Kitchen worktops in Strand-on-the-Green

Yes. Small, low-ceilinged kitchens in cottages with thick walls and deep window sills. Single runs of 2m to 2.5m, no island, appliances undercounter, and the sink almost always under the river-facing window. Where the van cannot turn on the plot it has to arrive already facing the right way, so the approach along the street is part of the plan. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. The crate spec follows the length of the carry.

18th century riverside cottage, Georgian terrace and Victorian infill. Many have had the ground floor chimney breast removed to gain three hundred millimetres, and the gained strip is newer blockwork standing proud of the old plaster. The galley run down a side-return usually measures longer than a slab will give us, so a join is designed in from the start and nested to land over a cabinet gable rather than wherever the material happens to run out. The shell decides the piece; the slab decides only the yield.

The hardest access in the borough. Frontages face a towpath with no vehicle route to the door, so everything is carried from the nearest road, and high tides put flood boards across the way in. Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. The way in is walked with a tape before the van is opened.

Worktop installation and worktop fabrication, in that order. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Lease hours decide when the noisy part happens. Because every piece is hand-carried along the towpath, slabs get broken into shorter sections than you would normally accept and the joints get planned around the carry, not the layout.

A galley that is also the route to the back door is a corridor first and a kitchen second, and what the shape can take is set by the traffic going through it. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. Join count follows the shape, not the metreage. Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Offered up twice, bonded once. Material starts at £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines rather than inside one figure.

One staircase can serve an owner on the first floor and a managed tenancy on the second, so the access arrangement changes at every landing while the building stays the same. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. One person is responsible for the door that morning. Let us know the building when you book, and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are handled beforehand rather than on the fitting day.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. Nothing changes hands until after the template. Suspended timber floors flex underfoot, and anything that moves beneath a unit shows up later as a lipped join. The workshop works to the template drawing and to the measured route, in that order. Vein direction is chosen across the joins, not within a piece.

The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. Hoisting through a window is occasionally the answer, and it is a decision made at the template, not improvised on the fitting day. A level threshold with hard standing outside it is the one arrangement where a full run goes in without a single re-grip. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Banisters and door frames are padded before anything moves.

A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. The tail lift is still the pinch point, because the piece has to be walked off it onto the trolley while it is sitting at chest height. It sets the crew: two fitters where the route is straightforward, four where it is not. Four hands or eight is settled before the tail lift drops.

Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. A Belfast or butler sink has to be installed and at its final height before the template, because the stone is cut to sit on it. Two runs of similar length nest as a pair off one slab, and if one of them grows by a few hundred millimetres the pair stops fitting and the yield changes for both. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. Drawn onto the slab before it is cut.