Worktop templating in Stamford Hill

Yes. Stamford Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N16. It is run from the Essex side, covering Essex & East London. 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. A templater circling for a space arrives late into a slot that was already tight, and the drawing is what suffers. It goes on the job sheet for the fitting crew. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The rear extension is frequently original rather than added, which means it is solidly built and just as far out of square as the rest of the house. 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. Two to three hours, once the units are in. Very long runs and heavy daily use push the specification here, so thicker material, fewer joins and a hard-wearing finish matter more than they do anywhere else in the borough.

Stamford Hill itself is on the A10 red route with no stopping, and the residential streets are permit-only with parking pressure all day. Most houses have front paths and side access though, which makes the carry easier than the parking situation suggests. The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop fabrication. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Where an annexe has been built or converted, its floor and its walls are newer than the main house and behave differently under the same run. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Units fitted, fixed and level first. A second kitchen or a kitchenette in an annexe is a small job with the same fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines as a large one. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. The room as it is, not as it was drawn.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. The template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. One datum for the whole room. 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 laser plots the intermediate points. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. That is why the visit takes two or three hours. Units fixed and packed level over the sloping floor, walls replastered and dry at their final thickness (tiling and splashbacks go on after the worktop, never before), and the sink, tap and hob physically on site, with a Belfast sink built in and set at its finished height. 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 templater needs the sink, tap and hob on site, and a Belfast sink installed at its final height. Appliances on site, not on order.