Kitchen worktops in Teddington

Yes. The grid of Victorian and Edwardian terraces off the high street is heavy side-return territory - a 3.4m run along the flank with a rooflight above and a 1.8m island - while the larger villas towards the lock take a 4m run plus a separate pantry or utility. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. The day is built around that window.

Victorian terrace, Edwardian terrace, Victorian villa, 1930s semi and modern riverside flats. These kitchens have been retiled at least twice, and stripping the tiles takes the bottom band of plaster with them because the old laminate ran underneath rather than up to them. These are typically two runs and a return, often into a rear extension, and the return piece is the awkward one, short, wide and rarely nesting well against the long pieces on the slab, so slab yield rather than total area is what pushes the material line up. That is what the itemised lines are for.

Terraced streets are narrow with permit parking both sides, the high street has timed loading only, and the riverside roads near the lock are one-way with bollards; side passages are typically 800mm and gated. Where the parking court sits behind the block the carry crosses open ground and gets boarded, because loaded trolleys and block paving do not agree. That is why the fitting line on a quote reflects manpower and time rather than square metres. Nothing about it gets estimated after the fact.

Worktop templating, worktop installation and worktop design & quotation, in that order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. That changes what the quote should be compared against, because the shape of the job is not the same as a single family kitchen. Itemised, so it can be compared honestly. With side passages that narrow, the slab comes through the front door and past the stairs, so the longest piece is limited by the hall, not the kitchen.

An island is a single visible piece with four finished edges and no wall to hide against, so it is the piece the whole kitchen is judged on. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. A low sill over the sink run is what decides between an upstand and stone dying into a window board, and there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. The template plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. 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.

The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. The quote is written so it can be read by whoever is paying rather than only by whoever is standing in the kitchen. Written to be read by whoever is paying. 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.