Kitchen worktops in Westcombe Park

Yes. Wide Edwardian semis and villas with generous rear rooms — most kitchens are already knocked through into the old dining room or extended into the garden, giving long straight runs of 3.5m and up and a genuine island rather than a peninsula. 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. Tell us at enquiry stage and it is priced properly, because a crew stood waiting is the most expensive thing on any job. It is one line among the others, and it is honest.

late Victorian villa, Edwardian bay-fronted semi and 1930s detached. Deep original skirting is often left in behind the units, standing them off the wall, so the back edge of the stone is plotted where the carcasses actually sit. The kitchen is usually a long galley in a rear extension or side return, so the run lengths are the first thing we check against slab length — anything beyond roughly three metres either needs a join or a second slab, and that decision alone moves the material figure more than a few extra square metres would. Priced from the building, not from a rate card.

Mostly straightforward: wide front paths, off-street parking on a fair number of plots and gently sloping roads down toward the railway, though streets nearest the station fill with commuter parking through the day. Everything comes through the front door and down the hall, so the tightest point on the route is usually the newel post at the foot of the stairs. We price the carry from what you tell us about the route, so photographs of the approach are worth more to us than a floor plan. It appears as its own line rather than buried in a rate.

Worktop installation, worktop fabrication and worktop design & quotation, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Nested for the job in front of us. This is island country — pieces are big and heavy, so check the floor structure and whether the route round the side of the house beats the hallway.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Nothing is bonded until the whole run sits flat. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. 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.

Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. Sink and hob are dry-fitted on the bench before dispatch, whoever supplied them. The approved drawing is the instruction. 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.