Restaurant and cafe table tops in Tulse Hill

Yes. Tulse Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW2. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Lambeth. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. A table order comes off the van as a stack of frames and a pallet of bases, and both of those need somewhere to stand before either is moved. Delivery is booked to the room, not to a half day. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

A deep butler sink and a boiling tap on the same length put two heavy cut-outs within a metre of each other. That is fine, but it has to be drawn: a room of one-offs prices differently from a room of repeats, and the difference is real rather than a markup. What the parade allows is what the room can seat. Where the sill lands inside the height an upstand would occupy there is no upstand, and the stone either dies into the reveal or stops short of it. None of that is scribed against on a table, since it stands clear of every wall, so the awkwardness moves from the back edge to the floor and the base. An awkward corner takes a made shape.

Blankets on the walls and a board on the floor go in before the first piece, because a scratched car becomes a bill from the managing agent long after the kitchen is finished. A table order is many small pieces rather than one long one, so the route decides how many trips the delivery takes rather than how big anything can be. A stack of tops is a weight before it is a delivery. 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. The bases are the heavy half of the delivery, so the pallet is dealt with first while there are still hands free for it. Empty frames go back on the van the same trip.

Honestly, no, though it would be easy to claim otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating. That says something about the housing round here, not about the work. Quote, cut and fit are the same here as on any other part of the patch. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. Table work arrives as a batch by its nature, and a batch means one slab run rather than the same colour ordered twice a year apart. Volume moves the price per piece, and it should. Kitchens go in near the end of a conversion, behind the plastering and the flooring, by which point the programme has already absorbed whatever slipped earlier. A room opening in a second phase is worth naming now, while the material is still on the ground and a match is a telephone call. The programme decides the delivery, not the workshop.

The two runs are rarely the same length, and the shorter one often carries the sink, which puts the cut-outs in the piece with the least material to spare. A table top answers to none of that, since it meets no wall and needs no scribe, but the pieces come off the same slab as the counter and the colour has to carry across both. The largest blank is nested first and the rest around it. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

Casement handles and stays swing down into the space above the worktop, so the clearance that counts is the one measured with the window open. Where a floor falls away, the levelling is done by winding out the feet under each base rather than by packing anything under the stone. Feet are wound out where the floor falls away. Send a plan of each room with its table sizes against it, and say which covers are outdoors so the material can be split before anything is priced. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. A table top bolted to a base you already own is loose furniture rather than a fixture, so it leaves with the operator at the end of a term. A licence to alter is not needed for something unfixed.

Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. 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. Fixed seating sets the dimension it faces, so a piece against a bench is drawn to the bench instead of to a standard size. The base carries the weight and the floor carries the base.

Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. Ceilings are high enough that an extractor over the island has a long drop, and its position is fixed before the island top is templated. Hospitality in an area like this is often a converted house, so the dining space is several small rooms rather than one and the sizes vary room by room. Deliveries follow the premises rather than the postcode.

The carry route is measured before anything is cut, so a piece that will not make the turn is split at the drawing stage rather than discovered on the day. An external stair, a side return or a rear garden counts as carry and is measured the same way. Lift doors close on a timer that takes no account of somebody holding a worktop, so a pair of hands stays on the buttons at each end. Tops travel upright in a padded frame, and it is the frame rather than the person carrying it that has to clear the tightest turn. Battens under anything that has to wait.

The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. Taking the old tops off and disposing of them is its own line on the quote rather than something folded into the stone price. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. Deliveries are timed to the room rather than to the day, so the unload lands between service or before the doors open. A suspension costs less than a lost fit-out morning.