Worktop fabrication in Sydenham Hill

Yes. Sydenham Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE26. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Lewisham. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. Pieces are loaded in reverse fitting order so the first thing off the van is the first thing that goes down. That is the last thing settled before dispatch. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Original joinery is deep and stands proud of the plaster, so the run is plotted to the units rather than to the wall behind them. Access is off a drive and through wide doors, so for once the piece size is not the constraint - the joins that go in are the ones we choose for layout and veining, not the ones the building forces. Settled on the drawing, cut once. The big-island jobs come from up here and they need a proper lift plan, a 3.2m waterfall piece over gravel is not a two-man carry.

Long private drives, steep approaches off the hill road, gravel and gated entrances, and houses sitting well above or below their gate at the end of a stepped path. Estate roads are often too tight for a long-wheelbase van to turn, so the carry starts a good deal further from the door than a map suggests. Getting that wrong leaves a finished, machined piece that cannot reach the room, which is a remake rather than a trim. It is settled on the bench, not on site.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop design & quotation. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Pieces are dry-assembled and checked on the bench before anything is loaded. Same slab run, or it is not a match. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Proven on the bench before dispatch.

If the island is a few hundred millimetres longer than the usable length of a slab, a second slab gets bought to gain that overhang, and the whole slab is paid for rather than the part used. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. That is nested before any glass goes on the saw. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. Radiused, polished, and clear of the joins. The range or Aga, the sink and the tap all need to be confirmed by model before nesting, because their clearances and hole positions set where the island can be cut. 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 workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. The approved drawing is the instruction.