Kitchen worktops in St Quintin Park

Yes. The St Quintin streets are later and lower density than the stucco to the south, so kitchens are ground floor at the rear with a side return that has usually been infilled to give an L of about 3.4m plus 2.2m, and bifolds onto a proper garden. Because the ground floor is level with the garden rather than sunk, appliances and worktops go straight in through the back rather than round the front. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. It is decided in the yard, not at the kerb.

Edwardian estate terrace, Arts and Crafts influenced semi, interwar cottage housing and small modern infill. The addition wall is half a brick thick in places and has usually had a damp course injected and been re-plastered, which leaves it neither flat nor consistent. Victorian party walls and chimney-breast returns bow along their length, so the template plots the real line rather than assuming a straight one - the laser picks up points every few hundred millimetres down the back of the run and the drawing carries that curve through to the saw. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn.

Wider streets and front gardens mean you can generally get a van reasonably close, but the front paths have steps and low gate posts and the side alleys between houses are frequently under 800mm clear. If the rear route is on, use it; if not, everything goes down a hallway with a stair spindle at the far end. Rear access usually lets us fit longer pieces whole, so the join count ends up decided by the slab rather than by the building. Door widths, turn diagonals and any change of level are recorded on the drawing alongside the run dimensions. The laser records it along with everything else.

Worktop templating, worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. 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. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. Proven on the bench before dispatch. Check the side alley clear width at template - an 800mm gap will not pass a 900mm deep island top no matter how it is angled.

The return piece is the awkward one on a slab: short, full depth, and rarely nesting neatly against the long lengths, so yield rather than area is what moves the material figure. Join positions and vein direction are marked on the template drawing before it leaves site. Real angles, not plan angles. Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. Machined to the real line. 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.

Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. Changing an appliance after the nest is set means recutting the piece, not adjusting it. The approved drawing is the instruction. 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.