Worktop templating in Stockwell

Yes. Stockwell is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW9, SW8. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Lambeth. 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. It is noted on the job sheet at template so the fitting crew inherit the answer rather than rediscovering it. The templater needs a proper stop, not a pause. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Rooms are tall with deep window reveals, and a run finishing into a reveal is templated to it rather than assumed square. 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 template picks up points every few hundred millimetres down the back of the run and the drawing carries that curve through to the saw. No stone is ever cut from a plan. Subdivided villas have kitchens fitted into rooms with original cornice and skirting, so the back edge has to be scribed around a skirting that is often 20mm proud at the bottom.

Estate blocks have secure entry, narrow lifts and shared stairs, and the parking courts sit away from the entrances. Villa properties have railed front steps and a lower-ground area entrance that is the only realistic way in for stone. Piece length is set by the internal diagonal of the lift car, not by the length of the slab. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. The template records it along with everything else.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. 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. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. Units fitted, fixed and level first.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. A layout templated off one wall instead of one datum will not sit right once all the pieces are down together. Real angles, not plan angles. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. The template plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Plotted, not estimated. 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. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come.