Kitchen worktops in Upminster

Yes. Larger inter-war detached and semi-detached houses with deep gardens, so full-width rear extensions with lanterns are very common and kitchens end up as 5-6m long spaces with a 3m island and a separate boot room or utility. Clients here often specify a second stone surface for the utility and a matching bar top in the garden room. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. It sits in the fitting line as time on site rather than as anything to do with the stone. It is one line among the others, and it is honest.

Edwardian house, 1930s semi, 1930s detached and post-war detached. Solid brick with a render coat is firm to work against and out of plumb, so the scribe at worktop height is different from the one at plinth level. Access is usually the easy part here, as most of these have a side gate and a back door straight into the kitchen, so we carry down the side alley rather than through the house and keep the mess outside. That is the shape of the day.

Broad roads, long driveways and side gates wide enough for a trolley, so most Upminster jobs are loaded off the drive straight into the extension via the garden. A side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop design & quotation, worktop installation and worktop fabrication, in that order. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. 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. The garden route in is usually the best one, but the ground is soft and the new patio is often just laid, so we board the route before wheeling anything heavy over it.

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. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. The drawing decides it, not the fitter. 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.

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. Dry-assembled before it leaves. 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.