Kitchen worktops in Willesden Green

Yes. Big late-Victorian and Edwardian houses, many in conservation areas, where the side return infill is the defining job and produces a wide rear kitchen with a 3.5m to 4.5m run plus a proper island. Whole-house owners often want a separate utility carved out of the old scullery, which means a second, smaller stone top in a different room. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. Where a bay suspension or a permit is needed, that is a real cost and it goes on the quote instead of appearing later. Nothing here is added after the fact.

late Victorian villa, Edwardian double-fronted house and purpose-built 1930s flat. The back addition is a narrow two-storey outrigger with a single external wall, and the kitchen galley runs the length of it. Victorian party walls and chimney-breast returns bow along their length, so the template plots the real line rather than assuming a straight one - the template picks up points every few hundred millimetres down the back of the run and the drawing carries that curve through to the saw. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

Wide streets but heavily parked, no off-street parking on most of the villas, and the fastest route to a rear extension is usually through the front door and the knocked-through reception because side alleys are shared with the neighbour. The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. 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 installation, worktop design & quotation and worktop templating, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The prep list is not optional. Conservation-area houses often keep original floor levels, so the extension floor and the old kitchen floor differ by 15mm to 30mm and the unit legs have to be levelled properly before templating.

Seating overhangs past roughly 300mm will not carry on the carcass alone, so flat steel bar or a plywood substrate has to be built into the units first. The template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. One datum for the whole room. Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. 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.

The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. 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.