellow with a crew member watching it, which takes a pair of hands off the carry. 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. It is why the arrival time is what it is.

Victorian villa on the St Margarets estate, Edwardian terrace, 1930s semi and modern riverside flats. These houses usually sit in their own grounds with a long approach, so the carry from van to door is longer than anything inside the building. The island is templated for its overhang, its support and the position of the hob or sink within it, with sockets and any pop-up left where they will genuinely be. No stone is ever cut from a plan.

A dense one-way street pattern with narrow carriageways, permit bays and a railway bridge that cuts the area in two; the estate roads are wider with driveways but several have gate piers set less than 2.5m apart. Rear access usually lets us fit longer pieces whole, so the join count ends up decided by the slab rather than by the building. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. The laser records it along with everything else.

Worktop templating, worktop installation and worktop design & quotation, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. The room as it is, not as it was drawn. Gate piers and side alleys under a metre wide are the recurring problem - the slab often has to go through the house because it will not go round it.

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. Each run is priced on its own line against the supply rate, with the join count and the reason for each join stated. The join count is stated with its reason. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. It is recorded on the drawing with the run dimensions so the workshop is not guessing. 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.

An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. Appliances on site, not on order. 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.