Kitchen worktops in Upper Norwood

Yes. Substantial villas on the hill with large but oddly shaped kitchens, often in a lower ground floor or rear return with a step down and a low window head. The Beulah Hill detached properties run to full island kitchens with utility and pantry; the conversions are small and constrained. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. The load plan follows from it.

large Victorian villa, villa converted to flats, Beulah Hill detached and 1930s mansion flats. Original walls are thick, lime-plastered and rarely straight, which makes dry-laying and scribing the bulk of the fitting day. The island is templated for its overhang, its support and the position of the hob or sink within it, with sockets and any pop-up left where they will genuinely be. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

The steepest streets in the borough, with houses set well above or below road level and long flights of front steps. Lower ground floor kitchens mean carrying stone down as well as along. Door width, hall width and the diagonal at the turn are three separate measurements, and it is the diagonal that catches people out. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Worktop templating, worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. Appliances on site, not on order. Low ceilings in lower ground floor kitchens mean you cannot tilt a long piece to get it round a corner, so anything over 2.4m gets a designed joint before it leaves the shop.

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. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. Radiused, polished, and clear of the joins. 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 fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Access for the whole slot, or a different day. 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.