Worktop templating in West Barnes

Yes. West Barnes is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW20, KT3. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. 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. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Houses of this period came with generous garages and utility rooms, so a second short run of stone is often part of the same job. The typical 1930s kitchen sits at the back with a low window over the sink run, so the template records the exact sill height above the units to settle whether an upstand fits or the stone has to die into a window board. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn. Garage-conversion kitchens run longer than a single slab, so plan a joint deliberately at a sink or hob position rather than letting it land mid-run.

The cul-de-sac layouts have tight turning heads that a long wheelbase van struggles with, so the last stretch is often a hand carry from the mouth of the close. Once there, most properties have off-street parking and a level drive. Where the van stands level with the front of the house a piece gets handled twice instead of five times, and stone breaks on handling rather than on the road. 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. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop installation. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. Appliances on site, not on order. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. Units fitted, fixed and level first.

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 templated off one wall instead of one datum will not sit right once all the pieces are down together. Real angles, not plan angles. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. All base units in, including anything standing on the later extension slab, walls skimmed to final thickness, and the sink, tap and hob delivered so cut-outs and tap centres are set from the actual items. 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. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come.