Kitchen worktops in Tulse Hill

Yes. A high proportion of subdivided villas means kitchens on upper floors in rooms never designed for them, with the run set against an internal wall and services chased in later. The 1960s blocks have compact kitchens with a fixed sink under the window and a hatch or opening to the living room. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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.

Victorian villa converted to flats, 1960s estate block, Interwar semi and Postwar low-rise. Original walls are thick, lime-plastered and rarely straight, which makes dry-laying and scribing the bulk of the fitting day. Access through the property is usually the simplest of any archetype, with wide doors and generous rooms, so we can often carry a full-length piece straight in without a planned join. That is the shape of the day.

The area is hilly with houses set above the road on stepped front gardens, so there is a climb before you reach the door and then two or three flights inside. Estate blocks have lifts but small cars, and the South Circular traffic dictates arrival timing. A car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a three-metre worktop however it is stood, and there is no trimming it on the landing. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating, in that order. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. The room as it is, not as it was drawn. Upper-floor kitchens in converted villas mean everything is carried up two flights, so the piece count matters more than the piece size, keep the number of separate carries down.

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. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Dry-lay first, always. Window boards and cills stand proud of the plaster, so the back edge of the top has to be plotted to where the units actually sit rather than to the wall. 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 template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come. 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.